Iron, a hill and a heritage of Iro n

By Gene Pisasale Contributing Writer

Just south of Newark, Delaware stands a geographic feature which played a prominent role not only in America’s fight for independence, but also the industrial and cultural heritage of the region.

Iron Hill is west of Delaware Route 896 and south of Interstate 95, in the Pencader Hundred area, an outcropping of a weathered igneous intrusion of what is now called the

Iron Hill gabbro. Iron Hill is one of the tallest geographic sites in Delaware with a peak elevation of 328 feet. Gabbro is a dark green to black colored rock which contains plagioclase feldspar, pyroxene and olivine. The Iron Hill deposit also includes iron oxide in the form of hematite, goethite and limonite. It is these iron minerals which were mined more than three centuries ago that featured prominently in the history of the Diamond State.

Aside from many Quakers, there were thousands of Welsh Baptists who wanted to escape religious persecution in England in the late 17th century. They came to Delaware—and hearing of iron deposits southwest of what is today Newark, Welsh miners petitioned William Penn for tracts of land in the area.

In 1701, Penn granted them 30,000 acres, including the hill which they called “Pencader,” which means ‘the highest seat” in Welsh. These “Welsh tracts” became popular to new settlers, many of whom stayed to mine the local iron deposits. It wasn’t just miners who were interested.

In Delaware: A Bicentennial History, author Carol E. Hoffecker mentions other groups drawn to the region. Around the time of the 30,000-acre grant, 16 other Baptists from the Welsh counties of Pembroke and Caermarthen wanted to go to America as “church emigrants” to seek greater freedom. After an initial stay in Pennsylvania, they came south, settled near Iron Hill and started the first Baptist Church in Delaware, in a small structure called the Welsh Tract Church. The surviving church building was constructed in 1746 and is known today as the Welsh Tract