Architectural Features of Fort Delaware

Pea Patch Island, aka Fort Delaware, looks like a castle complete with a moat surrounding it. The walls are thick and strong enough to withstand artillery fire from the enemy.

The entrance is known as the "sally port" which in the modern vernacular means a controlled, secure entry way into an area. While it's easy to understand the word "port" as meaning portal, or entrance, one might ask, Where does the term "sally" come from and what does it mean? The term "sally" actually comes from the Latin word "salire" which means to jump, or the term "sortie" which refers to a military manuever in which soldiers create a defense and then retreat behind it waiting for the enemy to attack.

Today this term is used to mean entry into a controlled area in which the entire area is "safe" or protected. So now you know! :)

Although this fort was used as a prisoner of war camp during the War Between the States (this is the Southern term for the Civil War), the architecture of this fort is elegant by today's standards. This bleached wooden door and hand forged black wrought iron hardware caught my eye. There is a blacksmith shop in the fort.

Throughout the fort small openings covered with bars provided a view to across the moat.

Smaller doors like this led to well developed and clean water closets-- it's just funny that this one was a two seater!

Wonder how comfortable it would be to "do your business" with a companion at your side??? The social scientist in me wants to know if there's ever been a study done on this...

These walls are amazing! They are massive and beautiful... the worn brick and the arches speak of another time...

Imagining how this place was built with the tools and equipment available at the time strains the brain, and yet, it is an exercise in learning to think differently, seeing something from a different perspective, and trying to absorb the mood of a bygone era.

Old places that survive tell a story and pass on the old present to the future...and we who visit ccommemorate past lives and past times.

Pea Patch Island

We are still in the middle of a heat wave with temps above 90 degrees each day, but that didn't stop Ed and I from visiting Pea Patch island last Sunday! The temp hovered around 94 degrees-- but our saving grace was a gentle cool breeze from the North. Pea Patch Island sits in the middle of a narrow part of the Delaware River-- a busy shipping channel for the Port of Philadelphia.

It was originally built in the early 1800's but then was destroyed and rebuilt just before the Civil War. While at one time the island positioned 91 big guns to protect points north of it, The guns were said to have never fired in anger. Not sure what that means... did they fire at all? All I know now is that many of the guns were taken for their value as a source of metal for the war effort.

To get on Pea Patch Island, you have to take the ferry from DE City. The trip takes about 7 minutes-- I know because I timed it. Upon arrival to the dock at the island, visitors are taken via a little tram (pulled by a pickup truck) to the fort itself.

The official name of Pea Patch Island is Fort Delaware-- now a state park. Thank goodness because it probably would have been bought by some developer if it hadn't been purchased by the state park service! The island was originally owned by Dr. Henry Gale, a New Jersey resident who used this for his private hunting grounds, and when he declined the State of Delaware's offer to buy it from him for $30,000 around 1811,the State of Delaware legislature seized the island from him. DE was desperate to establish a protection in the Delaware River because of the British attack on Lewes in the War of 1812. The fort is constructed much like a castle, with walls three feet thick and a moat surround.

It's been about twenty years since I've been here last, and much work has been done to preserve this place. Re-enactments are performed by volunteers who freely give their time to "become" a Civil War character. At the height of the Civil War, Fort Delaware housed 33,000 confederate soldiers as the Fort was now a prisoner-of-war camp.

A smallpox epidemic in 1863 was responsible for about half the deaths that occurred on the island.

There is still a lot of restoration work to be done, because the ramparts-- the walkway on top of the fort-- is crumbling badly. When the kids were little coming to Pea Patch island was an annual Spring pilgrimage, and I remember walking along the East and South side of the ramparts, but now only the North side is open to visitors.

Pea Patch Island is just one of those wonderful day trips that is a reminder of history so close to home. I love day trips like this because they feel like little mini-vacations. It's always great to experience a change of scenery-- I really do think it rewires our minds!