Friends of Historic Glasgow (Delaware)

Glasgow property is historic (10/5/04)

News Journal Op/Ed article on LaGrange

By EARNEST N. DAVIS
10/05/2004

Recent News Journal articles concerning the 236-acre Barczweski farm's future have missed a major point about this property -- its historic value.

In 1777 the road that connected Elkton (then called Head of Elk) and Glasgow (then called Aiken's Tavern) ran through this property. In the early morning of Sept. 3, the vanguard of Gen. William Howe's British army advanced along this road from Elkton into Glasgow.

An eyewitness had seen Howe's 15,000 to 18,000- man army a few days before on its way to Elkton, "their bright guns and bayonets gleaming in the rays of the early August sun."

About a half-mile north out of Glasgow, on the road toward Newark (now Del. 896) a 1,100-man force began to meet resistance from roughly 1,000 regular soldiers and militiamen of Gen. George Washington's American army. The fighting lasted approximately two hours and covered roughly a 2-mile area. The British and their Hessian mercenaries won the day.

We now know this as the Battle of Cooch's Bridge.

The bulk of Howe's army followed the vanguard route and camped along a line extending roughly from the top of Iron Hill and down to Glasgow to Sept. 8. Aiken's tavern itself was Howe's headquarters. British army maps of the time clearly show the road from Elkton into Glasgow and the area where individual British units camped.

Much has changed in Delaware since 1777, but that long abandoned road still exists on the Barczewski farm. A representative of the National Park Service Battlefield Protection Program believes this property still contains entrenchments left by this army. The Battle of Cooch's Bridge was the only military engagement of the American Revolutionary War to take place on Delaware soil.

On Sept. 4, 1777, the day after the battle, Washington rallied his troops by telling them: "Who is either without ambition for the applause of their countrymen and all posterity as the defenders of their country and the procurers of peace and happiness to unborn millions in the present and future generations?"

We are the generations to which Washington referred. Once the full history of the Barczewski property is made known (and there is more to tell) the value of preserving it will become clear, If New Castle County government cannot find a way to preserve this property alone, then the state or national level should step in.

Earnest N. Davis, of Newark, is a member of Friends of Historic Glasgow.

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