Camp Wright

The Arts and Crafts/Bunk House, with
Bunk House #2 in the background

To be sure, there are lots of sites (standing and gone) in Mill Creek Hundred that were special to various grown-ups over the years -- the homes where they raised their families, the mills or barns where they spent their days, the churches they worshiped in. But there are three MCH sites in particular that come to mind as holding a special place in the hearts of thousands of children -- Brandywine Springs Amusement Park, Camp Mattahoon, and the subject of this story, Camp Wright. We've covered the first two in previous posts, so now we'll give Camp Wright its due.

What became known as Camp Wright sits on a seven acre tract along the west side of Mill Creek Road, across from the end of Graves Road (and just south of Mendenhall Mill Road). For nearly 80 years it served as a pastoral oasis for thousands of Wilmington's underprivileged children, if only for a week or two at a time. Speaking of the site, one article in 1929 said, "Perhaps there is no spot in Delaware where there is more happiness confined in a small space than at the Children's Camp near Hockessin." And though Camp Wright is a part of the 20th Century history of Mill Creek Hundred, its origins go through Brandywine Hundred and ultimately back to post Civil War Wilmington.

In the aftermath of the war, benevolent and special aid societies popped up all over the country, so many that by the 1880's there began to be some consolidation of these charitable organizations. Locally in 1884, several of these groups merged to form the Associated Charities of Wilmington, with the goal of better coordinating services for the city's underprivileged. One of the programs, which began in 1889, was the idea of sending poor city kids (and their mothers) to spend time "out in the country". This soon morphed into the idea of summer camps for children, which: 1) gave them rural experiences, 2) got them out of the unhealthy city for a time, 3) allowed them access to better food and exercise, 4) and not least of all, gave their parents a break, too.

The Samuel Hanby Brown House

The Samuel H. Brown House in Talleyville

In this post we're going to travel out of Mill Creek Hundred to visit Brandywine Hundred, and more specifically, Talleyville. This story functions both as a follow-up to the posts a while back about the Taylors (here and here) and as my own little memorial. The owner of the house we'll eventually be looking at -- Samuel Hanby Brown -- was married to a member of the Taylor family. One of their grandsons happens to have been my father-in-law, who we recently lost. This story's for you, Dave.

The house in question no longer stands, but I'm sure that many of you have passed right through where it once was. And though the story will end in Talleyville (the area around Concord Pike (Rt. 202) and Silverside Road), we'll begin a few decades earlier, in Christiana Hundred. That was where, in the 1840's, the eponymous Samuel Hanby Brown's great grandfather Joseph Brown owned and worked his 85 acre farm. It was situated just north of Mt. Cuba, right where the Fieldstone Golf Course is today. Since I was curious, I decided to take a quick, simple look into when the family might have first arrived on this particular farm. The search ended up being neither quick nor simple -- but it was very informative (and I ended up possibly pushing my wife's family tree back to her 7th great grandfather).

Since these things tend to be more clear going forward in time, we'll jump back to 1750 to begin our abbreviated trip though the history of the tract. That's the earliest I've been able to prove that a man named William Kirkpatrick owned a farm in Christiana Hundred. With the help of several wonderfully detailed deeds, we know that in 1788, 150 acres of the recently deceased Kirkpatrick's land was granted to Ann Wallace (presumably his daughter). By 1792, Ann's husband Thomas Wallace had died and she sold the tract to William Johnston, who is stated to be her son (by a previous marriage?). William Johnston died in 1834 without a will, and his real estate then passed to his only child, Ann. Back around 1815 or so, Ann had married Joseph Brown.