The Lincoln Highway and the Capitol Trail

Capitol Trail Markers ready, July 22, 1920

This post began life as a simple comment on the Elmer Powers/Midway Garage post about the correct spelling of Old Capitol Trail -- specifically, whether it should be “Capitol” or "Capital". Commenters David G and Raymond made the claim that it should be Capitol, because the route originally ended at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, and that “capital” is the town or city which is the seat of government while “capitol” is the building in which a legislature meets (and capitalized, Capitol refers specifically to the national Capitol Building in DC). On the one hand, that made perfect sense, but on the other hand the Capital Trail Garage was most definitely spelled with an "a". We needed to break the tie.

To be honest, I had heard the "leads to the Capitol" story before, but it never quite made sense. I grew up off of Old Capitol Trail. I walked along it as a kid. I rode my bike on it, caught my bus on it, even delivered newspapers along it. (I actually still have dreams of where I'm walking or riding on it.) Nothing about this little two-lane road screams "I'm the Trail to the Capitol!". It only runs, if you're being generous, from Prices Corner to Newark (and that's with a gap in the middle). So if this theory is correct, there has to be a reason why this little road got this grandiose moniker.

If I ever thought about it at all, I guess I assumed that the name maybe dated back to the Colonial Era? Perhaps in the early days of the country this was part of the main north-south route? Nice thought Scott, but there are several problems with this. First, there was no Capitol to even go to until the 1790's. Secondly, the main north-south route through the area then basically ran along what's now Rt. 4 out of Wilmington to Newport and Stanton, through Christiana, then out Old Baltimore Pike to Elkton. It definitely did not go through Elsmere and Marshallton to Newark because... third point here...Elsmere, Marshallton, and much of the road didn't exist in the late 18th/early 19th Centuries.

The Troubled Story of Elmer Powers and the Midway Garage

The Capital Trail Garage, formerly
Elmer Powers' Midway Garage

A few years back I wrote a post about the Capital Trail Garage, operated by Robert E. McFarlin (and
Wilmer E. Sharpe) from 1931 until about 1940. There was precious little information about it at the time, except for a few basic facts, a few educated guesses, and some wonderful photographs provided by Mr. McFarlin's daughter. Among the many points on which I could only speculate was whether McFarlin built the garage himself or whether he moved into an existing business. I've now uncovered new information that not only answers that question, but also tells the tragic tale of a young man who was associated with the business prior to McFarlin's arrival.

It turns out that there was indeed an existing establishment that Robert McFarlin took over in 1931 -- the Midway Garage. Located in the western outskirts of Marshallton on the south side of Old Capitol Trail (then, at various times, referred to as "Capital Trail", the "Capitol Trail", "the Lincoln Highway", or "the road from Marshallton to Newark"), the Midway Garage sat on land purchased in 1909 by Benjamin C. Hollett. The details of the founding of the business are unclear, but I've seen what I believe is a reference to it in late 1922, and definitely in early 1924. Most of the early mentions of the name in the newspaper are in classified ads listing cars for sale. Maybe someone else knows more about this sort of thing going on at the time, but it looks like they probably bought, fixed, and resold cars.

The Wilmington Morning News Annual Directory, published on June 17, 1924, gives us our first look at the name of the operator at the time -- George C. Hinrichs, a 42 year old, recently naturalized German immigrant who had arrived in the U.S. in 1897. [Edit: I did later find a June 1923 story about how Hinrichs had his arm broken while cranking the car of a "girl driver" (their words, not mine), who left his garage without paying.] Hinrichs left Marshallton a few years later and for about 20 years ran a service station at Dupont Highway and Basin Road. In March 1926, Midway Garage was included in a large advertisement listing all the locations that would be selling AMOCO products, although the proprietor is not named. Interestingly, there are four service stations listed in Marshallton alone (Midway, M. Bennett, Highway Garage, and Mullin's Service Station). There are only eight shown for Wilmington, and only fourteen others for what seems to be the rest of New Castle County. 

