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How to Spend a Day in New Castle, Delaware

Elle MacRae — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 11:25:00 +0000

When we visited New Castle, Delaware, I had very little expectations. In fact, we only visited to collect another stamp for our National Park Passport. To say that I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. The town of New Castle is incredibly charming and full of history and culture. In this post, we’ll outline how to spend a day in New Castle.

How to Spend a Day in New Castle

You’ll find that most things in New Castle don’t open until 10 AM, so sleep in and take your time getting ready this morning.

9:15- Snag a parking spot near the New Castle Courthouse. Start your morning off at the Dream Bakery for a delicious croissant, cinnamon roll, or breakfast pastry.

10:00- Tour the Amstel House Museum. When successful physician Dr. John Finney built this home in 1738, it was the largest and most elegant home in New Castle. George Washington and the Marquis de LaFayette attended a wedding here in 1784.

When the home was built, it looked out onto the New Castle Courthouse, which was a sign of Finney’s prestige within the community.

Attorney Nicholas Van Dyke Sr. rented the home from the family during the American Revolution. Van Dyke was a member of the Second Continental Congress, a signer of the Articles of Confederation, and Governor of Delaware. Many of the discussions about the formation of the state of Delaware (and even the United States itself!) happened in this house.

9:45- Visit The Green. This common area was likely used for markets during Colonial times. In 1809, a U.S. arsenal was added. Later in the century, a whipping post and pillory were installed near the courthouse.

10:00- Next, you’ll tour the New Castle Courthouse, constructed in 1732. The courthouse is where Delaware declared their independence from Pennsylvania and Great Britain. It was also the site of the trial that inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

11:00- Walk along E. 3rd Street towards the Immanuel Episcopal Church on the Green. You’ll pass the Rodney House (16 E. 3rd Street, built in 1831 by US Representative George Brydges Rodney), Wiley House (built in 1798 by lawyer John Wiley), Dutch House, and the Gas Lamp (the last original gas lamp).

11:15- Your next stop is the Immanuel Episcopal Church on the Green, the oldest Anglican parish in Delaware. The church was been operating continuously since 1689.

The church suffered a fire in 1980 as a result of a nearby marsh fire. All that remained were the church’s masonry walls. The current structure is similar to the church that stood here in 1820.

If the church is unlocked, you are welcome to walk in.

Take time to visit the grave sites of parishioners from the 17th to 21st centuries. Several are from the Revolutionary War and were signers of the Declaration of Independence.

11:45- Stop by the New Castle Historical Society to learn more about the history of this colonial town. They offer a short (less than 10 minutes) video that summarizes the importance of New Castle and its role in our nation’s independence.

Walk down the cobblestoned Market Street. You’ll pass by a statue of the influential Quaker, William Penn. Penn was a writer, religious thinker, and the founder of Pennsylvania.

12:30- Make your way back to Delaware Street and enjoy a delicious lunch at Jessop’s Tavern & Colonial Restaurant. The pub dates back circa 1724 and is known for its servers doting period costumes.

1:30- Pass by William Penn’s 1682 landing spot and head up The Strand to Packet Alley. This alleyway was an important route for Northern and Southern states to communicate and was a hub for international trade. Many of history’s most famous figures (such as Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, Lord Ashburton, Louis Napoleon, Chief Osceola, and Chief Black Hawk) stopped here en route to other destinations such as Washington DC, and Baltimore.

Snap a selfie in front of the giant Ivory Soap mural.

2:00- Next, tour the Read House. The home was built in 1804 for George Read II, son of one of Delaware’s signers of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. The 14,000-square-foot home is a National Landmark and is one of the best examples of domestic architecture from Philadelphia’s Federal Period. At the time of construction, it was the largest home in Delaware.

The home boasts an impressive garden that was laid out in the late 1840s by the home’s third owner, William Couper.

3:30- Slowly make your way from the Read House, up The Strand, and turn left on Harmony Street. Walk down Market Street or E. 3rd Street and admire the colonial architecture as you make your way back to your vehicle.

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See how we squeezed in a visit to New Castle on a trip that hit up 3 states in one day! Learn more about the New Castle Court House and see all of the other cool places we visited on our Mason-Dixon Road Trip! See our full itinerary here.

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How We Easily Visited 3 States in 1 Day

Elle MacRae — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:40:31 +0000

Over the years our kids have had countless hands-on experiences that have helped them learn more about themselves and the world around them. As they’ve gotten older, they’ve developed a love of traveling like mine. I thought setting a goal for them to visit all 50 states would be fun.

On January 1, 2024, we started a new family tradition. We placed the names of the states the kids have not been to into a hat and selected one at random. The kids chose West Virginia, so I planned a road trip to The Mountain State. One thing led to another, and other states got added to our itinerary.

That week we went sledding in West Virginia and visited Gettysburg, Eisenhower’s home, and Hersheypark in Pennsylvania before we made our way down to Maryland. That’s when things got WILD! We crossed off not one, not two, but three new states from our list in just one day!

