1. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

Delaware Department of A large-scale sensitivity survey by Transportation plans to alter the highway University of archreologists, now entrances to , as part of housed at the State Historic Preservation the project. As a federal Office (Figure 1), identifies much of the undertaking, the project is subject to Section project area as having a high likelihood of 106 of the National Historic Preservation containing prehistoric sites. This set of maps Act. does not pinpoint expected site locations; instead, it identifies areas where a site might DelDOT engaged Edward F. Heite, of Heite Consulting, Camden, Delaware, to be found, if other factors are present. These factors include nearby water, well-drained conduct a Phase IA investigation of the soil, and a location on the edge of a resource proposed new roadways and related area, such as a floodplain. Where these construction. factors are present in a high-probability area, The project area consists of the prehistoric sites are likely to be found on the immediate vicinity of the intersection of most prominent or most elevated landform. Route 113 and County Road 357, the Since the project area is nearly dead Lebanon Road. flat, without geographical features and relatively far from water, there is no obvious LEVEL OF AND REASON FOR SURVEY "focal point" on which to expect a The present investigation is part of the concentration of prehistoric activity. ongoing planning process connected with The Phase IA investigation was Delaware Route 1. therefore directed toward identifying A map prepared in 1868 (Figure 2) documented or suspected historic-period showed several farmsteads in the general resources in and around the project area. vicinity (Beers 1868). Farms in the immediate project area were identified by GOALS FOR THE INVESnGAnON Beers as belonging to such well-known This is a report of a Phase IA study, personalities as Gustavus George Logan, which can be the first step in a Phase I grandson of John Dickinson. Other survey. Phase IA is a background study, properties in the vicinity included Elm designed to equip fieldworkers with Cottage, owned by heirs of Isaac Harrington, information that will be .needed for J. D. Kimmey's Cherry Dale, and D. C. Hoffecker's Troy farm, and properties conducting a Phase IB reconnaissance survey. owned by the locally prominent Wharton, Budd, and Postles families. The purpose of any Phase I survey is to identify all cultural resources that survive A previous study (Dames and Moore in the study area. It is not ordinarily the 1993) indicated the existence of several purpose of a Phase I survey to assess cultural resources in the immediate vicinity of significance. Phase I field strategy, therefore, the proposed intersection improvement. is designed to cover as much territory as The present Phase IA project was possible, recovering small but meaningful designed to locate and more precisely identify samples from as many micro-environments the features noted by Dames and Moore, and and potential resource areas as possible. to locate any other cultural resources that If a Phase I strategy produces might exist in the project's immediate information that can be used to determine vicinity. significance, this information is treated as an unanticipated bonus.

1 The likelihood of finding buried prehistoric The Phase II strategy is defined as horizons is, therefore, slender (Soil whatever is necessary to determine the Conservation Service 1971). significance of the property, in terms of the National Register. PREVIOUS ARCHJEOLOGICAL WORK GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENT Two recent archreological surveys have touched upon the project area. Dames The project area lies in the coastal and Moore, Inc., completed a Phase IA plain, near the edge of tide marshes. Its archreological assessment and predictive location, at the drainage divide of a "neck" of model of the entire installation in December land, is one of the more favored agricultural 1993 (Dames and Moore 1993). situations in coastal Delaware. Dames and Moore identified several Delaware's "necks" are long fingers cultural resources in the immediate vicinity of of well-drained land, extending eastward to the proposed construction, as follows . Their north and south limits No. Name Dates a/maps showing this are marked by tidal streams, which once were 14 Dr. J. G. Baker 1868 trafficways. St. Jones Neck is bordered on 44 ..G. G. Logan 1859 the north by and on the southwest 42 ..A. Lofland 1859 by St. Jones River. Smaller tributaries of 59 ..unlabelled 1899 1936 60 ..unlabelled 1888 1936 these streams, with their marshy floodplains, 61 ..unlabelled 1899 1936 funnel the road system down the spine of the 90 ..unlabelled 1899 neck. The project area is located on this spine 91 ..unlabelled 1899 of well-drained land between drainages. This abundance of different labels for Two historic roads intersect a short identical resources reflects the hazards distance east of the project area. The older of inherent in trying to correlate old maps these was the "Bay Road" from Dover to created to different scales and to different Kitts Hummock. This road probably standards, without the benefit of professional developed during the late seventeenth century evaluations. Several "unlabelled" sites clearly as a route from the Neck to the courthouse at are the same as named properties, but the Dover. The part of the Bay Road that passes Dames and Moore maps are so crude that through Dover Air Force Base is more accurate determinations cannot be recently known as Route 113. determined. A second general survey, by The other road is newer. It connected MAAR Associates, still is in draft (Payne Little Creek Landing with Florence, or 1994). Barker's Landing, on the St. Jones. When In connection with the present State bridges were built at these places during the Route 1 project, several studies have been nineteenth century, this local road became undertaken. The first of these was a part of a secondary north-south coastal route reconnaissance planning study of the broad that crossed streams at their lowest bridges. It corridor issued in 1984 by the Department of is now known as State Route 9. Transportation (Custer, Jehle, Klatka and The place where these two roads Eveleigh 1984). crossed was called Devil's Hill. The reason A Phase I survey in the right-of-way for this evocative name is not apparent. identified several historic sites near the Soils in the project area are well­ project area, but none in the impact (Bachman, Grettler, and Custer 1988) drained and productive. They belong to the Sassafras-Fallsington Association, the Phase II studies of historic sites in the favored agriculture ground in the region. selected route included the site of the Charles Dominant soil types are Sassafras sandy loam Kimmey toft (K-6440, 7K-D-119) and and Matapeake silt loam, with 2% to 5% another house (K-493), just north of the slopes. These old and stable soils are unlikely project area (Gretder, Bachman, Custer and to have accumulated during Holocene times. Jamison 1991:235-309).

