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New Castle County Archives - Secrets of the Eastern Shore

Way Back Machine

Merry Christmas, Joe Taylor! An Old Black Man Gets His 15 Minutes of Fame, 1955

We’ve all met someone like Joe Taylor. He’s that old guy who wanders the streets. He’s poor, but he’s not homeless, and he’s not begging. He just loves to talk with other people. He’s always on the lookout for a mark who might listen. He’s convinced that his life story is fascinating. He believes deep down that his memories make for spellbinding conversation. Make eye…
December 19, 2021
Good Times & Fun EventsMiscellanyThe Newsroom

The Delaware City Book Signing! Oct. 2, 2021

The award-winning writer Jim Duffy of Secrets of the Eastern Shore will be in Delaware City for a book-signing event on the afternoon of Oct. 2, 2021. The affair will take place downtown at the Delaware City Trading Company, 60 Clinton Street, 1-3pm. Duffy is the author of the bestselling Eastern Shore Road Trips series. Subtitled “One-Day Adventures on Delmarva,” the two books in the…
August 11, 2021
CharactersWay Back Machine

‘The most remarkable man I had ever seen:’ John Hunn, Delaware’s Warrior for Freedom

If I could commune with the dead of Delmarva, one soul I would definitely want to call out is John Hunn, a great warrior for freedom during the days of slavery. He was a key player—the “superintendent,” as he once described it—along an Underground Railroad line the ran through central and northern Delaware. Precise numbers are impossible to pin down, but it’s likely that Hunn…
June 24, 2020
From the BooksTubman TravelsWay Back Machine

TUBMAN TRAVELS: The Strangers Who Risked Everything for Sam And Emeline Hawkins

 This is a free excerpt from the Secrets of the Eastern Shore book, Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva. The book tells true-life stories from the Underground Railroad, and all of those stories are linked to places that you can go visit in your travels on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware. BIG PICTURE: Redemption Song One thing I’ve learned in working on…
May 4, 2020
Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The stately looking steamboat … cautiously, almost stealthily edged her way into the locks” of the C&D Canal.

In 1881, the Wilmington (Del.) Morning News published one writer’s eloquent account of his steamboat journey from the old city of New Castle through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and on across the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore. Here are some highlights: Steamboats ran on the bays and rivers of Delmarva for a century and a half, from 1813 until 1962. This account of one brief…
March 28, 2020
From the BooksTubman TravelsWay Back Machine

TUBMAN TRAVELS BOOK EXCERPT: ‘One More Soul Got Safe!’

'One More Soul Got Safe!' is an excerpt from my book, Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva. Each chapter in the book is a self-contained story from those Underground Railroad days. Each story is linked to a place you can visit today in Delaware or on Maryland's Eastern Shore, but they are also perfectly fit for armchair reading in the comfort of your…
November 10, 2019
From the BooksQuote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY, 1930s: ‘The Big Quarterly is a day of joy, gladness, and freedom’

Follow in the footsteps of American heroes. Click on the cover for info. This book excerpt below is from Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. It comes from a chapter that has you strolling alongside the pretty and historic Christina River as it runs through downtown Wilmington, Del. I am posting this a few days before the 2019 edition of…
August 21, 2019
From the BooksWay Back Machine

ROAD TRIPS 2 EXCERPT: ‘A Remarkably Ugly Fish’

This is an excerpt from Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva: That phrase, "a remarkably ugly fish" was perhaps the kindest phrase the environmental historian Nancy Langston employed during a 2019 talk she gave about the sturgeon. The phrases “sort of like zombies” and “basically dinosaurs” came into play as well. Langston wasn’t kidding about that last one. You’ve heard of…
May 15, 2019
CharactersWay Back Machine

Snow Hill/Wilmington Character of the Day: Hall of Famer Judy Johnson

Clutch: That’s the word that pops up when baseball people talk about how Judy Johnson earned his place among the game’s all-time greats. Johnson wasn’t particularly strong, or fast, or powerful. He stood less than 6 feet tall and weighed less than 150 pounds. There was nothing flashy about his style. But "no one would drive in as many clutch runs as he would,” said…
June 14, 2018
Tubman Travels

TUBMAN TRAVELS: How the Other ‘Moses’ Kept the Dogs of Slavery at Bay

The story of Moses Viney that follows is excerpted from Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva, a book by Secrets of the Eastern Shore that tells stories of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and many other men and women whose journeys in slavery and out of bondage went through the Eastern Shore and Delaware. Moses Viney had a pretty fun go of it for…
March 27, 2018