The Milford Crossroads School, District #37

The second Milford Crossroads School,
as it looked in the 1920's

It's been a while since we've taken a look at an old schoolhouse, and to the best of my knowledge I've 
covered just about every 19th Century school in Mill Creek Hundred -- except for the one that stood near Milford Crossroads. It was actually one of the oldest schools in the area, and had two different schoolhouses over the years, serving the children of the region. The last school stood until fairly recently and was used as a residence for several decades -- and I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of you had contact with the owners at some point.

The school stood on the east side of Paper Mill Road just below its intersection with Possum Park/Thomson Station Road (aka, Milford Crossroads). The spot is today directly north of the northern entrance into the Shops at Louviers. Designated as District #37, the school was certainly one of the earlier ones established, and appears on the 1849 map. I had assumed that the school and district were likely set up soon after the Free School Act of 1829. However, determining the exact build dates of these older schools can be difficult because there's usually not much in the way of documentation, with the exception of one kind of secondary clue.

I've learned that if you're lucky and know the right names to look up, you might be able to find the deed wherein a farmer sells a small lot to the trustees of a school, for the purpose of erecting a schoolhouse. So, thinking the school was built circa 1830, I tried to figure out who might have owned the surrounding farm at the time and attempted to find the deed, but to no avail. It turns out, I was looking at the wrong timeframe. It wasn't until I attacked it from the other end that I found the answer.

Eventually I found a 20th Century deed (which we'll get back to shortly) that referenced an 1815 sale from George and Christina Jacobs, so I searched for and found that deed. Sure enough, on September 30, 1815 the Jacobses sold a little over half an acre to Thomas Smith, Isaac Mote, Sr., Samuel Kibler, Samuel Baldwin, and John C. Vinsant, trustees for the new school. The deed specifically states that the land is for erecting a schoolhouse. Although a later newspaper article implies that the school was older than that, unless there was another one built elsewhere, I'm comfortable with saying that the first Milford Crossroads School was built soon after this September 1815 date.

When the Free School Act when into effect, in some places new schools were built and in other places older schools were used for the newly-formed districts. It would seem that the 15 or so year old school here was used as the District #37 school. As seen in the 1868 map below, District #37 hugged the east side of White Clay Creek, from Pleasant Hill Road most of the way down Paper Mill Road and over to Muddy (Middle) Run to the east. At Milford Crossroads, the school was pretty well centered in the district and easily accessible by road.

1868 Beers map showing District #37. Although the school
is not shown, it would be above the "D" in "DIST"

The small, stone schoolhouse served the area's children for almost 75 years, and possibly in an interesting way. By the 1880's the school was old obviously not meeting the needs of the community. The district had a small surplus of funds and received permission to borrow some more, with the purpose of building a new, up-to-date school building. Just before the decade's end, a new District #37 school began to go up. The article seen below appeared in the newspaper on December 28, 1889, and provides us with some interesting information. Do keep in mind, though, that as far as what I've found, this article is the only source for some of this information.

December 28, 1889 account of the old school
and of the coming new schoolhouse

For one thing, "old stone school house" is the only description I've found for the original structure. Stone construction does make sense, and would be consistent with all the other MCH schoolhouses built prior to the 1880's. And though the article says it "was built more than 100 years ago", because of the previously discussed 1815 deed I'm very skeptical of that. I think it's more likely that by 1889 it was older than anyone's memory, and just assumed to have been over a century old.

The other interesting tidbit in the article is the passage about how fifty years ago (i.e., the 1830's) the school served both white and black students. I'm admittedly no expert in early 19th Century education in Delaware, but this does sound plausible. I think that at that time there certainly were segregated schools, but it was not mandated by law. I think that if a given community wanted to segregate, they did. If they wanted to educate their children together, they did. It wasn't until later that segregated schools became mandated. As the last line in the article states, the new school was for white students only. That school is the one seen at the top of the page.