2 environment for this project area is therefore CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL incompletely defmed. PLANNING BACKGROUND Delaware's "framework of historic context elements" (Ames, Callahan, Herman Time periods applied in Delaware and Siders 1989:21) is arranged according to preservation planning (Herman and Siders a group of 18 themes, ten of which refer to 1986) reflect only feebly the actual history of occupations, such as forestry and Kent County. The state's generalized manufacturing. chronology is:

Exploration and frontier settlement 1630-1730 PREHISTORIC BACKGROUND Intensified and durable occupation 1730-1770 People arrived in the Early industrialization 1770-1830 Industrialization and urbanization 1830-1880 near the end of the last (Wisconsin) Urbanization and suburbanization 1880-1940 glaciation. Glaciers entrapped so much water that the ocean lay fifty miles east of the Only one area of the state, between present Sandy Hook, . As the Wilmington and Newark, actually glaciers retreated and the ocean advanced, the experienced these historical periods in exactly project mea's ecology changed. With changes this sequence. In spite of their limited in ecology and population came changes in applicability to one small area, cultural land use, which are reflected in the cultural resource investigations throughout the state record. are subdivided this way for the sake of uniformity. Mammoths, musk ox, horses, caribou, and walrus provided food for dire Locally, other landmark dates are wolf, shon-faced bear, and other predators. appropriate to mark division lines between Man was among the smaller competitors in similar expressions of historical periods: the tundra food chain, but his skills compensated for his physical shortcomings. Initial development Settlement to 1730 Nomadic people of this Paleo-Indian -geriod Intensive and durable occupation 1730-1776 were among the most skilled makers of stone Early national period 1776-1800 Agricultural quiescence 1800-1870 tools in the world. They would travel great Canned tomato era 1870-1940 distances to quarry the best flinty nodules and Military period 1940-present cobbles from which they made exquisite spearpoints, knives, and small tools. These revised time brackets were used to frame the present study. Paleo - Indian hunting - gathering society lasted in the coastal plain until about RELEVANT HISTORIC CONTEXTS 6,500 Be, when the Atlantic climate episode and the Archaic period of prehistory began. Agriculture, and particularly Nonhern hardwood forests had replaced the agricultural tenancy, stand out as the tundra, the ocean had risen, and the climate dominant theme in S1. Jones Neck history. A was warmer. Pleistocene megafauna were context study for tenancy was prepared by replaced by smaller game, which required the University of Delaware Center for different hunting techniques and tools. Historic Architecture and Engineering "Micro-band base camps" of this relatively (Siders, Herman, et al" 1991). A context for arid period often are found on slight archreology of agriculture and rural life in elevations above poorly-drained spots where New Castle and Kent counties was prepared game might have come to drink or feed Even by the University of Delaware Center for after the climate became wetter, people Archreological Research (De Cunzo and apparently continued to live on sand hills that Garcia 1992). formed near the basins. Transportation remains undefined Archaic people fashioned tools made among Delaware contexts. The planning of quartz, a material that is less tractable than the flinty cryptocrystalline silicate materials

