Above: A 1950s photo of the gregarious Dennis Buckley behind the counter of Buckley’s package store. Photo courtesy Dennis Buckley grandchildren.
By Pam George
A 1957 holiday invitation to customers. Photo courtesy Dennis Buckley grandchildren.
For nearly 75 years, the white house that hugs Kennett Pike in Centreville has been Buckley’s Tavern, a name that remained after an ownership change. But unless you bellied up to the bar in the mid-to-late 20th century, you probably didn’t know the tavern’s namesake.
Dennis Buckley is now getting his due. A new plaque in the restaurant includes his photograph and a few paragraphs about him. “Dennis’s legacy extends beyond the walls of the tavern,” according to the text. “It will undoubtedly continue to thrive in the hearts of all who knew him.”
So, who was the man who created one of Delaware’s most popular public houses? The Delaware native had humble beginnings but rubbed elbows with Wilmington royalty. In short, he personified the Buckley’s tradition of blending bluebloods with blue collars.
A Brandywine Baby
Dennis Francis Buckley was born in 1897 (his tombstone reads 1898) to Sarah McGinley Buckley and William B. Buckley. Both of his parents grew up near the DuPont Co. on the Brandywine River. (Sarah’s father, Hugh McGinley, was killed in a DuPont Co. powder mill explosion in 1863.)
A plaque honoring Dennis Buckley can be found behind the host station as you enter Buckley’s Tavern. Photo by Jim Coarse.
William died in 1899, and Sarah never remarried, according to Dennis Buckley’s oral history for the Hagley Museum & Library. She worked for Alfred I. du Pont and his wife, Elizabeth “Bessie” G. du Pont, while caring for her own children: William, Joseph, Dennis, and Helen.
Buckley attended St. Joseph’s on the Brandywine School alongside the sons and daughters of powdermen. “We all belonged to the DuPont Co. at that time, you might say — all worked for the DuPont Co., all their fathers, and mothers who worked,” he recalled in 1975.
The Buckley family benefitted from du Pont generosity: Alfred I. paid the rent or bought them potatoes, and P.S. du Pont also paid the rent and gave the children Christmas presents. Buckley’s sister, Helen, cared for the children of William Winder Laird Sr. and Mary Alletta du Pont, including their son, William Winder “Chick” Laird Jr., who would become Buckley’s lifelong friend and benefactor.
An Up-and-Comer
The Alexis I. du Pont High School graduate was ambitious. He worked in a barber shop until he landed an interview with Ferdinand Lammot of the DuPont Co., head of the mailroom in the DuPont Building.
After marrying Frances Coale, a local girl, in 1918, Buckley persuaded his friend, Rodney Sharp, to transfer him to the Carney’s Point plant, where he clerked and monitored the smokeless powder as it “cooked.”
“We, like dummies, used to jump down into that big vat and didn’t realize the danger,” he said. The mammoth vats of powder occasionally blew up.
Guests celebrate New Year’s Eve at the bar of Buckley’s Taven (date unknown). Photo courtesy Dennis Buckley grandchildren.
Laird Sr., vice president of Diamond Ice & Coal, helped Buckley secure a sales job. He thrived. “I don’t want to blow my horn, but I was the best salesman outside of the sales manager in the Diamond Ice and Coal Co., and we had about 10 or 12 salesmen,” Buckley said.
“I won every contest we had, and we had contests after contests and the most oil to be sold, I would sell it. I had [clients] like the Winterthur Farms, Harry du Pont, and Hallock du Pont, Mrs. B.G. du Pont, all the Kennett Pike, Westover Hills, and Wawaset Park — about 75 or 80 percent of Wawaset Park — I had the best section and the best business in town.”
Buckley wasn’t name-dropping. “He was liked by the wealthy and small businessmen of the day,” says his grandson, Dennis Buckley.
Buckley and Frances had three children: Donald, Alyn and Eugenia Marie, who married James Francis Wachter in 1941. When Eugenia died seven years later at the age of 29, the Buckleys moved in with their son-in-law to care for the three children: Judith, 6, Geraldine, 3, and 10-month-old James Jr. At the time, Wachter was the proprietor of Wachter’s Tally-Ho Tavern at Concord Pike and Naamans Road. (There was no motel then.) The family lived above the tavern, and Buckley managed the tavern’s liquor store.
A New Chapter
Wachter married Buckley’s first cousin and needed space for the blended family. The Buckleys moved to a house that Chick Laird had on Breck’s Lane, and Buckley expressed an interest in owning a liquor business. “Mr. Laird said, ‘Well, you get a place, and I’ll back you,’“ Buckley said for the oral history.
He set his sights on Ted Antoine’s tavern, Antoine’s. “He wasn’t doing anything with it. It was dirty, looked like a garage — it was a garage at times,” Buckley recalled. “So, we talked to him, and he let me have it.”
Antoine’s Tavern before Dennis Buckley took over. Photo courtesy Dennis Buckley grandchildren.
Built in 1817, the structure had been a private residence and stagecoach stop. At one point, you could buy liquor and ice cream. Antoine, a racehorse trainer, also owned the town’s only gas station.
Laird invested $100,000 in the building, but improvements were needed.
“We had no water because the water had gasoline mixed in with it from the garage; the tanks leaked and … got into the wells,” Buckley said.
Deeper wells didn’t solve the problem. “We had beautiful toilets there for the men and the women, and the rust and the oil and everything disfigured it.” He had to buy water.
In 1952, an ad in the Journal-Every Evening announced the new business. “Dennis Buckley invites you to join the hospitality of Buckley’s Tavern,” it read. “Choice Beverages. Mixed Drinks.” The menu was simple — cold sandwiches, says Geraldine “Geri” Wachter Bilinski, who called Buckley “Pop Pop Dennis.” Her brother remembers stuffed tomatoes were the specialty.