The Fascinating (and Confusing) Lobb Family -- Part II

Locations of past and current (as of 1881) Lobb properties

In the last post, we took a deep and confusing look at the Lobb family, who from 1847 until 1882 lived along Barley Mill Road amid land now owned by the Mt. Cuba Center. There were a number of obstacles to understanding the family from the census records, mostly due to uncertainties over the identity of various people's parents. Our starting point was the 1850 Census, compiled only three years after Mary and George W. Lobb purchased their home, and helpfully enough the first census to list every person individually by name. Unfortunately the 1850 Census did not list each person's relationship to the head-of-household (which would have been really helpful), as that did not begin until 1880.

The first mystery we face for the family in the 1850 Census is the relationship between Mary and George, with whom she bought the house and three acre lot. He's definitely not her husband, as you might first assume. He was born in 1828, about thirty years after Mary, and a few years later married the former Hannah Hoopes. In the 1860 Census, George, Hannah, and their children are listed as a separate household in the same house as Mary and the others. George's occupation is shown as butcher, which would make sense for a man with a small (three acre) farm. In 1870 he's listed completely separate from Mary's household, and shown as owning $15,000 in real estate. Although that's quite a large amount, he's nowhere to be found on the 1868 map. Judging from the names near him, he seems to have been somewhere on Lancaster Pike near Wooddale. I've also not found any record of George's buying any other properties in Delaware. I cannot explain his 1870 listing.

What I can explain is where he and his family went next. Sometime before 1880, George bought a farm in Pennsbury Township, Chester County -- just west of Chadds Ford. Although I don't have access to Pennsylvania land records, the map seen below, from 1883, shows George Lobb's farm just above the center. For reference, The Gables at Chadds Ford restaurant is now located in that small, triangular intersection directly south. There is still a house on Lobb's property which is dated to c.1740, meaning it was likely his home. The bigger question for us, though, is who was George W. Lobb?

The Fascinating (and Confusing) Lobb Family -- Part I

Often when I think about local history, I come back to that line that I was always told as a kid if I asked about what "used to be here" -- It was all just farmland. And by raw acreage, that's not completely inaccurate. Most of New Castle County was, in fact, farms. But that statement overlooks two important facts. One, there were other things beside farms, like mills, churches, taverns, and all sorts of artisans. Secondly, those farms were occupied by real families. Families who lived lives just as complex and interwoven as we do now. Their stories are filled with joys, tragedies, struggles, and complications that rival (if not exceed) anything we experience today. 

The problem for us now is that most of those stories are lost to time. We can catch glimpses of them through historical records, but sometimes the whole story is frustratingly out of reach for us. When doing genealogical research, it's important to keep in mind that on the one hand, there may be mysteries that'll never be solved. But on the other hand, if you keep digging, you just might find other amazing surprises you never knew were there. The story of the Lobb family of Red Clay Valley certainly as plenty of all of these phenomena.

My initial point of entry into the Lobbs' story is the household of Mary Lobb, residing on a three acre lot on the northeast side of Barley Mill Road, now nestled amidst land owned by the neighboring Mt. Cuba Center. Although the county lists the erection date of the house as 1735, the Lobbs had only owned it for three years at the time of the 1850 Census (which we'll return to shortly). In 1847, Mary Lobb and George Lobb purchased the lot from Jesse and Rachel Bishop. Rachel might well have been Mary's sister (although like most things here, there's no consensus), and George we'll address more in the next post. The Lobb and Bishop families were obviously close, and had ties that went back at least a generation or two.

The Alrich-Wooleyhan farm

The Wooleyhans' West Wind farm

For this story, we're again going to travel outside the confines of Mill Creek Hundred, this time southward into White Clay Creek Hundred. But New Castle County being what it is, by the time we get near the end we will have a direct link to one of the oldest families in Mill Creek Hundred. Like several of our recent outings, this too was initiated by a simple question from a reader about a property that had been in her family. There was some brief confusion at first, but I quickly came to understand that the farm in question had been located on Old Baltimore Pike, southwest of the historic Village of Christiana. The farm is gone now, replaced by the development of Norwegian Woods (isn't it good?).

The property was owned by her family in the mid-20th Century, but she was interested to find out about the earlier owners. This ended up being one of those situations that got more confusing the deeper I dove, until it suddenly all became clear. One thing that made this a little easier was that we don't have to delve back into the deep depths of history here. The 133 acre property that would become the farm was not a separate tract until 1860. Before that, it was part of a much larger tract, which most recently had been purchased by Henry L. Smalley in 1848. Smalley died just a few years later, and after a couple intermediate transactions, his widow Tabitha sold 133 acres to William E. Heisler. This is the part that confused me at first, and which serves as a good example of why it's sometimes good to keep digging, even if on the surface it seems pointless.

