XLIV
HISTORIC LANDMARKS AT NEW CASTLE,
DELAWARE
THE FIRST LANDING PLACE OF WILLIAM PENN
How many students of United States history would be able to answer the question, "What town has had at least seven different names and has been under the flags of four different countries?"
There is such a town, and but one—New Castle, Delaware. The Swedes laid it out in 1631, and called it New Stockholm. In 1651 the Dutch built a fort there, and called it Fort Kasimir. Sandhoec was a second Dutch name. When the Dutch West India Company ceded it to the city of Amsterdam it was named New Amstel. After 1675 the English took a hand in naming the village. Grape Wine Point, Delaware Town, and, at length, New Castle were the last names assigned to the seaport that, within a generation, boasted twenty-five hundred inhabitants.
The site of Fort Kasimir was long ago covered by the Delaware. A quaint house, still occupied, is the only survival from the Dutch period. But it would be difficult to find a town of four thousand inhabitants which is so rich in buildings and traditions that go back to the earliest English occupation.
Many of the buildings and traditions centre about the old Market Square, in the centre of the town, only a few hundred feet from the Delaware. This square dates from the days of Petrus Stuyvesant, in 1658. At one end of the square is the old stone-paved courthouse, which has been in use since 1672. To this building William Penn was welcomed, as a tablet on the outer wall relates:
"On the 28th Day of October, 1682, William Penn, the Great Proprietor, on His First Landing in America, Here Proclaimed His Government and Received from the Commissioner of the Duke of York the Key of the Fort, the Turf, Twig, and Water, as Symbols of His Possession."
From the steps of the courthouse, as a centre, was surveyed the twelve-mile circle whose arc was to be the northern line of Delaware, according to the royal grant made to Penn. This arc forms the curious circular boundary, unlike any other boundary in the United States.