A block in downtown Wilmington has served as an epicenter of education for more than a century and a half.

Starting in the 1870s, St. Mary Catholic School and the Tileston public school held classes in different buildings near Fourth and Ann streets before St. Mary's Catholic church purchased the Tileston property in 1989.

According to Suzanne Smith, a retired second-grade teacher at Saint Mary Catholic School who also serves as the school's unofficial historian, St. Mary's school will celebrate the 157th anniversary of its founding in 2026.

Students from kindergarten to eighth grade will celebrate with a play/historic re-enactment set in 1791 under the majestic "boundary oak" in the Tileston playground, a tree that's likely 300 or more years old and which was used to mark the eastern b

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