“It was clean and comfortable with dimmed lighting,” says Dennis Buckley, the grandson.
The Buckleys lived above the business. “Mr. Laird had it fixed awfully nice. We had a beautiful place there,” he said. Frances crocheted afghans in the cozy living room in the front. The second floor also had a kitchen and office.
Hospitality With Heart
A 1956 Wilmington Flower Market supplement ad shows Buckley in a crisp button-down shirt and tie, selling bourbon to two happy customers. “My grandfather had a reputation of being well-liked, friendly, and easy to talk to,” Bilinski says.
Her sister, Judith “Judy” Wachter Giunta, agrees. “He greeted his guests with warmth and hospitality,” she says. He also knew his wine and spirits — domestic or imported, she adds.
Mr. & Mrs. Jacques duPont, Jr. with Dennis Buckley in 1954. Photo courtesy Dennis Buckley grandchildren.
The grandchildren loved visiting their grandparents. Jim Wachter remembers the small second-floor patio, which had a goldfish pond. One day, while cleaning out leaves from the pond, he looked down into a sink and saw a woman’s head.
“The glass pond was over the ladies’ bathroom!” he says. Indeed, a 1961 article in the Evening Journal described the tavern as “a plush barroom within a colonial frame,” which featured the only ladies’ room in Delaware with a fishpond in its ceiling.
Buckley and son, Alyn, ran the business, and Donald helped part time. He eventually moved to Illinois. In 1967, Buckley retired to care for Frances, whose health was declining. Alyn took over, and when Jim Wachter left the service in 1969, he helped in the package store.
Centreville was still rural, and when robbers targeted Wilmington liquor stores — likely in 1969 — Buckley kept watch until 4 a.m. from his second-floor window.
One night, a man tried the door and cursed when he found it locked.
“What do you want?” Buckley called from his lookout post, hidden behind trees. “I want to get in,” the man replied.
Buckley told him the tavern was closed. The man paused. “Where are you? Up in that tree?” Buckley said yes. “That’s a helluva place to be at this time of night,” the man replied and left.
Changing Hands
When the Buckleys moved out, the tavern’s second floor became overflow seating. The crowds were at lunch; taprooms did not serve dinner. To secure a restaurant license, the tavern began serving two meals daily. But running the business was costly.
“Taxes were high, insurance was high, help was high,” Buckley said. “We didn’t make much money—just paid our bills, and it was a great thing to do, pay your bills.”
Members of the Buckley family outside their favorite spot (l-r): Kindle Schell, Lori Schell, Christine Stecker, Jim Wachter, Michele Collett, Judith Giunta,
Geri Bilinski, Dahlia Brasefield (toddler in front), Carin Jean Hannaford, Dennis J. Buckley (grandson), Stephanie Emmi, Emily Lynch. Photo by Jim Coarse.
It was also hard work. Buckley acknowledged that he needed “some spirits” to take the edge off. “It would have killed me, I know,” he said of continuing in the business. “I would have been gone a long time ago.”
Laird decided to sell, and Alyn raised close to the asking price, but not enough, Jim Wachter says. R.H. “Bob” Bolling Jr. and Robert “Bob” Applegate purchased the building in 1970.
“We heard it was for sale, and we weren’t really interested in buying it, but in keeping it like it is,” they told The News Journal in 1974. They wanted to preserve the landmark.
Alyn opened the Candlelight Room in The Devon, where he lived. It operated Tuesday through Saturday for lunch, light dinner, and cocktails. The new owners felt that Jim Wachter was too young — 22 — to manage the establishment.
Chef David Weir operated Buckley’s Tavern for more than 20 years until 2012, when his lease wasn’t renewed. Hotel du Pont alum Tom Hannum, LabWare CEO Vance Kershner, and P. Coleman “Coley” du Pont took over, restoring and reviving the landmark.
The Legacy Lives On
In retirement, Dennis, Frances, and their caregiver settled into the North Bancroft Parkway home that Chick Laird gave them.
“I consider him a friend of mine, more than any friends on my own level,” Buckley told his interviewer. “We go out to different places at different times for lunch and chew over the old fat, as he used to call it.” Laird never let Buckley pay for lunch, although he offered.
Giunta took her grandfather on trips to New York, but by the time he gave his oral history, he was more comfortable at home. He stopped going to St. Joseph on the Brandywine Church because it was easier to walk to St. Anthony of Padua.
Frances died in 1974, and their son, Donald, died in 1979 at the age of 50. “I remember Pop Pop Dennis crying, and he said, ‘My son is not supposed to pass away before me,’“ Wachter says.
Wachter visited his grandfather every few weeks, and there was always candy for the children. Stephanie Emmi, Buckley’s great-granddaughter, called him “Old Pop Pop,” and she remembers the distinctive aroma of his pipe.
Buckley died in 1979 at 81. At the time, he was survived by Alyn, 13 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren — many of whom still feel connected to the tavern that bears his name.
“It’s a special place for all of us, because we knew it meant so much to our family over the years,” says Emmi, whose daughter works at the restaurant. “We’re very happy it stayed Buckley’s Tavern. I think the name is just so well known, and hopefully it stays Buckley’s. People know it.”
She and her husband were sitting at the bar one day when a couple began asking questions about Buckley’s history. They were delighted to learn they were seated next to the founder’s great-granddaughter.
At the annual reunion, family members decided to commission a plaque to answer some of the questions many patrons raised. In October, the family gathered at Buckley’s to see it mounted on the wall.
“I believe Pop Pop Dennis would have been thrilled to know that the tavern is still a thriving, popular establishment,” Geri Bilinski says.
Buckley’s story, like the tavern that bears his name, continues to bring people together — one toast at a time.
