The Burnt Mill Road House -- Part 2

The Burnt Mill Road House in 1982

In the last post we took a look at nearly a century and a half's worth of history of a house and farm 
located on Burnt Mill Road, tucked along the PA/DE state line in central Christiana Hundred. We followed it from a part of Letitia Penn's Manor of Stenning, to a 335 acre farm sold to John Cloud in 1713, to it's sale in 1726 to John Baldwin. We saw it divided in 1784 by John's son Francis, and given to his sons Levi and William. Levi had the northern half (and for a while, the southern) until his death in 1825, but his children finally sold it out of the family in 1843.

The next owner of the now 73 acre farm was 28 year old Pusey Phillips. Phillips did reside on the farm, but there's not much written about him, likely because he died relatively young (in 1855 at the age of 40) and with no children. No descendants often means no one is looking for your story. It looks like his father Evan had a farm on Old Kennett Road, near where the Greenville Country Club is today, and that they were connected to the milling Phillips family of, among other things, the Ashland and Greenbank Mills.

After sorting out the estate, Pusey's Administrator (and brother) Harvey Phillips sold the farm in 1856 to Thomas Harlan of Chester County. He was born near Centerville in 1825 to Thomas and Beulah Harlan, and just earlier in 1856 had married a recent widow named Mary Ann Martin Pyle. Her first husband, James Bayard Pyle, had died in 1852, leaving Mary Ann with three young daughters and a son. The 1860 Census shows Thomas and Mary Ann in their Burnt Mill Road farm, along with the four Pyle kids and the first three (of eventually six) Harlan children. They remained on the farm until 1868, when Harlan sold the 73 acre farm in two sections, to two different buyers.

The Burnt Mill Road House --Part 1

The Burnt Mill Road House

Some old houses are on old roads that are still well-used today, making the homes easily visible. Some are "hidden" back in the middle of 20th Century developments, making them less well-known -- unless you happen to be a neighbor. But a few historic houses are so off the beaten path and out of the way, that most would never know they were there. One of this type, with an interesting history, is tucked right below the PA state line in central Christiana Hundred. And it's one of those odd properties with a very uneven turnover rate -- it was home to only two families in its first 130 years, then nine different owners in the next 60. Some of the last names you might recognize, even if you don't know the individuals. We'll take a look at that first era in this post, and delve into the second in the next.

The house and farm in question are on the south side of Burnt Mill Road, about three quarters of a mile west of Kennett Pike (good thing, because the north side of Burnt Mill, and I think the road itself, are in Pennsylvania), and are the only one of the several historic homes on the road to be on the Delaware side. Like most estates in the northern reaches of middle and western NCC, its history (at least its European-owned history) begins with the Penn family. The land was originally a part of the 15,500 acre tract known as the Manor of Stenning, given by William Penn to his daughter Letitia in 1701. On June 29, 1713, Letitia's attorneys in America, Samuel Carpenter and James Logan, sold 335 acres on the eastern edge of the Manor to John Cloud, for the price of a yearly rent payment of three shillings. (There's still a stone marker along Burnt Mill Road identifying the Manor Line.)

In 1726, Cloud sold 154 acres of his land to a cordwainer (a maker of leather shoes) named John Baldwin. I think that Cloud might have been the uncle of John Baldwin's wife Sarah. My approximation of that tract can be seen below - Burnt Mill Road is on the top edge of it, Snuff Mill Road runs through the bottom potion, and Old Kennett Road is just south of it (Kennett Pike (Rt. 52.) is to the right). I believe it was basically the eastern half of Cloud's property, although I don't have either the 1713 deed or the original of the 1726 sale (what I do have, and why, will be explained in a moment). Through subsequent generations, the Baldwin family would hold all of the land for the next 111 years, then about half for another six years.

The Reynolds-Janvier House at Delaware Park

The then du Pont House, under tenancy of the Banks
Family, c. 1860's (courtesy Steve Larrimore)

One of the most unique properties in Mill Creek Hundred (and, btw, one of the most useful when trying to orient yourself on an aerial photo) is the racetrack, casino, and golf course that I'll be referring to collectively as Delaware Park. Horse racing already had a long history in the culture in general, and in the area specifically (see the post about Brown's Track), by the time William K. du Pont, Jr., his brother-in-law Donald P. Ross, and their Delaware Steeplechase and Race Association (DSRA) opened Delaware Park outside of Stanton in 1937. The properties now consist of over 750 acres, and were purchased over the years from multiple owners, taking all or some of numerous farms. This is the story of one of those.

At the time the track opened in 1937, there were (at least) four old farmhouses standing on what was or would be DSRA property -- the Stroud House to the southwest, the Stopyra farm to the northwest, the Brown house near the track on its south side, and this house towards the eastern end, belonging then to James and Louise Cunningham. But they were the last of the private owners of the home, and they had only acquired it a year prior to selling to the DSRA in 1935. The house, however, dates back to the 18th Century (NCC lists it as 1790, although I can't confirm that), and the farm even further.

