History has been part of Kim Burdick’s life since she was 3, when she started interviewing people for oral histories. Because she grew up “in the boondocks,” with no kids nearby to play with, she said that she often “sat on old people’s porches and asked them what they did as kids.”

By 8, she decided she wanted to be a museum docent. When it was her turn to pick the destination for family Sunday drives, she always selected The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

She later studied history and other subjects, graduating from the Cooperstown Graduate Program and the University of Delaware’s Biden School, then called the College of Urban Affairs. A longtime member of the Delaware Press Association and author of “Revolutionary Delaware: Independence in the First State,” she frequently contributes to the Journal of the American Revolution, with articles posted at allthingsliberty.com/author/kim-burdick.

Her Revolutionary War activities include being founder and chairman, American Revolution Round Table of Northern Delaware; president, George Washington Society; and life member and Delaware chairman of the 200th anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette’s Farewell Tour.

She is a retired adjunct professor at Delaware Technical Community College, where she taught American history, sociology and psychology; past executive director, People to People Delaware; advisor emerita, National Trust for Historic Preservation; and national chairman emerita, Washington Rochambeau Revolutionary Route.

And as resident site manager of the Hale-Byrnes House, she helps maintain a historic building – Washington met here on Sept. 6, 1777 – and keep that history alive. “People will knock on the door and say ‘I’ve been driving past here for 40 years and never been here before.’ And I say ‘C’mon right in.’”

Lafayette’s Guest of the Nation tour

Burdick’s latest historical charge is as chair of the Delaware leg of the bicentennial celebration of Lafayette’s “Guest of the Nation” tour. Details are at lafayette200.org.

The marquis turned 20 the day of that meeting at the Hale-Byrnes House. “The childless general and the orphaned aristocrat … developed a surrogate father-son relationship,” according to Britannica.com, adding that Lafayette “distinguished himself among a large colorful group of European soldiers of fortune and idealists … to fight for American independence.”

Hundreds of events will trace Lafayette’s route on the exact dates he followed in 1824-25. Delaware’s itinerary starts at noon on Sunday, Oct. 6 at the Robinson House near Claymont, moves down Route 13 to Brandywine Village (Lafayette slept here in 1777 at the home of Joseph Tatnall), heads west to the Delaware Historical Society and ends at Jessop’s Tavern in Old New Castle.

“This is a big deal,” Burdick said of the plans for this fall.

And it was a very big deal 200 years ago. Lafayette back then was accompanied in Delaware at various times by cavalry, infantry, a civic guard, musicians, Freemasons and regular folks. Bridges and arches along the route were festooned with flowers, greenery, flags and art. He had dinner at Wilmington Town Hall, with toasts by a dozen dignitaries, with E. I. du Pont touting “the prosperity and happiness of the United States of America, a lesson to the world.”

Lafayette ended the day in New Castle, at the wedding of Dorcas Montgomery Van Dyke, whose father was a U.S. senator, and Charles Irénée du Pont.

The house that Warwick Hale built

Around 1750, Warwick Hale built the first part of the house, on the White Clay Creek, near the confluence of the Red Clay Creek and the Christina River. In 1773, Quaker preacher Daniel Byrnes bought it, and a remodeling in the Georgian vernacular style gave it “the most modern kitchen in the area,” Burdick said, and that two-story service wing with its walk-in fireplace may have been a draw for family friend Robert Kirkwood (yes, the highway’s named for him) to pick the place for the war council, three days after the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge and five days before the Battle of Brandywine.

Fast forward to 1960: the house is abandoned, used as a place to drink beer and eat hot dogs, and threatened by plans to widen Route 7. The nonprofit Delaware Society for the Preservation of Antiquities acquired the house, with money from Carita Bowden, a du Pont heir enlisted by neighbors. When she appealed to to bureaucrats to save it, “The told her it was ‘an attractive nuisance.’ And she said ‘So am I,’” Burdick said.

The society turned over the property to the state in 1971 but ran it, with a live-in caretaker keeping nuisances away. Fast forward to 3 one morning in 2008: Burdick woke up, thinking about how the last caretaker had left. She emailed society President Barbara White asking “Who’s living there now?”

The answer she got back: “You are. When are you coming?”

So the Burdicks moved to 606 Stanton-Christiana Road from a Brandywine Hundred subdivision into Delaware’s first building to get a State Heritage Plaque.

Burdick lives there with her husband, Ralph, who retired from his Delaware City medical practice at the end of 2023, and a cat named Kenny, well-known to the fisherman who frequent the banks of the creek. “If their husbands are fishing, the women might start wandering around, and I let them in. I love that. But I especially love it if there are kids to show around.”

When asked if she would like to live in the past, Burdick said that wasn’t that appealing. “I like living now and telling about the past. Chris Mlynarczyk keeps trying to get me into a costume for the 1st Delaware Regiment, but I’m a scholar, not a re-enactor.”

From the past and into the future

The house holds lots of period-appropriate furnishings and hosts speakers and meetings of the American Revolution Round Table. It is open for tours monthly and by appointment. It’s also available for rentals. Details are at www.halebyrnes.org.

In the fall of 2023, three groups of students in the Basics of Business course at the University of Delaware studied the house to “improve its vision and mission,” said adjunct professor David Burke, a former history teacher and owner of Enthusiastic Communications.

They were particularly interested in improving connections with younger people and volunteers and improving its social media and website. “Expand the brand,” he said, with the goal of “more funding, more visibility and more volunteers.”

Students used a concept called SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – to assess the Hale-Byrnes House. Burdick visited the class twice, once to share information and the second time to watch their final presentations.

Their suggestions included more photos of people on the website and more events, perhaps featuring music and food, he said. In her earlier interview, Burdick talked about an afternoon tea.

One team visited the house for research, and members of another team said they would stay involved to help out. “It’s a win-win,” Burke said, of the latter, noting the students benefit by continuing to develop and share their skills and the house and history benefit from their work. “I tell students the key to success is network, network, network.”