National Register Listing

Short's Landing Hotel Complex

NE of Smyrna, Smyrna, DE

The Short's Landing Hotel Complex is an important surviving complex of a type that was once very common. For most of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, Delaware was dependent upon water routes for transportation. Most of the towns and settlements developed along navigable waterways and those that were inland, such as Smyrna, soon developed a series of landings along the routes from the town to the Delaware Bay. Short's Landing was one of the earliest to serve Smyrna and it is the only one left besides Brick Store Landing (listed 1973) in Blackbird Hundred, New Castle County. The brick hotel is an example of a late-eighteenth-century dwelling that was a common feature on the land, but which has been disappearing rapidly. The mansion house is a fine example of a Federal-style frame dwelling and one that has been unaltered, except for the addition of the c. 1880 porch.

The hotel was built c. 1780 by Abraham Taylor. The hotel is a vernacular structure that incorporates the spatial arrangements that became popular during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. This includes the central stair hall and the rear wing as a service wing. At that time, it was accessible only by boat along the Duck Creek. That creek was an important transportation route in central Delaware. Duck Creek Crossroads, now known as Smyrna, developed as a grain shipping point in the mid-eighteenth century. It was located astride the main north-south road down the state, and at the start of the main road to Chestertown, Maryland, and the Chesapeake Bay. Overland travel was difficult at best; therefore, water transit was of prime importance. Landing spots, such as Short's Landing, sprung up to handle the river traffic. These landings usually consisted of a pier, a store, a hotel, and a few dwellings.

Short's Landing was a small landing and it was the first one in from the Delaware Bay and a mile in from the thoroughfare which was cut through a short point of land to provide a fast route from the Duck Creek to the bay. The thoroughfare was dug in the early eighteenth century. It is also located on the earliest fast land in the bay. Before the channel was cut, boats had to proceed down Duck Creek for 13 miles before it entered the bay.

No records indicate when Abraham Taylor acquired the property. It was originally part of a tract called "Bear Garden" that had been assigned to William Frampton in 1686. It is most possible that there were earlier structures on the site, but no evidence exists at the present time for their location. The hotel was very popular. When it was first built, it served the dual function of a dwelling for Taylor and his family and as a hotel. As his business grew, he added the frame mansion house to the east and moved his family there. The mansion house is one of the finer expressions of the vernacular, Federal style in lower Delaware. The use of the dentils on the cornice and the well-executed dormer details all indicate an attention to construction not usually evident in the region.

Soon after the mansion house was completed, Taylor died and left his estate in the care of his wife and children. The estate was settled in 1808 and the hotel and mansion house were sold to Jacob Stout. In 1830, Stout laid out the road from Rothwell's Landing to the Bombay Hook light at the mouth of the thoroughfare. Rothwell's Landing is 2 miles east of Smyrna. This road exists now only as far as the mansion house.

Isaac Short bought the land and the buildings in 1837. He increased the acreage associated with the point and gave his name to the landing. When he died in 1865, his administrator Abel J. Reese bought the land. Reese operated the hotel, but the property began to decline as the railroads began to replace water transportation. By 1890, the hotel was closed. Another factor in the demise of the property and also the loss of much of the tillable land was the hurricane of 1878. In October of that year, a very large storm destroyed the dikes and levees along the bay, the whole length of Delaware. There was much flooding and loss of life and property. All the buildings at Collins Beach, a popular resort area on Bombay Hook, were destroyed. Trees were blown down and many dwellings along the bay lost their roofs. Since this storm, most of the land between the bay and Duck Creek has become marshland. Reese tried to continue his operations but lost the land due to heavy debts in 1880. Since then the tract has been owned by absentee landlords who used it for a combination of activities. The leadite factory was in operation mainly from the 1920s to the late 1940s. Since the mid-1950s, the major activity at the landing has been as a base camp for duck hunters. The brick hotel is used as a boarding house for the hunters. The camp operator also lives in the hotel, while the mansion house is a tenant house.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1983.