Report of the Archaeological Investigations of the New Castle Court ...

NEW CASTLE COURT HOUSE PLAZA
NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE
5.0 INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
fronting the Court House, while another reference strongly indicates that the plaza was
constructed by the fall of 1821. At that time repairs were performed to the pavement around the
Court House from scaffolding post holes. This ‘pavement’ may be a reference to the plaza’s drylaid,
herringbone patterned brick paving surface.
The current plaza is accessible at three locations from street level and is enclosed by a faced
mortared fieldstone retaining wall crowned by capstones and a wrought iron railing The primary
stairway is located in front of the circa 1732 section and one of two secondary steps is located in
front of the 1845 wing, both of which front onto Delaware Street. The third set of steps is located
on the eastern side of the plaza adjacent to the 1765/1802 addition and faces onto Second Street.
Prior to the commencement of archeological testing, preliminary evidence on the west plaza
indicated that the current plaza was built in two phases. This supposition was based on three
factors. The most obvious indicator consisted of a north-south stretcher line of bricks, located
directly in front of the entryway to the 1845 wing. This stretcher line or ‘construction seam,’
measuring approximately 18.4 ft. from the western edge of the circa 1732 block would have been
the result of adjoining two different plaza sections. This construction sequence was supported by
the use of different bricks on either side of this stretcher seam. The bricks on the west side were
in much better repair suggesting a more recent construction episode than those utilized in the rest
of the plaza surface. It also appeared that the capstones along the extreme western portion of the
stone retaining wall paralleling Delaware Street had been reused. One possible explanation for
this capstone reuse can be explained by the two construction episodes. It appears that the original
row of capstones, which would have been located on the west side of the circa 1820 plaza, was
used to crown the southern wall of the newly expanded section. These reused capstones are
identical to those that are used elsewhere in the circa 1820 plaza while the current western
capstone row is noticeably constructed of a different type of slate.
The archeological fieldwork within this area showed that the ‘construction seam’ line of stretcher
bricks delineated the interior edge of the original circa 1820 capstone row, physical evidence
originally identified during the 1950s restoration work (Wolcott 1957:199). The exterior of the
original plaza measured a total of 20 ft. from the western edge of the circa 1732 central block; a
dimension similar to the extant 1765 eastern addition. The current western plaza measures 34 ft.
in aggregate from the circa 1732 block. In fact, the 1804-05 Latrobe map of New Castle shows
the Court House with the 1765/1802 wing and a wing of smaller dimension on the west side
(Figure 3). A small building, identified by DSM staff as a glazier’s hut, is shown to be
immediately adjacent the earlier west addition. The 1765 western wing, similar to the extant 1765
east wing, was constructed on the west side of the Court House but was subsequently razed in
order to construct the 1845 wing. Once the new wing was constructed, which measured
approximately 15.5 ft. wider than the earlier addition, the western plaza section needed to be
enlarged to correspond to the increased dimension.
5.2 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF THE PLAZA
Few areas within the plaza appear to have been disturbed or altered in the recent past (since circa
1936). The most prominent, enduring and historically recurring disturbance was erosion, one of
the primary reasons for the initial plaza construction in the second decade of the nineteenth
century and for the plaza restoration in 2003. It is likely that erosion problems at the southeast
corner of the 1732 block began soon after construction, due in part not only to the knoll where the
Court House was constructed but also to the Court House’s original steep gambrel roof, replaced
following a fire in 1771 (Kruse 1966:95). Excavation units adjacent to the circa 1820 plaza all
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