To mark a state from our list, we have to do an activity there, so I took to Google Maps to map out our road trip. We knew, for sure, we would be at Great Wolf Lodge in Perryville, Maryland on Christmas Day. Once I realized how close we were to Delaware and New Jersey, it was game on!

Crossing 3 States Off of Our List in 1 Day!

Maryland

We began and ended our day in Maryland. We started in Perryville, Maryland where we celebrated Christmas Day at the Great Wolf Lodge.

New Jersey

I struggled to find anything on the NJ/DE border. I didn’t want to go as far north as Camden, and we had already hit up a theme park, so Diggerland was out. There’s the old Quaker Hancock House, but my kids will pick a fort over a historic home any day, so that left us one option: Fort Mott State Park.

Fort Mott is a post-Civil War defense system built to protect the Delaware River. The fort didn’t see much action, but troops were regularly stationed there.

The fort is still pretty much intact. You can see the old railyard, towers, and gunneries. The kids liked it way more than I thought they would- considering there’s not much to it. They had a blast pretending to be soldiers and firing off the guns they bought in Gettysburg.

Forts, for them, have always been an opportunity for them to stretch their legs, run around, and use their imagination.

Part of me wishes we went up to Camden, but I wanted to ensure we had time for what else was in store for us.

Delaware

Not only are we trying to visit all 50 states, but we’re also working towards visiting all of the National Park Sites…all 460+ of them! So, naturally, it only made sense for us to stop by the First State National Historical Park in Delaware. Delaware is small…but mighty! It was the first state to declare independence from Great Britain, which takes a lot of guts if you ask me!

The New Castle Court House is where Delaware declared its independence from Pennsylvania and Great Britain. The court hearing that inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin also took place here. Since Smiley did a report on her last year, it made for the perfect stop.

When we got to the courthouse, we weren’t quite sure which door we were supposed to enter. The sign said it was open, but the front door was locked. After trying several doors, we finally found one that was open. We crept inside and found a ranger main courtroom. Startled, he asked us how we had gotten in there. Whoops! Apparently we broke in. The ranger backtracked to the door we entered, locked it, and came back to show us around. We learned all about the history of not only the courthouse and New Castle, but how Delaware became to be the first state. The ranger was super informative and really good about answering all of the kids’ questions…and boy, did they have a lot of them!

After our tour, we walked to the New Castle Historical Society to learn more about the town. Just around the corner, there was a neat little cemetery at Immanuel Episcopal Church on the Green. We stopped by to see the graves of George Read (signer of the Declaration of Independence), and several Senators, Representatives, Governors, and Revolutionary War Patriots. Surprisingly, the kids enjoyed walking around the cemetery. They made up a game called “Find the Oldest Dead Person” and went from gravestone to gravestone in their quest to find the oldest.

Around town, we also visited the site of the gallows and jail and walked down the cobblestone streets surrounding William Penn’s statue.

Oh my gosh, ya’ll, I am so glad we stopped! The town of New Castle is so stinking cute like it could seriously be the set for a TV show (is it?). I could have easily spent a weekend exploring the town.

Maryland

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With New Jersey and Delaware under our belts, it was time to head back to Maryland. I’m not quite sure spending Christmas Day at Great Wolf Lodge counts as doing something in Maryland so we headed back to Baltimore, for good measure.

On the way into the city, the kids had their first tunnel experience. We took the Fort McHenry Tunnel, which cuts through the Baltimore Harbor. To this day, they don’t believe that we were actually underwater .

Our second National Park passport stamp of the day came from Fort McHenry…because you can never visit too many forts in one day! Fort McHenry had an incredible Visitor Center/Museum. We started our visit by watching the park’s film about the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the “Star-Spangled Banner.” The video was extremely well done and ended with the screen being raised into the ceiling, unveiling a spectacular view of the fort.

By the time it we left Fort McHenry, it was late afternoon, so we decided to check into our hotel. Our hotel was located near the Boston Harbor, a part of town with loads of things to do. We dropped off our bags and walked to Chick-fil-A to grab dinner. When we walked into the Chick-fil-A, we noticed there were 2 armed guards….in fact, there were armed guards in all of the shops and eateries in the area. After seeing that, we decided it would be best if we took our dinner back to the hotel and called it a night.

Baltimore can get sketchy after dark, and we’d rather be safe than sorry.

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Planning a Road Tip

Want to plan a killer road trip but you’re not quite sure where to start? We’ve mapped out our tried and true way of planning a road trip the whole family will enjoy!

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How to pick a destination
Our research tips
Budgeting
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Read about how you can start your own 50 State Challenge!

Conclusion

Within a span of just a few hours, we drove from Maryland to New Jersey, to Delaware and back to Maryland! We visited two forts, got two National Park passport stamps, and learned about colonial history and the fight for independence. I’d say that was a pretty successful day!

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We visited these sites on our Mason-Dixon Road Trip. While we were in the area, we also stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Perryville, learned about the Battle of Gettysburg, visited President Eisenhower’s home, and visited our favorite city, Washington, DC.

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