There originally had been some confusion with what is known as the Heisler Tenancy Site, which was an African-American-occupied, 19th Century farmstead. This site, however was located on the north side of Christiana. It was owned for a time by William Heisler, but when I first researched him, all I could find was that he owned what's now known as Blue Hen Farm, north of Newark. I figured he was a wealthy Newark-area farmer who just happened to buy and sell a few properties in the Christiana area. I was about to move on from him, but decided to dig a bit more.

Views of Christiana Hundred in Winter '73

A prize-winning photo

If you’ve ever noticed, most of the old photographs (and I’m defining “old” as anything before digital cameras. Film. Remember film? That used to be a thing, kids!) showing historic buildings tend to fall into one of two categories. They’re either cold documentary photos for some report, or fuzzy things in the background of photos showing something else. (The exception to this would be postcard pictures.) Well, here we have another exception – beautiful artistic shots, taken several decades ago, of a few different historic structures.

In January 1973, a University of Delaware student participated in a Winterim project to take pictures of “Delaware in Winter”, photos that would be graded on their artistic merit. An afternoon spent driving around Ashland Clinton School Road produced the pictures seen here. I was sent these pictures (and given permission to share them) primarily because the barn shown in several was thought to be the David Taylor Barn, subject of a recent post. I was all set to post them as such, but before I did I took another, apparently closer, look at them. When I did, I quickly realized they weren't what I thought they were. To explain what these photos actually are, the easiest place to start is with the picture seen below, which once identified will help place the rest.

The Faulkland Lyceum and the Faulkland Quiz

February 7, 1890 -- The Lyceum is born

Unbeknownst to most (and by "most", I mostly mean "me"), the not-quite-village of Faulkland seems to have had something of an intellectual golden era in the late 19th Century, at least for a few years. Probably owing to the presence of several specific local residents, Faulkland had two ventures visible as outgrowths of this "Renaissance" -- the Faulkland Lyceum and the Faulkland Quiz. They both seem to have only lasted a few years before disappearing almost forever, but as we'll see these two were both fairly unique and examples of what seems to have been a trend at the time. I have a fair amount of information one, and not much on the other (yet), but here's what we know.

In case it's not familiar to you, the area of "Faulkland" is essentially the region directly around Brandywine Springs park, near Newport Gap Pike and Faulkland Road. At this time (late 1880's to the early 1890's), Brandywine Springs was in a transition phase. The existence of a hotel at the site dated back to 1827, and at the time the so-called "Second Hotel" was in humble operation. The amusement park was a few years off, but the foundations for it were beginning to be put in place. One of those foundations was the man brought in to run it beginning in 1886 -- Richard W. Crook. He, Dr. (and future US Senator) L. Heisler Ball, and Red Clay Creek Presbyterian's Rev. John D. Blake seem to have been the core of the intellectual society of the area.

On February 2, 1890, it was reported that, "The people of Faulkland and vicinity have organized a lyceum which meets every two weeks." A lyceum is defined as "an association providing public lectures, concerts, and entertainments", and that is precisely what the Faulkland Lyceum did, with a heavy leaning toward formal debates. I hope they'll forgive me for this, but somehow I get the feeling that a lot of people were bored in the winter and looking for something to do.

The Taylors of...All Over the Place -- Part 2

Pusey P. and Mary Turner Taylor

In the last post, we began a somewhat self-indulgent look at the Taylor family, mostly focusing on the households of William Taylor (1773-1829) and his 7th son (12th child of 14), David Wilson Taylor (1819-1895). I say "somewhat self-indulgent" because this happens to be my wife's lineage -- David W. Taylor is her Great-great-great grandfather. I do believe, though, that their story is interesting in its own right (to people other than us), as it does meander through multiple places in Mill Creek, Christiana, and Brandywine Hundreds; through historic Chadds Ford, PA; and even Virginia and New Jersey.

