The Rubencame-Woodward Farm

The Rubencame-Woodward House

Very often on this blog, the sites we look at are hidden away on some back road or lightly-populated corner of the hundred, or tucked neatly into the middle of a mid-century, suburban neighborhood. That's mostly because, and I can't stress this enough, I have no control over where they are! However, the farm we'll investigate in this post was located near what's probably (I don't have the exact traffic statistics) the most heavily travelled area in Mill Creek Hundred -- the Kirkwood Highway/Limestone Road intersection. This area is pretty much the epitome of 20th Century commercial suburban sprawl, so much so that's it's almost weird to think of it as having a rural, agricultural past -- but it does. And though they've been gone for more than four and six decades respectively, I'm sure some of you can still recall the house and barn that stood along Limestone Road.

The farm anchored by the house seen above was under the ownership of only one family for more than 150 years (although it might not seem like it from the title of the post), but its history prior to that is rich as well. It gets confusing at times, but does come in contact with some interesting stories and people. I'll do what I can to shed some light on it, without getting too far off track or mired in irrelevant details (admittedly, always a struggle). Much like the nearby and recently featured Reynolds-Brown-Murray Farm (with which it does have a later connection), the acreage of this farm also changed a few times over the years, although not as many times as it might seem.

The earliest deed I have for what would become the Rubencame-Woodward farm is for a sale in 1757 from Duncan Drummond to William Johnson. However, within it, this deed documents another 70+ years of history and sales. The first was dated July 12, 1685, when William Penn's agents granted 110 acres to Aaron Johnson Vandenburg, "near a certain creek known by the name Rum Creek now called Mill Creek". (I think the name may have come from another early area landowner, Charles Rumsey.) In his 1701 will, Vandenburg ultimately left his estate to Rev. Erik Bjorck (spelled differently, but has to be him) and Old Swedes Church. Rev. Bjorck and Vandenburg's widow sold the farm in 1714 to James Robinson, who owned several other tracts in MCH totaling almost 1000 acres. He also built the first mill in what would later become Milltown.

With this connection it makes it less of a surprise that soon after acquiring the land, Robinson sold ten acres to the "Honourable London Protestant Society for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts", an outreach arm of the Anglican Church (which still operates in a modern form). I think this was formalizing an earlier arrangement under Vandenburg, and providing secure land for what would become St. James' Church. In his 1726 will, James Robinson bequeathed the farm to his son George, who sold the 110 acres in 1729 to Duncan Drummond.

This is not the first time we've run across Duncan Drummond. Back in 2014, I wrote a post about James Annesley, who may well have been a real-life inspiration for the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, Kidnapped, as well as several other stories. The very short version is that Annesley was kidnapped by his uncle and sent to America, where he spent about twelve years, essentially as a slave. His first owner in the New World was none other than Duncan Drummond, who was apparently not a kind master. It seems that young Annesley spent five or six years on the Drummond farm, on the east side of Mill Creek.

Approximate outline of the 193 acres (not 110!) sold to John James in 1774

This now brings us back to where we started, with Drummond selling the land in 1757 to William Johnson (or Johnston - the names seem to be interchangeable). In 1768, William Johnson sold the farm to his son John, and this is where things get a little confusing (don't they always, at some point?). Six years later, in January 1774, John Johnston sold the tract to John James. Here's the catch - recall how I've been referring to it as a 110 acre tract (although they probably should have called it 100, with the St. James Church lot removed)? Well, that's how it's described in every one of the deeds. However, when I tried to map it out I always came up with closer to 190 acres. Granted, my mapping is not exact, but that's pretty far off. However, in the 1774 sale to John James -- with the exact same described metes and bounds -- it's now listed as 193 acres. I'm pretty sure that there was an error on one of the early deeds (probably back to Penn's people in 1685) that just kept getting recopied, and that it was always 193 acres, not 110.

Now to the next point. Remember James Robinson, who I said owned land around, and built the mill at, Milltown? Well, after his death the mill lot was separated from the rest of the property (you sort of have to read this mill post and the Robinson-Murray House post to fully understand all this), and in 1753 the non-mill portion of the former Robinson land was purchased by William Johnson. I don't have all those relevant deeds at the moment, but at some point John James purchased some of the Robinson land around Milltown.

It's not surprising that James was able to acquire so much land, as he was quite an accomplished man, probably worthy of his own post someday. John James served as a major under Gen. Francis Marion (the "Swamp Fox"), during the Revolutionary War. He was an attorney and in 1787 was selected as one of the ten delegates from New Castle County to attend the state Constitutional Convention in Dover. On December 7, 1787, John James was one of the thirty men to sign the ratification document, officially making Delaware the First State.

When John James died in 1799 he was living in Wilmington, so the MCH farms were probably rented out. He died without leaving a will, so his five surviving children (all daughters) had to sort out the estate, but luckily they had another accomplished lawyer in the family. Daughter Mary was married to attorney David Finney, whose New Castle home would much later become the David Finney Inn. In 1802, Finney facilitated the sale of 252 acres of James' land to Charles Rubencame of Philadelphia. The sale encompassed the 193 acre farm, plus more land north of it, extending all the way up to Milltown Road.