4 that Paleo people had favored. Quartz is more near rich and diverse resource areas, such as readily available in the lower coastal plain the edge of a marsh. From an archreological than the more elegant flinty materials. preservation point of view, this is Ground stone axes and other heavy tools unfortunate, since base camp locations often appeared during this period. are desirable sites for real-estate By 3,000 Be, prehistoric society was development. decidedly different. Because people had Near the project area, a large site, stopped moving around so much, regional known as Carey Farm, may have been a base cultural differences began to appear in the camp area, occupied over a very long time by artifact assemblages. Sedentary lifestyles a few families every year. This site lay ultimately led to horticulture, complex immediately adjacent to the broad marshes of religious practices, and the accumulation of the St. Jones River, and probably was the more, less portable, material goods. residence of people who hunted and foraged The last in the project area. prehistoric period, the Woodland, is REGIONAL characterized by larger OU1LINE HISTORY groups of people living PREmSTORIC CHRONOLOGY Wherever the together in villages, (After Custer 1986) using pottery and other Europeans have settled, heavy or fragile goods they have first built Dates Environmental Cultural highly-organized towns that would have been Episode Period difficult to move from on the frontier, place to place. projecting all the 8080 BC Late Glacial Paleo-Indian trappings and The Delmarva /Early Archaic institutions of the Adena people, who mother country onto the lived on the peninsula 6540 BC Pre-Boreal/Boreal wilderness. In early in the Woodland Atlantic Middle Archaic Delaware, these highly­ period, developed a organized communities highly sophisticated 3110 BC Sub-Boreal Late Archaic included fortified mortuary culture. One settlements at New of their burial places 810BC Sub-Atlantic Woodland I Castle, Fort Christina, was found on the bank AD 1000 Woodland II and several locations in of the St. Jones River Sussex County. immediately adjacent to AD 1600 Contact the Dover Air Force Pioneer farmers typically follow, after Base. the soldiers have The Woodland established an outpost period people tended to concentrate in more of civilization. The first Dutch and SVi~iish or less permanent settlements at places with settlements in the Delaware Valley cGl1fvrmed abundant multiple resources, such as sites to the frontier model: they were compact and adjacent to shellfish beds on the edges of salt strictly regulated, and were supported largely marshes. These settlements, called "base by supply lines that brought necessities of life camps," were generally occupied by one or a from Europe or from older colonies (Heite few extended families. They sent out hunting and Heite 1986). and gathering parties, but they seldom International competition probably dispersed whole populations to live off the delayed the region's transition to the second land in the manner of their hunter-gatherer phase of COlonization, which was a less ancestors. regimented period of agricultural These base camps were generally development. Most of the other North located, according to the accepted models, American colonies moved to settle the

5 countryside within a decade after initial settlement. The Delaware coastal settlements, 1659: The Dutch West India Company in contrast, clustered around their fortified fort at Lewes, at a known site on the present Pilottown Road command posts for at least thirty years. Not in the city of Lewes, until the fall of New Netherlands in 1664 was Delaware; and, [mally, the Delaware Valley finally able to realize its potential as an open, self-supporting, 1663: Cornelis Plockhoy's Dutch agricultural colony under a single European Mennonite settlement, also on colonial power. the Swanendael territory and The major known settlements of the probably near the site of settlement period, in chronological order, Lewes. were: None were large: the principal 1626: Dutch Fort Nassau on the fortifications probably did not measure more Delaware River near Timber than 200 feet on a side. The total settled area Creek at the present on the Delaware between 1626 and 1664 did Gloucester, New Jersey and not exceed a few hundred acres, concentrated probably another poorly­ in seven locations. documented outpost on Jurisdictional problems with the Burlington Island upstream; proprietors complicated 1629: A palisaded Dutch whaling station development in lower Delaware. Maryland on a tract called Zwaanendael created an entity called Durham (or Essex) or Swandendae1, on the lower County, which pretended jurisdiction over bay, now in Delaware, and much of the present Sussex and Kent believed to be in the present counties. Some settlers, not sure which vicinity of Lewes; colony would ultimately control their homesteads, took out patents in both the 1638: Fort Christina, the capital of New Penn and the Calvert land offices. The battle Sweden, later the Dutch Fort was not finally settled until 1765, on the eve Altena, now in the city of of the American Revolution, when a British Wilmington; court decreed the present western and southern boundaries of Delaware. 1641: A colony of Englishmen from New Haven who settled at Kent County settlement began about Varckens Kill, now Salem 1670, when Robert Jones suggested settling River, New Jersey; the St. Jones valley with emigrants from Virginia. (Jackson 1983). By the time 1643: Printzhof, or New Gothenborg, William Penn took possession of the colony on Tinicum Island, now in 1682, the present county had been attached to the Pennsylvania established and the best land on St. Jones mainland, the home of Neck was claimed. Among the first claimants Swedish Governor Johan were Walter Dickinson of Maryland, John Printz; Brinkloe, and John Burton, who would develop the prime farmland in the vicinity of 1643: Swedish Fort Elfsborg on the the project area. Delaware River near the present site of Salem, New Walter Dickinson was one of the Jersey, in the modem state of cautious settlers who claimed land on both Delaware, but on the east sides of the peninsula, and retained status bank of De1aware River; within both governments. When he died, he left his heirs with a string of properties from 1651: Dutch Fort Casimir, at the present the present Jones Neck to the vicinity of site of New Castle, Delaware, Trappe, Maryland. His grandson, also named established to counter the Walter, would own part of the project area. Swedish power;