We'll start here with David W. and Elizabeth Taylor, who had four surviving children -- Newton Pyle (1853-1929), Pusey Phillips (1855-1924), Martha Walters (1860-1946), and Levis Walter (1864-1937). All would have been born on the Centreville farm, Newton and Pusey at the older house and Martha and Levis at the new house. All four kids lived in the general area all their lives, but in this post our concern is Pusey (my wife's Great great grandfather). In 1891, Pusey married Mary A. Turner (1869-1947) of Nether Providence Township, Delaware County. She was the daughter of an English cotton manufacturer, and went by "May" (an name that has been passed all the way down into my children's generation). Pusey and May were married in Philadelphia, but moved around several times in Delaware and Pennsylvania in their first 20 years together. I believe I've pieced most of it together.

One indispensable resource is the Taylor family's entry in the 1914 A History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and Its People, Volume 2. Among other things it, lists the place of birth for each of Pusey and May's seven children. Their first, and my wife's Great grandmother, was Margaret Flaville Taylor, born in November 1892, according to the book, at Mermaid. Although I can find no other record of the Taylors near Mermaid, I think the December 1892 ad below answers the question. It incorrectly lists his middle initial as "A", but it seems Pusey was leasing the the former Lindsay farm, purchased in 1875 by Elizabeth Ocheltree. Although the house is long gone, the barn and one stone outbuilding still stand on Middleton Drive, north of Stoney Batter Road about halfway down.

The Taylors of...All Over the Place -- Part 1

David W. and Elizabeth Taylor, with
grandson David W. Taylor

In the last post about the David W. Taylor House, I promised a more indepth look at the Taylor family
to which he belonged. Not exactly coincidentally, my wife also happens to belong to that family (David W. is her 3rd Great Grandfather). This line of Taylors has a long history, and much of it (thankfully) has been fairly well-documented. My father-in-law, David Starkey, some years back himself wrote a piece about the Taylor line, which I know I read but didn't fully appreciate at the time. Now I do.

In all the documentation about the Taylors, most of it seemed to focus on the time that most of them spent in Pennsylvania, and less on their time in Delaware. I had not realized the impact these Taylors had in Delaware, and in Mill Creek Hundred specifically, until recently. As it turns out, even in my wife's direct line, they spent a good deal of time in Mill Creek, Christiana, and Brandywine Hundreds. They also made notable contributions in the Chadds Ford area, too. Here's a look at part of their story.

The story began (in the New World, at least) in 1682, when Welsh Quaker Thomas Taylor emigrated to William Penn's new colony with his young family. Thomas died soon after the trip, probably from something contracted onboard ship. Fortunately his children survived, and for the next few generations stayed generally in Delaware and Chester Counties. In 1773, Thomas' great grandson John Taylor, then living in Pennsbury township, had a son named William. It was William, third of fourteen children, who first moved the short distance south into Delaware, and into Mill Creek Hundred.

Mystery Bridge in the Delaware Park Woods

I have another mystery for you all, and it's one that falls in the category of Cool Sh*t You Find in the Woods. A reader named Frank had tried to bring this to my attention a while back but I didn't get around to it. I did now and I'm glad I did, and I thank him for reaching out again. (I also thank him for the photos.) What he found is an old bridge in the woods on the south end of the Delaware Park property. I've tried, but I can't figure out why it's there.

It spans a small creek that runs south from White Clay Creek a short distance beyond the former Pennsylvania RR (now Amtrak) tracks. It's made of concrete, so it's almost certainly early or mid 20th Century. Anything older would have been wood or stone. It's not a railroad bridge, but I can't find any evidence of there ever being a vehicular road there. I've checked old maps and aerial views, but no road. So why is it there?

All I have are guesses, some better than others. A short-lived road or planned one, long gone? Access road for local farmers? Access road for DE Park vehicles? Since it's now covered with grass and dirt, maybe access over the creek for DE Park horses? Frank thinks he recalls seeing "1941" on it once, but he's not sure. Delaware Park opened in 1937, and this type of bridge was in use both before and after then. But it does look like the kind built to handle automobile traffic, not horse-drawn traffic.

The David W. Taylor House and Dilworth Farm

The David W. Taylor House

One of my dirty little secrets here is that although I was born and raised in Mill Creek Hundred, my family didn't arrive in MCH until the 1960's. So, unlike with many of you, there aren't many of these stories that intersect directly with my own past. This story here might be about as close as I get, as you'll see shortly. And as many of the recent investigations have, it started with a simple question from a reader of, "Do you know anything about this house?" At first I thought I didn't, but then realized that I had actually run across it before, though I hadn't done any deep research into it then.