Since the area around the confluence of Red Clay and White Clay Creeks was one of the earliest settled in the region by the Swedes, it's no surprise that ownership of the property goes back quite far. The specific land on which the house would later be built was originally part of a 570 acre tract granted by Edmund Andros ("Lieutenant and Governor general under his royal highness James Duke of York and Albany") to Walraven Johnson Deffose and Charles Rumsey in 1676 (my guess is that they were already there, and just getting official ownership from the new English administration). The tract then went through a number of hands over the subsequent years -- John Watkins and Samuel Barker (1679), John Cann (1680), Richard Lewis (1710), John Lewis (Richard's son) (1725), and George Lewis (John's son) (1752), Charles Allford (1752), and John Hance (1754).

The George Montgomery House

The Montgomery House

When I first started getting interested in local history one of the first questions I had, as I looked at the 1868 Beers map with all the houses marked on it, was "How many of these houses are still around?" The answer turned out to be so many that 15 years into writing this blog, there are still historic houses I haven't covered yet. One such house that I only recently researched sits along the hillside of narrow Barley Mill Road, across from the Mt. Cuba Center. In fact, the reason I looked into the history of this beautiful, fieldstone home is that the Mt. Cuba Center recently acquired the house, so we can get that part out of the way now -- While, like most old homes, it once had a period when it fell into a bit of disrepair, it had been in good hands for many years, and its future is secure.

While I've chosen to call the structure the George Montgomery House, he actually only owned it for a relatively short time. There were many owners of the house over the years, and even the original build date and first occupants are still a matter of debate. This is one of those situations where we know pretty much the full story of the land, but some of the details regarding the house are unclear. And to get the full picture, we have to go back and revisit the subjects of a pair of excellent 2014 Guest Posts from Walt Chiquoine, about Irishman Con Hollahan and his estate, Cuba Rock.

The important point for us now is that in about 1753, Cornelius "Con" Hollahan purchased a 148 acre tract (seen below, along with some of the neighboring properties as they were in the 1770's) from Solomon Dixson, who had purchased it in 1752 from the heirs of Daniel Barker. Con's Cuba Rock tract is the oddly-shaped one just right of center, pinched in the middle. The Mt. Cuba Center can be seen in the northern section, above Barley Mill Road, while the southern portion reaches down to today's Ramsey Ridge. Con's homestead was almost certainly down in the far southwestern corner, where the "Irish Wall" is today. What, if anything, is in the rest of the property is never mentioned. We're left to make inferences, assumptions, and guesses as to what was built where, and when.

The Surprising Backstory of the Tatnall Gazebo

The Tatnall Gazebo

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful grounds of the Tatnall School, located on Barley 
Mill Road. There are a number of potential blog post topics related to the school, whether it's the founding of the school and its operation along Delaware Avenue in Wilmington beginning in the 1930, the move out of the city in 1952, or the 1860's house purchased by the school, which is still in use today. All good subjects for sure, but the story I want to tell now is that of a smaller structure on campus. It stands between that gorgeous old house and much newer tennis courts and playgrounds. It looks like a throw-back to a very much older time, and while it isn't quite that old, it does predate Tatnall's Christiana Hundred campus.

The structure in question is what appears to be a concrete gazebo, crafted in the style of a Greek temple. And while it could be just a random piece of decorative architecture on the grounds, its history and significance are quite a bit greater. Of all the things you might guess this cute little building was, I'd feel confident in saying "gas station" would be pretty far down the list. And yet, sure enough, that's what it was. The Tatnall gazebo was built as a gas station in Wilmington, and stood at 11th and Washington Streets for over 40 years. (It was boarded up for a number of years prior to being moved, and it's unclear exactly when it stopped doing business.)

Since most of you are thinking, "I've never seen a gas station like that," a little background and context might help it make more sense. Back in the earliest days of the automobile, car owners had to buy gasoline by the bucketful, take it home, and fill it into their tanks themselves using a measuring can. That all changed in 1905, with the introduction of S.F. Bowser's Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump. The big innovation here was the hose that drivers could use to pump gasoline directly into their car's tank. These contraptions, nicknamed "filling stations", were installed along the sides of public streets outside of general stores and the like. The pumps out front of John H. Foard's Store in Marshallton were typical of what you'd see in rural areas. However, in the cities, these street-side pumps tended to block traffic as motorists pulled in to fill up.

The Hanna-Eastburn Farm

The c. 1908 Ferris Eastburn House

In doing historical research, one of the most frustrating (at times) and exhilarating (at others) things I've run across is the seemingly randomness of what gets recorded and remembered, and what gets lost to time. Very often there's some piece of information that you figure has to be recorded somewhere, or that there's some trace of, but you just can't seem to find. But once in a while, just by chance, you'll find some mention of something that helps other pieces of the puzzle fall into place. This story has both.

