Waterfront at Delaware City

Waterfront at Delaware City. . , This quiet waterfront promenade was once part of a busy, noisy commercial district that included coal wharves, a steamboat dock, sheds and stores, and broad staging areas for local produce destined for markets in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Piers at both ends of the waterfront extended into the river some 250 feet to offer additional mooring places., Although the arrival of the railroad in 1873 challenged water transportation, commercial fishing and shipment of wood and coal kept the port busy into the 20th century. The river is still a vital shipping lane; less than two miles north of the city, modern docks serve vessels destined for the oil refinery that stands on land where peach orchards once flourished., [Captions:] , Around 1840, Philip (later "Major") Reybold began growing peaches just north of Delaware City. By 1845, he had 110,000 peach trees and was shipping tens of thousands of baskets of peaches to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York on his own steamboats, which docked at Major's Wharf. In the late 1800s, a peach blight struck and by 1880 Reybold's peaches were largely a thing of the past. At the height of the peach boo the illustration below appeared in Harper's Weekly, September 11, 1878., In August, 1885, Captain Eugene Reybold, brought the Major Reybold to port through a tornado that killed two people on shore and injured several others. The ship's pilot, Emory Townsend, drowned. The ship was repaired and continued to carry passengers between Philadelphia and points south until about 1908.