History
The New-Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike Company was chartered in Delaware on January 24, 1809 and in Maryland on January 6, 1810. It opened in 1815 and 1816, providing a turnpike from New Castle, Delaware on the Delaware Bay west-southwest to Old Frenchtown Wharf, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. The easternmost section, east of Clark's Corner (under 3 miles), had been built in 1812 by the New Castle Turnpike Company, chartered January 30, 1811.
Chapter 207 of the 1827 Session Laws of Maryland, passed March 14, 1828, authorized the company to replace the turnpike with a railroad, and change its name to the New-Castle and French Town Turnpike and Rail Road Company. Similar laws did the same for the two companies in Delaware, renaming the New Castle Turnpike Company to the New Castle Turnpike and Railroad Company. The companies merged on March 31, 1830 to form the New Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike and Rail Road Company (no dash in New Castle), and the new railroad opened in 1831, using horses for about a year before switching to steam locomotives.
The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, opened in 1829, was a major competitor to the railroad.
On March 15, 1839 the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad bought the NC&F, using it as an alternate route.
The New Castle and Wilmington Rail Road was connected to the New Castle end in 1852, and by 1856 the Delaware Railroad had opened, splitting from the New Castle and Frenchtown at Rodney Village, about halfway between the two ends. In 1859 the railroad was abandoned west of Rodney; most of the right-of-way is still cleared.
On March 28, 1877, the New Castle and Frenchtown was merged into the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system. In 1891 the PW&B sold the old New Castle and Frenchtown line, as well as the New Castle and Wilmington, to the Delaware Railroad, which was leased to the PW&B.
The east half of the old alignment has since passed into Penn Central, Conrail, and now Norfolk Southern, which uses it to reach the Delmarva Peninsula.
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