Penn Farm

The one hundred twelve-acre Penn Farm is the last surviving farm of the one thousand sixty-eight-acre New Castle Common. In October 1701, William Penn, Proprietor and Governor of Pennsylvania, granted the New Castle Common to remain in common for the accommodation of the inhabitants of the Town of New Castle for their only use forever. The Common served as both pasture land for livestock and a source of wood for New Castle inhabitants. It is held in trust and managed by the Trustees of the New Castle Common, a private land trust first chartered in 1764. In 1792, the Board of Trustees divided the Common into eleven tenant farms for lease. The first tenant was local businessman and Trustee John Crow, who constructed a house on the historic farmstead in stages between 1799 and 1828. A granary and dairy barn date to the mid-nineteenth century. The tract was later named in honor of the proprietary Penn family and today combines original farms number six and number eleven. Penn Farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

New Castle, Delaware · United States