New Castle is one of the oldest settlements in the Delaware Valley, founded in 1651 by Peter Stuyvesant as Fort Casimir to give the Dutch command of river traffic. Its strategic location meant the settlement changed hands constantly — the flags of the Netherlands, Sweden, and Great Britain all flew over New Castle before William Penn came ashore here in 1682 to take possession of his American lands.
When Penn's three lower counties grew dissatisfied with his rule, he granted them a separate legislature in 1704, and New Castle became the colonial capital of Delaware. It briefly served as the first state capital as well, and continued as the county seat until the 1880s.
Today New Castle is a beautifully preserved small town. The New Castle Court House, the Green, and the streets lined with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century brick buildings make it one of the most intact historic districts on the East Coast — and far quieter than nearby Wilmington. The Read House and Gardens on The Strand and the Dutch House — one of the oldest brick buildings in the state — give visitors a tangible sense of what life looked like here in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Battery Park at the river's edge marks the spot where Penn came ashore.