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New Castle, Delaware
Community History and Archaeology Program 


With permission of Peter Spier
Click on image to enlarge

Mother Goose came to New Castle in 1965

Selections from 'To Market, To Market' by Peter Spier

The church doors they stood open Immanuel Church interior
The bell-ropes they were made of hay Immanuel Churchyard
To Market, To Market To Buy A Fat Pig The Green
To Market, To Market To Buy A Fat Hog Packet Alley
Cheese and bread for gentlemenRear of Courthouse
To Market, to market, to buy a plum bun Delaware St. by Courthouse
This is silver Saturday Birdseye view
Afterword Biographical note(1967)

Recollections about New Castle by Peter Spier (2008)

Here a few words about my "discovery" of New Castle.
 
In 1960, my wife and were married for not quite two years, I was asked to make a 
series of murals for the  childrens' section of the Winterthur Museum. We did live
in an apartment on the museum grounds, and  during evenings, and on weekends  
explored the neighborhood. 
 
You can imagine our delight when we found New Castle, where we returned tens of
times during our Winterthur months. In the years that followed on our way south
we never failed to get off the main road to visit New Castle with it's many happy
memories, and do so to this day!
 
In 1965 I was planning a series of four books, the "Mother Goose Library", and 
I chose New Castle as the setting for 'To Market! To Market!", # 2 in the series. 
By that time we did have two small children, and I went alone to New Castle to make
the sketches  of the many details I would need for the book, which took  about one 
week.The farm scenes, by the way, were drawn at the Winterthur farm.
 
Those "children" are by now 47 and 45,  we are grandparents, and next month we'll
be married for half a century. Those fifty years cover countless happy memories, 
of which New Castle is a fondly remembered part.
 
All good wishes,
 
Peter Spier
Source for scanning the images: New Castle Public Library