The Village of Port Penn is one of many stops along Delaware's Coastal Heritage Greenway. This Greenway, which extends from urban Fox Point State Park to the beaches of Cape Henlopen State Park, encompasses many of Delaware's finest cultural and natural resources. Within the corridor are large expanses of open space containing critical wildlife habitat and countless opportunities to educate and inform the public of the richness and diversity of Delaware's past.

We invite you to learn more about the Coastal Heritage Greenway and visit other stops along the corridor. For more information, call (302) 739-5285.

Throughout its history, Port Penn has looked to the Delaware River and its marshes for sustenance and contact with the outside world. At times, this was a bustling community with agricultural products and travelers flowing through it. At other times, the people of Port Penn were isolated from the world and had to depend on their own resources.

This brochure has been designed to interpret Port Penn’s history through its architecture. Important historic buildings from various periods will be highlighted as part of a self-guided tour. To help prepare you for your tour, we will first present a brief history of Port Penn.

Please remember that Port Penn is an active community and that houses on this tour are private residences. Respect the occupants’ privacy by staying on the public sidewalks.

The History of Port Penn

Dutch and English settlers arrived in the Port Penn area as early as the 1640s, but it was David Stewart’s vision of a new city on the Delaware River in the 1750s that resulted in the town’s formal settlement.

Stewart, a physician, saw promise in Port Penn’s location as an excellent harbor. He envisioned the town as a rival to Philadelphia. An advertisement placed in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1764 praised the natural merits of the Port Penn community. It stated that the sheltered, deep water harbor was perfect for trading with the West Indies market. The surrounding fertile countryside awaited the industrious farmer’s hand to be successfully cultivated.

Port Penn grew steadily through the early 1800s. The average Port Penners were farm hands, blacksmiths, carpenters, cannery workers or laborers. They led simple lives and practiced a variety of seasonal activities set in the marshes bordering the town and in the Delaware River beyond. Most Port Penners derived their subsistence or additional income from the migratory waterfowl in the fall, shad and herring runs in the spring, sturgeon fishing in the summer, and muskrat trapping in the winter.

Agriculture in the region was prosperous and local farms became leading producers for urban markets. Farmers employed ditchers to build dikes and canals to convert marsh land into land for farming and grazing livestock. Wagons loaded with produce lined the streets of Port Penn, delivering their cargo to waiting ships. Port Penn developed into a self-sufficient community oriented toward the water.