INTRODUCTION
Wilmington is loaded with history. The original village that was to become the city of Wilmington was laid out in 1731 by Thomas Willing. Four buildings (dating from 1748 to the early 1800s) that were built during the mercantile/shipping era have been relocated to Market Street to save them from demolition. These buildings, all on the National Register of Historic Places, now form Willingtown Square. Although not open to the public, they may be viewed from the outside, and the Willingtown Square Gallery is open during Library hours.

Wilmington's Federal-style Old Town Hall, built in 1798, was the center of both political and social activities during the height of the city's mercantile-milling economy. Here were not just the city's meeting chambers and offices, but also the jail. It also served as a gathering place for civic organizations and included a subscription library. Many famous people visited here, both during life and after death. George Washington's death was observed here in 1799, and Henry Clay's body lay in state here in 1851. The Marquis de Lafayette and President Andrew Jackson were guests of honor at receptions and dinners.

Come walk through the past at historic New Castle, on the Delaware River three miles south of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Delaware's Colonial Capital includes the Read House, built in 1801 by the son of one of Delaware's signers of the Declaration of Independence. This 14,000-square-foot grandiose Federal mansion was the largest house in the state when it was built and cost nearly $12,000 (that would be about $2.5 million today). The family's quarters were elegant and spacious, but the servants had to deal with cramped bedroom, laundry rooms and kitchen. Read was a technology buff, and equipped his kitchen with hot-air roasting ovens and steam tables and his Bathing Room with a shower with hot running water. The next owner added an extensive garden, now the oldest surviving garden in the region, divided into three sections: a formal parterre flower garden, a specimen garden filled with exotics and native favorites, and a large fruit orchard and kitchen garden with allees of pear trees and trellised grapes set by formal boxwood hedges.

With such deep roots one can almost feel the history in the very air.