6 First tobacco, and then grain, exports peach farmers rose to dominate the sustained the economy of Kent County. agriculture scene before the::: Civil War. These crops brought prosperity to the When the Delaware Rail Road opened landowners, who included several wealthy in 1856, Delaware producers gained access to families. Two centuries later, descendants of national markets. Toward the coast, the same families still owned much of Jones steamboat companies served communities Neck. that were not along the railroad. By the end of the nineteenth century, roads had been The Revolutionary era saw Jones Neck men at the center of exciting change. reduced to feeder status, and the railroads and The Dickinson brothers, John and Philemon, steamboats dominated long-distance travel. took leadership roles in three colonies. At about the same time, the Dickinson Philemon led New Jersey troops, and John family estates in Jones Neck emerged from a was chief executive of both Delaware and long period of benign negl.ect. Large parcels Pennsylvania at different times. The were sold to resident farmers who were Dickinson brothers also created the fIrst non­ interested in trying new ideas. sectarian public cemetery in Delaware. Eetween the Civil. War and World Their neighbors to the north, Cresar War II, the canning industry, especially Rodney and his brother Thomas, also played tomato canning, was a dominant regional on the national stage. Cresar was a signer of economic force. A plant at nearby Lebanon the Declaration of Independence, commanded and another at Florence (Barkers Landing) troops in the field, and held most of the provided an outlet for the project area's public offices in Delaware during his long produce. career that ended in his tragic death from cancer just as the Revolution was succeeding. MODERN TRANSPORTATION Thomas made his mark in the judiciary after the war. Lesser-known Jones Neck residents Coleman DuPont, whose father had also bore anns. Yeoman farmers like Robert operated a trolley company, understood the Graham, whose grave recently was identifIed importance of transportation in the nearby, joined the cause. development of lower Delaware. Although he was a member of the triumvirate that ruled These stirring events occurred Delaware's premier upstate industrial firm, elsewhere, however. On the ground in Jones DuPont was a man of broad interests. Neck, the evils of absentee ownership would soon become apparent. He proposed to build, at his own expense, an intermodal transportation system During the period after the that would include a four-lane divided Revolution, Delaware farmland declined. highway, electric railway tracks, and an outer Neglect, ignorance, and the disinterest of shoulder for bicycles and horse drawn absentee landlords conspired to reduce the vehicles. Each downstate town would be prosperity of Delaware agricultural areas. bypassed, since the highway was envisioned Early in the nineteenth century, a few as a through road from Wilmington to educated farmers began to introduce new Selbyville. methods that eventually had a lasting effect on the landscape. This visionary plan was reduced in the real world by pollitics and local Agricultural societies during the opposition. Four lanes were reduced to two. nineteenth century brought innovation to The light rail system was eliminated, and agriculture throughout the state. These bypasses were abandoned. The new road organizations sponsored contests for was cut through some ne:w rights-of-way, accomplishment in silk culture, fruit but it always provided for a parade of growing, and other areas of interest. Budded potential customers to drive, and potenially to peach trees were among the innovations stop and to shop, as they passed through introduced during this period. Nurseries, each small town. orchards, and shipping facilities flourished~

