School Tours
Covid-19 Hours
Self-guided tours of special exhibitions will re-open to the public on July 1, 2020, in a three-phase system under new social distancing guidelines set by the State of Delaware. Visitors will be required to wear masks at all times when in our buildings.
The Bank will be open for self-guided tours for up to 20 people at a time observing social distancing guidelines. Guided tours will be by reservation for up to 5 people including the guide and must be paid for in advance of the tour.
Guided tours will reopen to the public when the State of Delaware reaches phase 3 of the reopening; offered Tuesday through Saturday: 10 AM, 12 PM and 2 PM; and Sunday 1 PM and 3 PM by prepaid reservation only.
At this time, school tours will return in Spring 2021.
Would you like to take your class back in time to the 18th century? Although designed specifically with Delaware teachers in mind, our programs are broad enough to accommodate schools from other states, home-schoolers, youth organizations and summer camps.
Our workshops provide an interactive, hands-on experience while addressing Delaware State Standards and national Common Core Standards providing age-appropriate activities. In addition, teachers can customize tours from 9 different workshop offerings.
Delaware school tours and homeschool workshops at Historic Odessa
Wilmington Trust is a sponsor of the school tour program at Historic Odessa.
School Programs
- In School Days, participate in actual 18th century lessons using quill pens and ink.
- Prepare authentic local recipes and cook over an open fire using period cooking tools and techniques in 18th Century Hearth Cooking.
- Shop in a typical colonial dry goods mercantile while assuming the identity of a long ago citizen of Odessa in The Wilson Store.
- Become children of the working class and participate in a morning of chores and colonial games and make your own historic toy in Children: Chores and Leisure.
- Go on an herb search in a colonial garden and plant your own heritage seed to take home and tend in A Kitchen Garden.
- Sign a contract, become an apprentice in William Corbit’s tannery and make your own leather back-pack tag in Artisan Apprentice.
- Get a “back stairs” tour of the servant areas of the Corbit-Sharp House and imagine working for this wealthy family in Indentured Servants.
- Go on a scavenger hunt which illustrates the lifestyle of a typical wealthy Quaker family living in a beautiful mansion in Corbits: A Genteel Quaker Family.
- In Freedom Seekers join local abolitionists and freedom conductors as you follow in the footsteps of fugitive slaves working their way north to freedom. Delaware, with its availability of many types of transportation, its unique location on the border of freedom and its population of Quakers committed to the abolition of slavery, played a major role in the escape system known as the Underground Railroad. Explore the hiding places and routes used by local abolitionists in Odessa to conceal and conduct slaves along their journey to freedom.
By immersing our young visitors in an authentic and interactive 18th century setting, we give students the experience of “walking in the shoes” of their colonial counterparts. Depending upon the age of the students and the areas of focus desired, tours can be half or full day. For students K-2, workshops will be 30 minutes in length. For older students, workshops will be more complex and thus longer. The group rate is $8.00 per student. All teachers and staff are free of charge.
