The History of the David Eastburn Farm

David Eastburn

When I first started writing this blog nearly a decade ago, I basically just went around and wrote about whatever seemed interesting to me in the moment. I had to think about and decide what my next topic would be. Nowadays, though, it's much more common to have the topics come to me, often stemming from contacts with readers. This particular subject, like the previous one (The Huston-Springer Houses), started with an email from the current owners of the home. In this case, it's the beautiful Italianate-style David Eastburn House on Corner Ketch Road between Paper Mill Road and Doe Run Road. I did a post about it back in 2011 wherein a gave a rough outline of the history of the property and David Eastburn himself, as best as I could determine at the time.

Well, as I stated in the Huston-Springer post, I have a lot more data at my disposal now. Prompted by the contact from the owner, I went back and was able to come up with a much more detailed history of the property, both before, during, and after David Eastburn's tenure there. So much detail, in fact, that I hardly know where to start. So let's start with David, almost certainly the builder of the house but not the first resident of the land. When I asked the current owner what he had heard of the house's history (always a crapshoot because you never know what kind of information has been kept and passed down with a property), he said he'd been told that it was originally owned by several siblings. I'm glad to say that in this case at least, the information seems to be correct.

In the original post, I make no mention of the property and only passingly state that the house was built in the 1850's, possibly around the time of David's wedding in 1857. The reality is so much more complicated than that, but I'll try to keep it as concise as I can. The first thing to understand is that the farm David Eastburn owned at his death in 1899 was acquired in four separate tracts, going from west to east. The four parcels (which I'll call Tracts 1-4) can be seen in the diagram below. My lines may not be accurate down to the foot, but they're pretty close. The house is denoted with a star and is located in Tract 1, the largest of the tracts and the first one acquired by the Eastburn family. And to circle back, it was acquired by the family.

The four tracts that comprised the David Eastburn Farm

In September 1847, Joseph S. Gilbert sold 48½ acres (we'll get back to just how he came to own this land) to Elizabeth Eastburn and four of her children -- David, Samuel, Margaret, and Oliver. Oliver sold his share to the others in 1850. Then, in February 1857, David bought out the other three to consolidate ownership of the property. On the very same day, he purchased Tract 2 from Matthew Lockard and sold back his share of the home farm. And as I noted in the first post, I have every reason to believe all this was related to David's wedding, which would occur only about six weeks later.

I'm still not exactly sure what was happening on Tract 1 during those first 10 years, but my best guess is that it was being leased to a tenant farmer (David, Margaret, and Samuel were all listed on the home farm in 1850). The stone barn was thought to have dated to the 1820's, but David's Italianate style house was very much of the 1850's. I assume that there was either an older (probably frame or even log) house that he removed, or perhaps the very old stone house just to the southeast served as the farm house. Although the Eastburns only purchased the tract in 1847, its history goes back much further.

What would become our Tract 1 began as part of a larger, 200 acre tract laid out for John Jones by the Penns, which he sold to James Kerr in 1732. In 1739 Kerr sold the property to Hugh McWhorter. McWhorter died in about 1790, and in 1794 his executors sold the tract to Joseph Burns. Burns sold the whole 200 acres to Thomas McDowel in 1803. It was McDowel who created our tract, selling 48 acres to Charles Stewart in 1809. Stewart sold five years later to William Moore, who sold the tract in 1818 to William Little. If the approximate date of 1820 is correct for the barn, it would then have been William Little who erected it.

Beginning of the 1847 sale from Gilbert to the Eastburns

Little died in 1830, and his will devised the land to his daughter, the widow Sarah Howell. Here's the part of the story (and there always seems to be one) that I don't quite understand. Beginning in 1842, the tract changed hands several times. Sarah remarried to a George Abbot, and it looks like it was sold to Matthew Lockard to pay Abbot's debts. Then it seems to have been sold again to Joseph S. Gilbert in 1847. Gilbert was a son-in-law of Sarah Howell, and her other two children also sold whatever rights they still had to the land to Gilbert the same year. The point of it all is that Gilbert had full possession of the 48½ acres to sell to the Eastburns. But that was only one of the four tracts (albeit arguably the most important, since it was the first and largest, and would contain the house).