7 In spite of predictions that the wide into commercial districts, which in turn became congested bottlenecks along the right-of-way never would be used, DuPont parkway. went ahead and purchased the full width in some areas. He eventually was appointed the Dualization of the Bay Road from first chairman of the new Delaware State Dover to Little Heaven drew the Route 113 Highway Commission that accepted his traffic off its original route down Dover's money to finish a scaled-down parkway, but State Street and through the town of his dream eventually was vindicated Magnolia and the settlement of Rising Sun. Completion of the north-south Parkway (Routes 13 and 113) in 1924 WAR AND ECONOMIC CHANGE opened lower Delaware to highway traffic As World War II began, Dover was from upstate and points north. Motor building its second airport. The first commerce flourished, and settlements were commercial airfield was located on the North no longer confined to a narrow band along Little Creek Road, now the Edgehill rail and water corridors. People spread across subdivision. The original hangar is now the the countryside in a disorderly suburban Dover Post newspaper office. sprawl, but commerce coagulated predictably along the new corridors To accommodate increased commercial airline traffic that was expected, The new roads also encouraged the city of Dover bought farms along the Bay agriculture, and central Kent County farms Road for an "rerodrome." When war broke enjoyed a period of prosperity as the chicken out, the Army Air Corps took over the new industry developed. facility and created a military installation. The old "Bay Road" from Dover to After a near-complete postwar Kitts Hummock and the road from Barker's demobilization, the Dover Air Force Base of Landing (Florence) to Little Creek were today was created from the remains of the old among the roads that were upgraded. wartime post. Permanent constrq.ction The road from Little Creek was replaced wartime temporary structures, and rebuilt as a nine-foot road in 1932 to its point "the Base" became a permanent fixture in the of intersection with the Kitts Hummock or Dover community. As aircraft grew larger Bay Road, just east of the project area. A and the installation's mission expanded, more new Barker's Landing bridge facilitiated space was required. Base expansion became construction of a new corridor, now Route a dominant theme in the subsequent history 113. Through successive improvements, the of the Dover area, which recently was road from Court Street in Dover to Little designated a standard metropoHtan statistical Heaven became part of the main route from area. Wilmington to the beaches. Coastal Kent County was At the beginning of World War II, the transformed agriculturally during the middle DuPont Parkway had been enlarged to a four­ years of the twentieth century by two lane road between Dover and Wilmington. Its innovations: potato farming and wildfowl last four-lane section, between Milford and refuges. Georgetown, is now under construction, 75 When the rich farmlands of Long years behind its founder's visionary Island disappeared under postwar urban timetable. sprawl, potato farmers moved to Kent Bypasses around towns finally were County, where growing conditions were set in place after World War II. The first similar. These newcomers, rich with money Dover bypass, in 1952, relieved the Route 13 from suburban property settlements, pressure on Governors Avenue. The new introduced irrigation and other technological bypass skirted Dover's congestion, but it and business innovations to the broad levels was not politically possible to restrict access. of eastern Kent County. Smyna and Dover transfonned their bypasses

8 Geese became big business with up "bypass" sections of the highway, stalling establishment of state and federal waterfowl local traffic. Industries were choked by management facilities, which began during tourist traffic, and economic development of the Depression and have continued expanding the Dover and Smyrna area was threatened. to the present day. THE FINAL BYPASS Hunters from Pennsylvania and the northern states discovered the abundant The state's response to this growing waterfowl of the Delaware marshes; farms congestion is the State Route 1 project, around the perimeter of the wildlife refuges formerly known as the Dover Bypass or the discovered a rich market, catering to hunters' Route 13 Relief Route. Planning and needs. development went on for more than thirty years. Unlike its predecessors, this highway The marshes, which Delaware is a limited-access corridor, with few ramps farmers had labored nearly three centuries to into the adjacent communities. drain, became assets to be encouraged and expanded. The segregates local from through .traffic, allowing vacationers to whisk West of the potato farms and goose along to the beach while local residents go marshes, the Route 13 corridor became about their business. The toll road ends at the clogged with sun worshipers trekking to the northern side of Dover Air Force Base, but a beaches. When they passed through Smyrna limited-access Route 1 / Route 113 corridor and Dover, vacationers clogged the old built- continues to the beach area.

9