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In the winter of 1802 a rudderless French immigrant living in New Jersey named Eleuthere Irenee du Pont was invited to the Brandywine Valley to hunt game. It was not a successful trip. The damp weather fouled his gunpowder so that his musket continually misfired. When the day ended du Pont decided to re-enter the industry he had turned his back on in France as a youth: black powder manufacturing. When it came time to launch his new business he remembered what you see today at Brandywine Creek State Park: the hardwood forests that would burn to charcoal, one of the ingredients he would need for powder; the abundant granite in the hills to build his mills; and the swift-flowing river to power the mills. And so he returned to Delaware.
Once a duPont family dairy farm, this spectacular tract of 784 acres became Brandywine Creek State Park in 1965. Delaware's first two nature preserves are located here: Tulip Tree Woods, behind the park office, and Freshwater Marsh, at the edge of Brandywine Creek. The protection in these preserves extends not just to plants and animals but to rocks and natural debris. Nothing may be disturbed or removed.
The Tulip Tree Woods is a 24-acre stand of old-growth tulip trees that have grown undisturbed for more than 200 years. The Tulip Tree Trail is a guided walk among these giants and approximately a dozen other tree species that flourish in this small forest. Along the way there are American Chestnut stumps, remnants of a pandemic blight which decimated this most majestic of trees. Although sprigs of the American Chestnut can still be seen growing in eastern forests, they too will eventually succumb to the blight, for which there is no cure.
The Hidden Pond Trail, with a boardwalk through the overflow from the creek, and the Indian Springs Trail lead to the Freshwater Marsh, tucked into the undergrowth along the creek. A bench by the marsh allows for quiet contemplation of the creatures among the reeds. Both trails are firm dirt tracks along the water's edge.
A dominant feature of Brandywine State Park are the stone walls that crisscross the rolling meadows. They are the legacy of skilled Italian masons who crafted the barriers from locally quarried Brandywine granite, known familiarly as "Blue Rocks." Minor league baseball teams in Wilmington have twice turned to these distinctive stones for their nicknames.
Altogether there are eight blazed trails on both sides of the water at Brandywine Creek State Park. All are short, all are woodsy, and all are hilly. The star walk at Thompson's Bridge on the other side of the Brandywine Creek is the rugged green-blazed Rocky Run Trail, winding around the closest thing to a mountain stream in Delaware. On this trail are tiny pine forests nestled among their hardwood neighbors. Also at Thompson's Bridge is a Multi-Use Trail that follows the Brandywine Creek for about two miles.
Adjacent to Brandywine Creek State Park, on the opposite side of the creek, is a large tract of property managed by the Woodlawn Trustees. Miles of informal trails are available here, some stretching all the way into Pennsylvania. Anyone spending a day hiking across the hills at Brandywine Creek State Park will be hard pressed to say they just spent their time in Delaware, maximum elevation 442 feet.
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