Tract 2, while being smaller at only 20 acres, has its own interesting twist. David Eastburn purchased it from Matthew Lockard (the same one who had briefly owned Tract 1) in exchange for another lot that Eastburn owned down by White Clay Creek Presbyterian Church. Lockard had purchased the tract in 1831 from executors of the estate of Francis Gregg. Gregg was, in parlance of the time, a Coloured man. He had purchased his farm from the same Thomas McDowel who also created Tract 1, and was listed as a neighbor on the 1809 sale of Tract 1. And bear in mind, Gregg was living as a free black man at a time when slavery was still legal in Delaware. It was not common in New Castle County, but it was not unheard of.

Somehow not surprisingly, Tract 2 is the only one without specific metes and bounds listed -- it states only the names of three adjacent landowners and the road, as well as the acreage. Also unsurprisingly I was unable to find anything more about Francis Gregg. The only possible clue is that on subsequent deeds for Tract 3 (which bounds 2 on the northeast), Tract 2 is stated as being owned by Chloe Gregg (coloured woman), then Cloe Gregg (coloured woman), and finally Cole Gregg (Colored man). The first one, with Chloe Gregg, is recorded after Francis' death but before the sale to Lockard. My guess is that Chloe Gregg was probably the widow or maybe the daughter of Francis, but may not have been able to inherit or own land herself. Since later deeds normally just use descriptions from previous ones, I think a game of "Telephone" took place here and "Chloe" became "Cloe" became "Cole".

Speaking of Tract 3, this roughly triangular lot was the first one Eastburn acquired after living on his farm a few years, and at 17 acres was the smallest of the four. Like the others, it began as part of a larger tract, acquired in 1797 by William Morgan. The earlier history of the tract takes up about 3 large pages in the 1797 deed, and I'll be honest and say I'm not even going to try to make sense of it. William Morgan created our Tract 3 when he sold it to James Hollen in 1831. Hollen's heirs sold it in 1849 to Jonathan R. Fowler, who sold it in 1853 to Joseph Gauk Rodger. In 1861, Sheriff Levi B. Moore (who lived directly across Corner Ketch Road) sold the tract to David Eastburn to pay off Rodger's debts.

Tract 4, the westernmost and final tract acquired here by David Eastburn, is a 42 acre vaguely (in my opinion) coffin-shaped lot purchased in 1881 from Mary McDaniel. Mary was the unmarried daughter of John McDaniel, whose house stands in Meadowdale, on the east side of North Star Road. After John McDaniel's death in 1858, his widow and children leased the farm and by 1881 decided they no longer needed this portion of the property. It then became the last piece of the puzzle that made up the David Eastburn Farm.

The David Eastburn House in 1986

As for the fate of the farm after David's death in 1899, I was pretty much on the right track in the original post. In his will, David devised the farm to his niece's son, Wilmer E. Fell (son of Elizabeth Eastburn Fell, daughter of David's brother Amos). When Wilmer died in 1941 leaving no children, the farm was sold to Harry Emerson Eastburn. Harry was the great-grandson of Isaac Eastburn, another of David's brothers. Although he didn't live there, Harry Eastburn owned the farm up until its sale to developers in 1988. At least as late as 1986 it was still an active, working farm, although by that point all but about 32 acres had been sold off.

The development of Cotswold Hills was built behind the house, and the house itself was sold to owners who are still in the home today. The current owners have done a fantastic job of taking care of this beautiful home -- a home that has really only had four owners from two families (not counting the developer) over the past 162 years. The house is a wonderful reminder of the hidden complexity of Mill Creek Hundred's agricultural past.