Port Penn Schoolhouse
Symbol of the Community
Left Panel
State Stewardship: Linking People, Culture and Environment
After operating the museum for fifteen years, the Port Penn Area Historical Society transferred the schoolhouse museum to the Division of Parks and Recreation in 1991. It now serves as the cornerstone of the Delaware Folklife Program's mission to document and interpret Delaware's local culture. Port Penn's marshland and ways of life remain a focus of the Division's interpretive programs.
Center Panel Eight grades of students attended classes in the two rooms of this school. The schoolhouse had a coal stove, outdoor privy and a well. Because of segregation, Port Penn's African-American children were educated in a separate school on Port Penn Road. After it closed in 1961, the building served for a time as a bait shop. In 1975, it reopened as the Port Penn museum, a symbol of the community's history and way of life.
Right Panel Built in 1856, this schoolhouse served to educate Port Penn's children until 1961. Now a State Parks interpretive center, it continues to teach people about the Port Penn community.
Marker is at the intersection of Market Street and Liberty Street, on the right when traveling west on Market Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
