Willingtown Square

Willingtown Square honors Thomas Willing and the original name of the town he helped found in 1731. The four brick structures, built between 1748 and 1801, represent the types of houses common in early Willingtown. Buildings like these often served as both businesses and residences. Each has only one or two rooms per floor. Large families both lived and worked in these small spaces. . . By the 1960s and 1970s the older neighborhoods in which these houses originally stood had decayed and were slated for urban renewal. A determined effort by preservationists rallied support to move the buildings to a site on Market Street from which four commercial buildings had been removed. The houses were moved in 1976 and the area renamed Willingtown Square. The Historical Society of Delaware accepted the responsibility for preserving the houses and now uses them for offices and meeting rooms. . . [photo caption] The city removed abandoned buildings, that once housed a wig salon, a bike shop, a drugstore, and the Towne Theater to establish Willingtown Square in 1976. . . [photo caption] The houses were lifted onto flatbed trailers and towed to Willingtown Square in 1976. . This historical marker is in Wilmington in New Castle County Delaware