Diagram showing the location of the Milford Crossroads School

The new, brick schoolhouse would not serve education purposes quite as long as its predecessor -- only about 57 years as compared to 75. By the early post-war period of the late 1940's, the older, one-room rural schoolhouses were becoming more out-of-date and less useful, especially compared to newer, larger, modern schools. Nearby Newark had that kind of school, and in August 1946 it was announced that all Milford Crossroads students would be attending the Newark school for the upcoming year. This arrangement worked well, and after the close of schools in June 1947, votes were taken in District #37 (which still technically existed, even if there was no operating school) and in the Newark Special School District to officially consolidate the two.

After that was done, the only thing left was for the Newark District to sell the brick schoolhouse, which they no longer needed. In January it was announced they would take bids for the property, and a February 23, 1948 newspaper item stated it was sold to David J. Eastburn for $2150.51. Except...it appears it wasn't. I don't know if that report was incorrect or if the sale fell through for some reason or if Eastburn got outbid at the last minute by a buck, but in April it was actually sold to Gladys T. Spencer, wife of Jesse G. Spencer, for $2151.51. 

May 30, 1947 notice of the Milford Crossroads District vote
on consolidation. The Newark district voted a month later.

There may have been a special reason why Mrs. Spencer was interested. Turns out she had personal experience with one room schoolhouses, because she happened to have worked in one! From 1942 until its closing in the Fall of 1947, Mrs. Spencer was the teacher at the Walnut Green School, near Hoopes Reservoir. I don't pretend to know the Spencers' motivations for purchasing the Milford Crossroads School, but perhaps having just overseen the closing of a one-room schoolhouse, Gladys and Jesse didn't want another to disappear.

The Spencers moved into their new (old) home at Milford Crossroads, an area that would soon get quite a bit busier with the opening of the Dupont Company's Louviers Building in August 1952. After the closing of the Walnut Green School (which also was sold and converted into (well, in that case, back into) a residence), Gladys Spencer transferred to the Krebs School in Newport, where she taught until her retirement in 1966. She was well educated (also teaching piano and violin), and there was even a short article from June 1956 reporting about her receiving her master's degree from UD at the same time her son William was getting his bachelor's diploma. Her husband Jesse was a carpenter who began farming when they moved, but in 1959 the couple stumbled into a new venture.

Newspaper photo of Gladys Spencer giving a
pony ride in July 1984

In that year Jesse brought home their first pony, prompting Gladys to ask, "What are we going to do with that!" Well, what they did was to buy even more ponies over the years, and eventually open the Fairwood Park Riding Academy. The farm had small ponies (mostly Shetland) and specialized in giving rides to children. Jesse passed away in 1977, but Gladys and son Jesse, Jr. carried on with the business until 1990. 

(On a personal note, in researching this I realized that I probably got a ride from the Spencers at least once. My grandfather worked for Dupont at the Louviers site (among others) and I recall attending several employee picnics there with my grandparents in the late '70s. I can't be 100% sure, but I feel like there were pony rides, and if there were, why wouldn't they have used the ones from literally right across the road?)

South side of the Milford Crossroads School, 
aka the Spencer House, in the late 1990's

Gladys Spencer passed away in 1993, but I feel like she may have moved out of the house several years before that. The now more than century-old school was left in disrepair, as can be seen in the photo above, which I believe was taken by the UD CHAD team in the late 1990's. By late 2006 it had gotten even worse, as seen below. Sometime very soon after those pictures were taken, the remains of the Milford Crossroads Schoolhouse were taken down, putting an end to a nearly two century old presence.

South side of the schoolhouse in 2006

Front of the school, 2006

As a final note, two items. First, since it's almost impossible to deal with this corner of MCH without mentioning his name, although the school was never owned by S. Hallock du Pont, he did own the adjacent land to the south. And since I'm sure someone will bring it up, the push mobile derby track was on his property, directly south of the schoolhouse and the Spencers' farm.

1992 aerial showing the long, straight push mobile derby
track. The school is in the wooded area directly above it