Recent NC CHAP Projects
Google tells me that the most searched for page on NC-CHAP.ORG website is the script for the 2016 performance at the Spirit of Christmas festival of Dickens Christmas Carol. Any historical connection of the play with New Castle, DE is tenuous at best. The parent directory lists other versions, the original longer script by Mike Ferrians and the complete Dickens text from 1843 with highlighting of the lines appearing in the play.30 The Strand recently sold! This beautiful home, originally built in the 1660's during the Dutch era and rebuilt c1826, housed or hosted royal governors, presidents, 'an angel of mercy', judges and ship captains!
Through New Castle to Freedom -- A
Memorial Walk along James Lindsey Smith's Path to Liberation
The Hermitage and the Hermitage Natural Area Once the site of a historic mansion, it now features walking trails, an elementary school outdoor classroom, a native grass
and wildflower pollinator meadow and an interesting forest with many "keystone species" important in maintaining our environment.
Some personal perspectives on the History of Fort Casimir and New Amstel. Visits to Amsterdam,
Banff (Canada), San Juan (PR), and Cincinati, Ohio provide original 1656 documents and food for thought on our founders vs slavery and outrageous quotes about our early emigrants: "lazy as worms and stupid to boot, artisans
who did not know their jobs" 
Lectures on New Castle History. PDFs of slides from a series of fourteen lecture in 2015. Hundreds of interesting text slides and
>650 supporting images about people, events, war, famine, portraits, pirates, religion, food, architecture, industry, women's dresses ...Updated 2018 lectures
Rediscovered 1759 Portrait of Slator Clay Jr. of New Castle by
John Hesselius was auctioned November 11, 2015.
The Battery(s) in Battery Park -- their purpose: protection against French and Spanish pirates, privateers; French
and British warships, probable current location, and funding (via lottery!) 
Portraits of the rich and powerful in New Castle (1750-1850).
Portraits of more than 40 people who lived within four blocks of each other, including four signers of the Declaration of Independence (2 from DE, 1 each from NJ & PA), governors, judges, state and U. S. senators, an opium merchant/Consul-General/son of a Signer and a Bishop of Virginia.
Packet Alley
A children's book about New Castle (and history).
Resources: Online official records, laws, histories, census records, births, deaths, marriages, biographies, student theses and papers ...
Annotated Tax records for New Castle, 1776-1826 -- data on
wealth, politics and religion! Tax records for the New Castle Constabulary, 1683. An easy to understand tax method.The State of The Town in the 1890's: Promotional picture booklets produced by the N. C. Board of Trade (1mb) and the Commercial Club -- Ideal New Castle (4 mb).
The Alexander B. Cooper History of New Castle. Written in 1906-1908, this series of articles for the Sunday Star offers vignettes of early New Castle history, and glimpses of life there in the 1800's available nowhere else.
An amazing diagram compressing 247 years of ownership information into a single image.
Areas at risk of flooding in Historic New Castle. Comparison of an elevation map with the flooding that occurred during storms in 2012.
Fifty years ago: New Castle on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post
Lands of New Castle Common -- The
Surveys of 1704 and 1894
-- What property
did the deed include? How does it compare to modern holdings of the
Trustees? Are any of the property marker trees still standing that formed
the 'metes and bounds' of the survey? Where were the farms and the farmhouses?
Digitization of the Latrobe Survey
 Frontispiece |
 Map |
 Elevations |
 Contour maps |
Save Our Historic Ice Piers
(SoHip)
Archaeology in the Dutch House Garden, summer 2011-- 20 excavations, 2200 artifacts found
Report(pdf, 2mb)
Stereographs from c1878:Glimpses of long gone buildings and people (and their styles)
Dikes in New Castle: who built them, when, and why?
The Blaney Survey of 1798 -- the first extant map of New Castle. Prepared to define the town's limits with newly created street names.
Women in Fort Casimir Translated from Kvinnor in Nya Sverige
Vital records from Immanuel Church, 1714-1985: baptisms, marriages, burials (2.7 mb)
Unearthing New Castle's past:
UD anthropology students
excavate artifacts at the Read House
Take a virtual tour of New Castle's Historic sites:
Interactive 360° Panoramas
New Castle Historic District -- Where it is, what it means and what it doesn't mean
Rea & Price map -- an extensive road system in New Castle County in 1849
What was historic in New Castle 100 years ago (according to the Colonial Dames).
What did New Castle's buildings and gardens look like in the Dutch period? Hints from views of New Amsterdam 1651-1660
History of the New Castle Library 1810 - 2010
FUN!! ?? History/Trivia Quiz (Twelve questions. We/others don't see your score!)
The Old Dutch Master who lived in Old New Castle
Oral history:
Agnes Hewlett Megginson, Hugh Ryan Jr., Althea Unthank Harmon,
John Gambacorta, Frances Haut, John Ryan, Gladys Green ClarkCrane Hook Church 1667-1699: One of two Swedish Lutheran churches serving the entire Delaware valley
The Dike Uprising of 16751945 Aerial pictures from New Castle to Wilmington show land use 60 years ago.
NC-CHAP strategic plan
New Castle Quaker Meeting c1700
The Italian-American community in New Castle
New Castle downtown businesses of the past
Early postcards: Greetings from New Castle!, Page 2, Deemer Beach
Origins of St. Peter's of New Castle
A Day in Old New Castle: programs from 1933 and 1940, and video of 1931 event!
New Castle Presbyterian Church history, graves, members since 1700
New Castle Methodist Church history, cemetery plan and members (1820)
Immanuel Church on the Green gravestone inscriptions
New Castle parcel map c1680
Where was Fort Casimir?
Historical American Buildings Survey High resolution images of New Castle in the 1930's from the Library of Congress
Photo gallery Early snapshots around town Page 2
Mother Goose came to New Castle (1965)
The Laird Yacht Basin -- Recollections of Irenee du Pont, Jr.
Views of New Castle from the water -- 1797 to 2005
in 1687Hidden in Plain Sight -- Remains of the New Castle Gas Co.
Flags over Delaware in 1797
The le Blanc drawing of New Castle's Waterfront
The Cave -- a waterfront dive, figuratively, and maybe literally.
The Federal census 1800-1870 for New Castle
Archaeological Excavation At Avery's Rest, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
POTS and PLATES ARCHAEOLOGY: A Ceramic Artifacts Identification Workshop
We joined Delaware archaeologists and our neighbors to learn more about
ceramic and pottery artifacts from sites around town: How old items are, what they are, what they were used for,
and how they were made. Featured collections include from the Read House
gardens, Ft. Casimir excavation and the Jarvis/Blair gardens.
Portraits -- Individual and Group. In progress -- your contributions needed!
Resident's Recollections
Industry in New Castle:
Tasker Iron Works,
Triton Cotton Mill,
New Castle Manuf. Co,
Baldt & Brylgon Steel Mills, American Manganese, NVF
Wilmington Fibre, Amoco ....
Baldt & Brylgon Steel Mills, American Manganese, NVF
Wilmington Fibre, Amoco ....
Mysteries of the
Dutch Tile House
Pesentation: How to Research Historic Properties in New Castle
(3mb pdf)
Williamsburg on the Delaware--
the renovation/reconstruction of New Castle proposed in 1947Preservation Trades Network Workshop
Harbor Reconnaissance with Institute of Maritime History
Contact: james.l.meek[-at-symbol-] gmail.com; (302)-383-0994