New Lower Red Clay Valley Blog

I need to put up this post to make up for an omission from the last one. While researching for the last post about the Continental Army encampment and battle that wasn't, I came across a new blog relating to the history of the Marshallton/Red Clay Valley area. Lower Red Clay Valley is authored by the same local resident, Denis Hehman, who also put up the Historic Lower Red Clay Valley PictureTrail site, which I've had a link to on this site for a while. While both sites have roughly the same mission, the new blog should end up being a more open, flexible platform for him to expand. While there is some text, the site mainly focuses on being a pictorial journey through the region.

As for the site's mission, here is how he puts it:

If you walked along the Red Clay Creek from Faulkland Road to a little beyond Stanton you would pass remnants of Delaware's history / heritage. Here are remains of a 19th. century amusement park, a 1860's steam train, saw and grist mills along with cotton mills that supplied cloth to the army during the Civil War. Here Gen. George Washington's Army entrenched in 1777 for the defense of Philadelphia and in 1782 the French camped here returning from the final battle of the Revolutionary War in Yorktown. Also, at the southern end is the W3R, The Washington - Rochambeau Revolutionary Route, a National Parks Service Trail.


If you were to stray away from the stream you could still find structures and landscapes that have supported these activities and more.


The intent of this site is to show these resources in photos and maybe a little text to help tell its story.

Already, Denis has posted pictures of St. Barnabas' Church, flooding along the Red Clay, an endangered house on Kiamensi Road, and a picture of a local semi-pro baseball team from 1932, among many other things. Also, the map and picture I used for the Battle of Red Clay post came courtesy of this site. If you want to see more, go take a look! And since this is in a blog format, unlike the old site (which is still active), there is commenting available on the posts, allowing for a more interactive experience. I personally think this is great, and I'd love to see a whole network of local history-focused sites someday. As we've seen here, there is certainly interest in the topic out there. Good luck, Denis, and I can't wait to see what beautiful pictures you post next!