Middletown

Beginning in the 1690s, settler Adam Peterson and his family acquired several tracts of land here. One tract, surveyed in 1733, was given the name "Middletown." The name is believed to come from the area's position at the middle point of a road that led from the head of the Bohemia River to the banks of Appoquinimink Creek. At the intersection of this road and the busy King's Highway, the crossroads had become an important stop for travelers by the mid-18th century. A tavern was established there, and a small village developed around it. The town grew rapidly after the railroad arrived in 1855. In the midst of some of the state's most productive farmlands, it became an important shipping point for a variety of agricultural products. Its prosperous peach industry flourished until a disease known as "Peach Yellows" destroyed many of the orchards here and elsewhere on the Delmarva Peninsula. Middletown was incorporated by the Delaware General Assembly on February 12, 1861.

Middletown, Delaware · United States