April 2015 Historic Homes E-Newsletter

Save that ticket to Holland for another Day!  Join the Lewes Tulip Celebration. City-wide series of activities celebrating Lewes Delaware’s Dutch heritage including Dutch games, crafts and a display of Delftware ceramics at the Zwaanendael Museum. Sponsored by the Lewes Chamber of Commerce.Thursday–Saturday, April 9–11, 2015 Downtown Lewes. 10 a.m.–4 p.m. 302-645-8073.

Speaking of Lewes, the "Ad Hoc Delaware Preservation" group met there in Shipcarpenter Square last week. We are rotating between Delaware's 3 counties for our bi-monthly meetings. Our main goal is to have our state ready for the 50th Anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act in 2016. Join us! More info on my blog. (Burton House in Lewes R.)

For the past four years, the National Park Service and many other organizations and individuals have been commemorating the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War and the continuing efforts for human rights today. On April 9, 1865, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant met Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to set the terms of surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.In conjunction with a major event at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park in Virginia, the National Park Service and its partners invite communities across the nation to join in this commemoration. The bells will ring first at Appomattox at 3 p.m. on April 9, 2015. The ringing will coincide with the moment the historic meeting between Grant and Lee in the McLean House at Appomattox Court House ended. While Lee’s surrender did not end the Civil War, the act is seen by most Americans as the symbolic end of four years of bloodshed.

After the ringing at Appomattox, bells will reverberate across the country. The First State National Historical Park; in collaboration with the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs,  Lewes Historical Society and the Old Swedes Foundation; is orchestrating bell-ringing at sites across Delaware. Houses of worship, schools, city halls, public buildings, historic sites and others are invited to join in the commemoration by ringing their bells at precisely 3:15 p.m. on Thursday, April 9, 2015. Bells should continue ringing for four minutes (each minute symbolic of a year of war).

April 18 – Underground Railroad Tour, from Wilmington to Camden, by John Creighton and Pat Lewis.  The tour, sponsored by the Quaker Hill Historic Preservation Foundation, will leave from the Wilmington Friends Meeting House, 401 N. West Street, Wilmington, Delaware, at 9:00 a.m. and return at 12:00 p.m.  Tickets are $15 each.  Please send checks to QHHPF, 521 West Street, Wilmington, DE  19801 or call (302) 299-5600 for more information. 

Women and Natural Healing in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia will be presented on Tuesday, April 14, 2015 by Hannah Anderson at 7:00 pm (Doors open at 6:30 pm) in Center City Philadelphia at the Benjamin Franklin Museum in Franklin Court. In colonial Philadelphia, women delivered medical care to their families, friends and neighbors for complaints ranging from burns and bruises to melancholy and bloody urine. In her talk, Hannah Anderson explores ideas about the body, health and sickness in early Philadelphia, and the significance of female healers and their amazing medical concoctions. Registration information here.

An invitation is extended from the American Revolution Round Table of Northern Delaware for a talk at the Hale-Byrnes House in Stanton, Delaware, by the author Michael Harris on his book about the Battle of the Brandywine with the author Michael Harris on Saturday, Mar 28, 2015 from 7:30PM - 9:30PM Books available for signing & autographing.Well-behaved children always welcomed. $5 at the door includes coffee & dessert.

According to the Delaware Historical Society, April is an important month to Delawareans who enjoy escapes to the Jersey Shore. It was in April of 1945 that the Delaware State Highway Department was authorized to construct and operate a bridge over the Delaware River between New Castle, Delaware, and Pennsville, New Jersey. The first span of the Delaware Memorial Bridge took six years to complete. It opened in 1951.The Cape May-Lewes Ferry and the Delaware Memorial Bridge form the two principal travel links between Delaware and New Jersey, and are therefore popular gateways to the long string of beaches along the Garden State’s coast.Yes, this should remind you shore-goers that shore time is approaching!!!  Purnell Postcard Collection, Delaware Historical Society

Questions about older and historic properties for sale in New Castle and Kent Counties in Delaware and Southern Chester County, Pennsylvania? Contact Carolyn Roland!