From the Sun-Times
Jan. 3, 1990
Wagon Wheel looks for new owners after 28 years
By Susan Biro
Editor
Saying it’s time someone else had the chance to run the business, Wagon Wheel owner Kitty Budd has made the decision to sell the Smyrna restaurant.
No one has bought the restaurant, but Budd has had a few prospects come in and take a look at the business which has had three owners in its history.
Budd, 66, and her husband Grey have owned the Wagon Wheel restaurant located on Rt. 13 for 28 years....
Unmarked grave found at site of 1700s farm
By Susan Biro
Editor
She’s young, most likely in her late teens or early 20s. She’s about 4’10” tall. She was buried in a shroud or blanket. Her unmarked grave was found in mid-October during an archaeological excavation for the Rt. 13 Relief Route on Rt. 6 in Smyrna.
It’s been the bits and pieces of information like the condition of the young woman’s teeth and how she was buried that indicate to University of Delaware and DelDOT archaeologists that the grave dates back to the mid or late 1700s.
Excavation ended about two weeks ago at the site, which is almost directly across form the entrance to Smyrna Landing.
University of Delaware archaeologists were hired by DelDOT to excavate the site because it is in the path of the Rt. 13 Relief Route and it was known that a store, and later farmhouse, had occupied the spot.
“It was our last excavation and the University of Delaware began working there in August. They had located the site several years ago while doing a survey for the Relief Route and we knew it would have to be excavated before construction,” explained Kevin Cunningham, archaeologist for DelDOT....
Cunningham said archaeologists were excavating to look for features of wells near the store and farmhouse when the unmarked grave was discovered about 15 feet east of the house foundation....
According to local historian George Caley, a man named John Darragh was a merchant from about the late 1700s to sometime in the 1800s. He owned the store which was located near Duck Creek and it was a source of active trade....
“This are was the center of commerce and a very active place. I like to kid people that Smyrna was at one time bigger than Dover. They imported and exported many things, like tea, sugar, coffee, and bolt goods which is cloth. Only people with money bought the cloth to make clothes, but there was a lot of shipping going on.”
Also according to Caley, Smyrna Landing was not even known as Smyrna Landing at the time John Darragh would have operated his store.
“It was Green’s Landing first. Green had a daughter named Rachel and she married a man named Jordan so then it was called Jordan’s Landing,” said Caley. “After about 1750 or 1770 it got a new name – Duck Creek Landing and sometime after 1808 or so it was named Smyrna Landing like today.”
“Darragh died without a will and his land was broken up. A man named Isaac Davis bought a lot of it but we’re not sure if he bought the site of the store,” said Caley. “And back then Commerce Street was called the Maryland Road and it originally ran from Green’s Landing to Millington. So between the roads and the river, Duck Creek was very, very active in trade.”...
As for the unmarked grave found at the site on Rt. 6, Cunningham said that if no one answers the notice regarding next of kin the state will complete a bone analysis of the remains and re-inter them somewhere in the Smyrna area....
