Mount Pleasant School

On February 12, 1829, the Delaware Legislature passed the “Act for the establishment of free schools.” To meet the educational needs of the area’s youth, local residents formed a committee that purchased a parcel of land from Joseph Orr in 1830 for the purpose of “erecting a school house thereon, for the benefit of the subscribers residing in said District.” The school was used until 1865 when the building was purchased by Philadelphia merchant Hanson Robinson to add to his Woolton Hall estate, in exchange for another lot and a new school building on the east side of Philadelphia Pike. The original school building was subsequently altered for use as a residence in Colonial Revival style by William F. du Pont, Jr. as part of his greater transformation of the Bellevue estate. The structure came into state ownership in 1976 with the original acquisition of Bellevue State Park.