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The Moravian Church, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Dutch

There is such a town, and but one-New Castle, Delaware. The Swedes laid it out in 1631, and called it New Stockholm. In 1651 the Dutch built a fort there, and called it Fort Kasimir. Sandhoec was a second Dutch name. When the Dutch West India Company ceded it to the city of Amsterdam it was named New Amstel.

After 1675 the English took a hand in naming the village. Grape Wine Point, Delaware Town, and, at length, New Castle were the last names assigned to the seaport that, within a generation, boasted twenty-five hundred inhabitants.

The site of Fort Kasimir was long ago covered by the Delaware. A quaint house, still occupied, is the only survival from the Dutch period. But it would be difficult to find a town of four thousand inhabitants which is so rich in buildings and traditions that go back to the earliest English occupation.