The house itself is located in Christiana Hundred, though not far from MCH. It's on Ashland Clinton School Road, just off of Old Kennett Road (about a mile west of Centreville). It's a beautiful three story stone home, built in a somewhat plain Second Empire style. There is an old wooden shed and a large barn next to it. There are also stone foundations of another large structure, between the extant barn and the road. After a little research, I think I can shed some light on the history of the house and its surroundings.

The history of the area goes back further than we need to right now, but by the mid-1700's much of the land in the region between Ashland Clinton School Road and Way Road was in the hands of the Armstrong family. This included, among other things, the property that is now the Delaware Nature Society's Coverdale Farm. It's also the same Armstrong family that later migrated a short ways south to the Mt. Cuba area, as detailed in Donald Prather's posts. In 1792, Archibald Armstrong purchased two adjoining tracts totaling 132 acres -- one from his father John Armstrong and one from John and Lydia Philips. On this farm Archibald made his home, until his death in 1839. His will granted the property next to his son Nathaniel, who it seems resided in the same house. I believe this house was the one that still stands on the east side of Ashland Clinton School Road, near Center Mill Road. Only this house appears on the 1849 map, and not the one to the north (which we'll get to momentarily).

Mystery of the Stone Troughs...Solved!

A Wilmington Fountain Society water trough

I don't consider myself to be a great researcher or writer, or even have particularly brilliant insights into the information I gather and pass along here. However, one 'Added Value" I can contribute is being able to piece together disparate pieces of information that I've come across over the years. Yes, get to the point, Scott. Six long years ago (although, honestly, February feels like six long years ago), it was brought to my attention that there were five stone troughs (that's what we guessed they were) located at Delcastle Golf Course, the former Delcastle Farm for the New Castle County Workhouse at Greenbank. They all had dates inscribed on them -- two with 1902, one each from 1903, 1905, and 1912. Later, we learned there were several other similar troughs scattered around New Castle County, in places like Canby Park, Granogue, and Hockessin.

There were stories that they were made by prisoners at the workhouse or at the farm, but no proof of either. From the style we figured all these stone troughs were related and connected somehow, but no one knew from whence they came. Then, this morning, thanks to one word I saw in a Facebook post (thanks for sharing, Robin Brown!), it all clicked. Then, I even discovered who was responsible for the existence of the troughs at Delcastle. It turns out, these lithic beauties were the work of a 19th Century philanthropic group -- The Wilmington Fountain Society. Founded in 1870 by Ferris Bringhurst, the group erected drinking fountains around the city for the benefit of city dwellers. More importantly for us, they also placed troughs for the benefit of the city dwellers' horses and dogs. In fact the Wilmington Fountain Society is considered a precursor to today's Delaware SPCA. The troughs were said to be hollowed out of large pieces of granite.

The Samuel Tyson House, aka The Hopyard Farm

In the early years of Mill Creek Hundred, many of the large plantations were given names by their new owners -- names that would have been well-known in the area in their day. Over the years, most of these monikers -- ones like New Design, Wedgebury, and Cuba Rock -- have fallen out of use and been largely forgotten. However, at least one name in the northwestern corner of MCH, dating back to the 17th Century, has remained attached to a particular house on this tract, being used as recently as this year in a real estate ad. Much of the original Hopyard Tract is now part of White Clay Creek State Park. In fact, the Samuel Tyson House, which came to be known as Hopyard Farm, is one of the few private residences now standing on what was once a tract as large as 1000 acres. Most of the rest of the (much newer) homes stand on land sold by its last "historic" owners.

The early history of the Hopyard Tract dates back to the 17th Century and is, quite frankly, pretty confusing. For our purposes here we'll jump ahead to 1720, when John Chambers purchased 664 acres referred to as the Hopyard. He devised the land to his son William in 1730, and William almost immediately sold 430 acres of it to Joseph Chambers, most likely his brother. Joseph, in turn, sold 221 acres of his land to Henry Geddes in 1738.