The story revolves around two houses -- one likely built over 200 years ago and one erected just over a century ago. The first one we know frustratingly little about, while for the second one I've found a few small clues that seemingly tell much of its tale. This second house seemingly replaced (although maybe not at first) the older one at the same time the property was changing hands from one family to another. In fact, since a descendant still lives on the property (though not in the old house), we can say that at least part of the land has been owned by only two families since 1793!

The land we're talking about lies on the west side of Limestone Road along Ferris Drive in Eastburn Farms, just above the Pike Creek Shopping Center and the Mermaid Tavern. It was actually touched upon briefly and incompletely in a post from 2015 about the Hanna Family, as this property was previously part of a larger tract owned by the Hannas. But long before that, it started out as a portion of a 1000 acre tract laid out and granted on January 29, 1689 to John Champion, John Latham, Christopher White, and John Reynolds. They must have each had a portion, since a later deeds states that a 200 acre part of it belonged to White, and was known as Rosedale.

The Mills of Shellpot Creek -- Part 2

Map of the upper mills of Shellpot Creek

In the last post we set the stage for the earliest mills built along Brandywine Hundred's Shellpot Creek, the three mills (probably two grist mills and one saw mill) built by the early Swedish settlers under their Dutch Masters governors. The first was likely located near today's Colony Boulevard, while it seems logical the think the second was at the same place that Henry Webster would build his mill in the later 1700's. We learned that after it ceased operating around 1890, Webster's Mill was for over 40 years surrounded by the Shellpot Park amusement park. 

For the next mills, we have to move a bit farther upstream. And again, as with the first two Swedish mills, the site of the third is not known for sure. Since there probably wouldn't have been a need for three grist mills so close together, it's likely that either this one, or possibly even the second one at the later Webster site, was a saw mill. This third Swedish mill was built in 1679 by Olle Oelsen, alias Tossen. (You'll often see an "alias" for the early Swedes, as a result of the naming conventions in use at the time. Instead of keeping their father's last name, children would often get a patronym, or last name, ending in -son or -dottir. Not only did it mean that last names kept changing in families, but it often led to multiple people having the same name. Therefore they'd get a nickname, or alias, to help differentiate them.)

It's not known how long Olle Oelsen, alias Tossen's, mill (be it saw or grist) operated or exactly where it was. It might have been only a short distance above the later Webster Mill site, or it could have a little farther up where the next mill would be built. This one -- a saw mill --  seems to have been built around 1769 by George Robinson. The 1960 C.M. Allmond III News Journal articles from which much of this information came says that Robinson was the son-in-law of Valentine Hollingsworth, one of the first and largest landowners in that part of Brandywine Hundred. However, there are several George Robinsons, and unless I'm mistaken (always a possibility) this George is Hollingsworth's grandson (his father, also George, was the son-in-law).

The Mills of Shellpot Creek -- Part 1

Etching of the Webster Mill on Shellpot Creek
by Robert Shaw, 1904

For obvious reasons we spend most of our time on this site in Mill Creek Hundred, which we've seen 
over and over again was aptly named. However, Mill Creek Hundred did not, of course, have a monopoly on mills in New Castle County, nor did it have the earliest. Almost two decades before the first MCH mill was built near Stanton in 1680, mills were being built along a waterway in Brandywine Hundred, but probably not the one you'd expect. Although there was early milling along Brandywine Creek, the first water-powered mill was built on Shellpot Creek, now a very unassuming and underwhelming waterway, but one with a deep history. For those who know the area, Shellpot runs north/south, generally in the Shipley Road/Marsh Road vicinity. The region we'll be studying extends from just south of Philadelphia Pike almost up to Foulk Road.

(I should say that much of the information for this post and the next came from a fantastic, three-part series of articles written by Charles M. Allmond III, and published in the News Journal in early 1960. Most of my work here was trying to verify and expand upon it where I could, and just go with his work when I couldn't.)

To fully understand what was going on, we have to go back to the earliest days of European settlement of Delaware, decades before the arrival of the English and William Penn. It's a little confusing, with control going back and forth a few times between the Swedes and the Dutch, but by the 1660's the Dutch had control over the area, with many Swedish farmers (and some Finns thrown in) who had sworn loyalty to them. The main settlements were at Fort Altena (previously Fort Christina, near The Rocks in Wilmington) and New Amstel (previously Fort Casimir, now New Castle). Unfortunately for the farmers, the only places to grind their grain were a windmill at Fort Altena that didn't seem to work well, a horse mill at New Amstel, and a small tub mill all the way up at Upland, now Chester. They needed something closer.