Seven sites, 400 years, three counties: Delaware’s national park does a lot for free

It’s Delaware’s past in one free park

Delaware gets overlooked on most road trip maps, but the state holds something most people don’t know about: a national park that stretches across all three of its counties and into Pennsylvania.

First State National Historical Park ties together seven sites that trace the ground from the Lenape people who lived here first, through Swedish and Dutch and English settlers, all the way to the moment Delaware gave the United States Constitution its very first signature.

Most of it costs nothing to visit.

Swedish ships landed here in 1638

In 1638, two ships called the Kalmar Nyckel and the Fogel Grip crossed the Atlantic carrying Swedish and Finnish settlers.

They landed in what’s now Wilmington, bought land from the Lenape people, and built Fort Christina, starting the colony of New Sweden.

The Dutch took it in 1655, the English took it after that, and the whole thing eventually became the state that, on Dec. 7, 1787, became the first in the country to ratify the U.S. Constitution. The park preserves where each of those chapters happened.

Walk into one of America’s oldest courthouses

The New Castle Court House went up in 1732, and it still stands as a National Historic Landmark.

On June 15, 1776, delegates met inside and voted to break from both Pennsylvania and England, drawing the line that made Delaware its own state.

The building’s cupola sits at the exact center point of the 12-mile arc that forms Delaware’s curved northern border with Pennsylvania.

Guided tours run Wednesday through Sunday at no charge, and the exhibits inside cover colonial law, Native American history and the lives of enslaved people.

The Green where Delaware got its start

One block from where William Penn first set foot in America in 1682, the New Castle Green has been a public gathering place since Dutch colonists laid it out in the 1650s.

Walk the cobblestone streets around it and you’ll pass the 1703 Immanuel Episcopal Church, the 1809 Federal Arsenal and the 1857 Sheriff’s House, which is being converted into the park’s future visitor center.

The Green ties the whole historic district together in a few walkable blocks.

Stand on the exact spot where it all began

Fort Christina in Wilmington marks the precise landing site from 1638, a stretch of riverbank called The Rocks.

A monument by Swedish sculptor Carl Milles stands there now, a gift from Sweden on the colony’s 300th anniversary.

The site is free to visit, with benches, views of the Christina River and displays that walk you through what happened here.

It’s a quiet spot, easy to linger at, and the ground under your feet is where permanent European settlement in the Delaware Valley first took hold.

A 1698 church built with Swedish ship ballast

Old Swedes Church in Wilmington went up between 1698 and 1699, and people still worship there today. The builders used local blue granite and Swedish bricks that arrived as ballast in the hulls of ships.

Inside, you’ll find what is believed to be the oldest pulpit in the United States, carved from black walnut.

The burial ground behind the church dates to 1638 and may hold as many as 15,000 people, including 44 Revolutionary War veterans.

Tours cover the church, the grounds and the early 18th-century Hendrickson House next door.

Sail the river on Delaware’s official tall ship

Docked near Fort Christina, the Kalmar Nyckel is a full-scale replica of the 1638 Swedish flagship, launched into the Christina River in 1997 about 200 yards from where the original ship landed.

From May through October, you can take river cruises out of Wilmington or day sails from Historic New Castle.

If sailing isn’t your plan, the Copeland Maritime Center at the shipyard runs year-round museum exhibits on Delaware’s maritime history. It’s one of the more unusual things you can do at any national park in the country.

The tavern where the Constitution got its first yes

William Penn’s surveyors laid out the Dover Green in 1717, and it’s been a public space ever since. In a tavern near the Green, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution on Dec. 7, 1787.

The Old State House, finished in 1791, served as Delaware’s capitol until 1933 and is open for free tours. At the John Bell House, costumed guides lead walking tours of the area.

The Green still sits at the center of downtown Dover and still draws crowds for public events.

The Penman of the Revolution grew up here

Southeast of Dover, the John Dickinson Plantation was home to one of the more important figures most Americans have never heard of.

Dickinson’s writing helped push the colonies toward resistance against British rule, and he signed the U.S. Constitution. The 1740 Georgian brick mansion once anchored a 13,000-acre plantation.

Tours here go beyond the founder’s story to cover the tenant farmers, indentured servants and enslaved and free Black people who lived and worked the land.

In 2021, researchers discovered an African burial ground on the property, and that work is still ongoing.

Hike through Delaware’s oldest trees

The Brandywine Valley unit covers more than 1,100 acres of forest and rolling farmland, the largest piece of the park.

Quaker industrialist William Poole Bancroft bought the land in the early 1900s specifically to keep it from being developed.

Tulip Tree Woods holds tulip poplars close to 200 years old, recognized as Delaware’s first old-growth forest. Neighboring Brandywine Creek State Park adds another 933 acres and more than 14 miles of trails.

From mid-September to mid-November, Hawk Watch Hill draws people tracking migrating hawks, falcons and eagles moving through the valley.

Delaware’s oldest house sits 40 miles from Dover

Down in Lewes, about 40 miles southeast of Dover, the Ryves Holt House dates to roughly the 1680s, making it the oldest surviving house in Delaware. Quaker immigrants built it as a simple tavern.

Ryves Holt, Sussex County’s first Chief Justice, bought it in the 1720s.

Today it’s a museum that covers its colonial history and the story of War of 1812 naval hero Jacob Jones, who once lived there.

The house joined First State National Historical Park in 2014, making Lewes the southernmost stop on the trail.

A courthouse that put abolitionists on trial

The New Castle Court House carries a harder chapter too.

In 1848, Delaware abolitionist Thomas Garrett and fellow stationmaster John Hunn stood trial there for helping the Hawkins family escape slavery.

The court convicted both men and fined them into financial ruin. Garrett kept helping freedom seekers anyway, all the way to the Civil War.

The courthouse is now a designated National Park Service Network to Freedom site, and the guided tours don’t skip this part of the story.

The Kalmar Nyckel Foundation also runs programming on Underground Railroad history across the Delaware Valley.

Visit First State National Historical Park in Delaware

You can start your visit at the New Castle Court House, where rangers can help you plan your route and pick up a National Parks Passport stamp.

The park spans seven sites, and collecting all 12 passport stamps across them makes for a good reason to see everything. Most sites are free.

Dogs are welcome on leash in the Brandywine Valley unit and in outdoor areas at New Castle and Dover. Check the official website for current hours and seasonal tour schedules at each site before you go.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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