Geddes seems to have lived out the rest of his days here, passing in about 1756. In his will he left his property equally to his widow and four children, with ownership eventually being consolidated by his son, William Geddes. In 1763, Geddes (through his brother-in-law James Latimer) sold the tract to David Montgomery, of Lancaster County. Although David was again listed as being of Lancaster County when he sold it in 1802 to William Montgomery (presumably his son), there is evidence that he did live here, at least for a time. David Montgomery served in the Revolutionary War, and was commissioned as Captain of a Delaware regiment in September 1778. Perhaps he moved back to Pennsylvania at a later date. Whether or not Montgomery leased the farm at some point, some of the language used in earlier deeds implies that the Hopyard was leased prior to the Chambers era. However, beginning in 1803, all that would change.

Myrtle Emma -- Easter and The Seasons (Spring)

Myrtle Emma and oldest sister Mary

In a quick turnaround, here are two more excerpts from Myrtle Emma, the collected memoirs of Mill Creek Hundred native Myrtle Emma Morris White. In these uncertain times, and on the eve of the most unusual Easter in pretty much anyone's memory and the beginning of an extraordinary Spring, we'll look at Myrtle's recollections of both of these events from her childhood.

I don't have too much to add to these particular stories, so I'll pretty much just let them speak for themselves. I did try to figure out who the Mrs. Bain was in the Easter story, without much success. I'm guessing she was a fancy friend of the family's. Also, I assume the creek they walked down to would have been Pike Creek, just a short walk to the east. And maybe you already knew this (I didn't), but rusks are a type of hard biscuit or twice-baked bread. Biscotte and zweiback (literally, "twice baked") are types of rusks.

The Spring section is another excerpt from a longer chapter entitled, The Seasons. We saw the Fall and Winter part of it a few months back, just before Christmas. Seems like another world now. (If you're reading this at some time in the future, beyond 2020, you still should know why. If you're reading this far in the future, ask your parents.) We'll finish with the Summer portion a bit later. In describing the Spring, Myrtle again recounts the excitement of Easter morning, although interestingly there is no mention of coloring or hunting for eggs. The tradition was certainly around then, but it may not have been as ubiquitous as it is now.

Although I know everyone in the family worked hard and the life was certainly different than what I experienced around here 50 years later, it sounds like it was a magical place to grow up. I did the same buttercup thing as a kid, as do my daughters today. Also, I had no idea that you could find wild asparagus! So, enjoy these pieces, and have a Happy Easter. And here's to a better rest of the Spring.

Myrtle Emma -- School and Bumps & Bruises

Union School, 1926

I realized that it had been a while since we'd seen another installment from Myrtle Emma, the memoirs of Mill Creek Hundred-raised Myrtle Emma Morris White. In light of the trying times in which we all find ourselves these days, I've selected two chapters that seem appropriate in their own ways. With children all over the country currently receiving their education at home and not in their schools, the first segment sees Myrtle recounting her memories of attending the small, mid-19th Century schoolhouse that stood just up the road from her home. In the second chapter, we have her writing about things that I'm sure many antsy kids are getting at home -- Bumps and Bruises. As a special "bonus", she even mentions the "Q word."

The school Myrtle attended was the Union School, District 31. A few years back it shared with another school a post which gave the general outlines of the school's history, as far as it's known. The problem is...the history's not known all that well. The school stood a couple hundred feet west of Corner Ketch Road, just south of today's Estates of Corner Ketch neighborhood. The datestone on the two-story schoolhouse was inscribed 1850, but it's said that this date was for the addition of the second story. Supposedly the original structure was a log schoolhouse built in 1780, replaced by the first story of the stone school in 1811. I don't have any particular reason to doubt this story, but I can't confirm it either.

The Stephen Mitchell House, aka North Star Farm

The Stephen Mitchell House

There are several different ways in which an old home can be considered "Historically Significant". It can be particularly old. It can be unique to its area, or very typical. It can have an association with important people or events. Sometimes, though, you find a house that ticks multiple boxes. Such is the case with a beautiful stuccoed stone house on North Star Road, just south of the Woodside Creamery. The Stephen Mitchell House, or North Star Farm, is definitely one of the older homes in the area, dating to at least the early 1800s, and probably quite a bit earlier than that. The house and property are in the unique position of having been associated with one of the biggest family names in the area from each of the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries. On top of that, in the mid-20th Century the property was involved in what I believe was a unique experiment in home ownership.

