NASSAU, WESCOATS AND MIDWAY 1938

NASSAU, QUAKERTOWN AND MIDWAY

1938

Nassau, population 75, on the Lewes Rehoboth Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, is

shipping station for local diary farmers milk, fruit and produce. There are large apple

orchards, packing an shipping houses and a cannery along the railroad. Soon after the

Civil War ended the railroad to most everthing to Lewes and Nassau became the sleepy

little village it is today.

Nearby is Wescoats Corner, where the state road 18 to Rehoboth branches off to the left to

Lewes. As early as 1725 there was a Public House kept here for the Kings Highway.

The local militia trained here and the early county whipping post and pillory were located

before being moved in to Lewes. This was then Quakertown, also known as Prettymanville

for the Prettyman family who lived there and kept a store. The Wescoats family had a wagon

and buggy building business here too.

Farther down the road towards Rehoboth is Midway, midway on the old dirt and sand road

between Lewes and Rehoboth. In old days the Maxwells and Model T's midway was a

welcome point to weary tourist bound for the seashore after asix or eight hour trip on the roads

from Wilmington and up state.

Another mile and the dirt road junction to the Marsh Cemetery, well kept, iron fenced, in a

grove of stately pines, one of the state largest burying grounds. The earliest grave marker

stone is that of Peter Marsh who died in 1769.

One of the Marsh Plantation houses, perhaps the original one, now restored and enlarged,

now known as the Homestead in Henlopen Acres.

Abstract: June 1, 2018, Harrison H., from October 2004 Beach Life, from the WPA

Federal Writers Project of 1936.