The origins of the property along North Star Road go back to the early 1700's. When and with whom, exactly, I'm not quite sure. There are several tracts in this area and few good landmarks to use in identifying their precise location. The "large white oaks" and "dead black oaks" used as markers are not exactly helpful nearly three hundred years later. However, I do know that a Scotch-Irish immigrant named Archibald McDonald did buy land in what would become the North Star area. The McDonalds were the first of the major families associated with the house, and I've come to understand them a bit more now. I had been familiar with Bryan McDonald, who had purchased land in the Brandywine Springs area as early as 1689. I also knew that the McDaniel family eventually owned land in the Paper Mill Road/North Star area. I had a pretty good idea -- since McDonald was alternately spelled as McDonnell, McDannell, and McDaniel in various documents -- that those McDaniels were connected with the earlier McDonalds. I assumed, as it turns out incorrectly, they were descendants of Bryan McDonald.

What I didn't know at the time is that there was another McDonald in the area early on -- Archibald McDonald. I have no direct evidence, but it appears that Bryan McDonald, Sr. and Archibald, Sr. were brothers. It was Bryan, Sr. who originally bought the land at Brandywine Springs, then left it to his son, Bryan. The younger Bryan and his siblings seem to have eventually left the area. Archibald, Sr. appears to have lived in MCH, but I'm unsure where. The first land purchase I can find is for Archibald, Jr. in 1737, when he purchased 150 acres from William Thomas. When Archibald died in 1749, the property passed to his son Thomas.

Limestone -- The du Pont Carousel Estate

A. Felix and Marka du Pont in Virginia, 1949

Most of the stories we see here take place primarily in the 18th and 19th Centuries. However, there are some more recent interesting tales, some recent enough that I know there are those who remember them and their aftermath firsthand. One of those is the story of Limestone, the estate of Mr. and Mrs. A Felix du Pont, Jr., which stood in the middle of what's now Carousel Park. I had heard stories from people in the past (and very recently) about the old stone house that stood there, which by the 1970's was a burned-out wreck. I never knew the story of the house before, but I do now, and it's ready to be told.

The story begins in 1939, when du Pont made two purchases from the Klair family -- a bit over 16 acres from Irvin and almost 53 from Willard (another 40 acres in 1964 from a different source would round out his his local holdings). Felix planned on building a home that, unlike some of the other MCH du Pont country estates, would actually be his primary residence. But who was this member of Delaware's First Family who wished to move his family to the rolling hills above Milltown?

Alexis Felix du Pont, Jr. was born in Wilmington in 1905, the son of A. Felix, Sr. and Mary Chichester du Pont. The elder Felix was a vice president and director of the Dupont Company. In 1929, he founded the St. Andrews School in Middletown (on the board of which his children and grandchildren would later serve). Senior's father, Francis Gurney du Pont, is credited as being the creator of smokeless gunpowder, and was the one who wished to sell the company out of the family in 1902, when cousins Alfred I., Pierre S. and T. Coleman gained control.

A New Old Photo of Marshallton

Our "newest" photo of historic Marshallton

Frequent readers of the blog will know that something I really enjoy is coming across "new" or "lost" old photographs of the area. In the decade or so I've been doing this I feel that I've seen most of the historic pictures out there, but once in a while I'll find (or more likely, as in this case, someone will send me) something I've never seen before. (Of course, like the "New World", these are only new because I was unfamiliar with them.) A recent example of this is an old postcard bearing a photograph of Marshallton, which is both very similar to others we've seen and at the same time, different. As a bonus, I've been able to piece together the very sad story of the recipient of the card.

First, though, we'll start with the picture itself. Like several others we've seen, it was taken on the NW side of Red Clay Creek, near the intersection of Greenbank and Duncan/Newport Roads. The photographer was looking up Duncan Road toward where Kirkwood Highway is now. Greenbank Road runs right/left, the wall you see is the small bridge over Ham Run, and the bridge over Red Clay would be behind you. Below is a current view from approximately the same place. The house on the left in the modern view was around for the old picture, but is obscured by the now-lost house that stood on the corner. The Bellew-Cain House further up Duncan Road can be seen in the old shot (bright white in the middle), but is obscured by trees in the new. Everything else visible in each shot is not now or was not then standing.