The Robinson-Murray House, apparently
once on two separate properties

There's an interesting part of the description of the metes and bounds of this 252 acre tract, one I don't think I've seen outside of a city setting. The description begins down by St. James' Church, goes over across Limestone Road, then up to Milltown Road. After going west a bit, we get these directions -- "...south thirty one degrees west, eight perches to a stone at the back of the dwelling houses on this land and on the land of the said Joseph Ball, thence passing between the said houses as joined together south six degrees east, eight perches and one tenth to a stone at the westerly side of the road first above mentioned...".  I've bolded the section in question.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think it's saying that the property line was going through the two sections of the house shown above, known as the Robinson-Murray House. It would mean that the 2-1/2 story section on the left was on one property, while the gambrel-roofed section on the right was on another. This home, torn down in 1958, stood on the east side of Limestone Road across from Milltown. I can't recall coming across another rural deed with a property line passing through a structure like this. (And in case you're wondering, the "Murray" part comes from Edward T. Murray, who bought the house in 1908. He was the brother of Levi W. Murray, who nine years later would purchase the Brown-Murray farm between Old Capitol Trail and the yet-to-be built Delaware Park. Told you they were connected.)

Approx. outline of the 1810 Rubencame Farm (93 acres, later resurveyed to 97). The Kirkwood
Hwy / Limestone Rd intersection is on the right corner of it. Midway Shopping Center is within

In 1810, a year before he died, Charles Rubencame sold 93 acres of his land to his son John. This was after selling 120 acres to James Ball, which comprised the northern part of his tract. John Rubencame died intestate (without a will) in 1821, and the farm passed equally to his four children - John, Ann, Maria, and Jacob. It appears that the family might have moved away for a while, renting out the farm to a tenant. In fact, a late 19th Century history of the Woodward family states that Joseph and Mary Woodward lived there from 1826 until 1834, when they purchased a farm near Price's Corner -- but we'll get back to the Woodwards shortly.

A state Cultural Resource Survey report from 1978 states that the oldest section of the house was a fieldstone portion in the rear, reportedly built in 1836 from stones taken from an even older house that had been removed. That would mean that Joseph and Mary Woodward would have likely been the last residents of the original house on the site. In 1841 and 1842, the other three Rubencame siblings sold their shares of the farm to their brother Jacob, although he had probably been living there for several years already.

A few years earlier, in 1837, Jacob Rubencame had married Rebecca Walker, daughter of Robert Walker, whose barn still stands amidst the Linden Knoll Condominiums off of Skyline Drive. It makes sense, then, that it was Jacob who built the 1836 house for his bride-to-be and coming family. The couple would have more than their fair share of tragedy early in their marriage, when each of their first three children died in infancy in consecutive years (1838-40). They eventually did raise five children, even after losing another young child in 1851. The eldest surviving child, daughter Rebecca, married Dr. Swithin Chandler in 1863. 

A lot of heartbreak and
tragedy on one stone marker

Jacob Rubencame (who added the brick front section of the house, probably in the 1860's or '70's) was obviously a successful farmer, because in his 1883 will (he died in 1887) he made arrangements for three separate properties. One, a farm in Franklin Township, Chester County, was given to son Edward (who was already living on it). Another was the Ward-Dudkewitz House on the northwest corner of McKennans Church Road and Milltown Road. Jacob had purchased it in 1886 from the Ward family, probably as a home for his retirement, and his will stated that it be sold. It was sold, in 1891, to Robert A. Justis. However, Justis was the brother-in-law of Jacob's eldest son, Charles, who immediately bought it back and who would reside there later in his life.

The home farm was also given to Charles H. Rubencame, who farmed there and raised two daughters with his wife, the former Sarah E. Justis. In 1914, Charles sold the 96½ acre farm to his son-in-law Eugene H. Woodward, who had married Charles' daughter Breata in 1903. I'm fairly certain that even a few years prior to that (by 1910), Charles, Sarah and their other, unmarried daughter Mary, moved into the Ward-Dudkewitz House in Milltown. The couple had 61 years together, before Sarah passed in early 1935. Charles died in late 1937, two months after his 93rd birthday. Mary lived to be 91, passing in 1972. It was Eugene, Breata, and Mary who sold the Milltown home to William Dudkewitz in 1938.

View of the Rubencame-Woodward House and barn, from the 1940's or 50's.
Probably at St James' Church Road and Kirkwood Highway

Meanwhile, Eugene and Breata Woodward had been living on the home farm since at least 1910, and continued to farm it. Yes, Eugene Woodward was the grandson of the Joseph and Mary Woodward who had lived on the property some 80 years earlier. And if the Woodward name also sounds familiar from a post not too long ago, yes, this is the same Joseph who grew up in North Star, whose father Abner may or may not have built the house there, and whose brother Abner inherited it. He and Mary had a large family together -- Eugene's father George was one of 14 children! 

As the vicinity changed, apparently so did the Rubencame-Woodward property, little by little. Through a number of smaller sales and acquisitions, the size of the farm stayed about the same, but shifted a bit, ceding land on the west and adding it in the east. By the time of the 1914 sale to Eugene Woodward, the farm only went as far as St. James' Church Road on the west, but reached almost 1000 feet east of Limestone Road. In fact, in 1932 Eugene sold one acre on the eastern edge to his son, Charles Rubencame Woodward. Charles, who three years earlier had married Evelyn Lavenia Hitchens, built a home for his family on the lot. That house would stand until about 1966, when it was replaced by the Town & Country (later, Ethan Allen) furniture store. 

By the early 1940's, Eugene Woodward was in his 60's and looking to retire from farming. In 1943, he and Breata purchased a home on Main Road (Kirkwood Highway) in Elsmere, in an area that Woodwards had inhabited for over a century. The next year, Charles and Evelyn sold their house on Kirkwood Highway to Frederick and Regina Kohl, and moved into the old farmhouse. Charles would farm the property (which according to his obituary was called "Sunnyside Farm", although I haven't found any other mention of the name) fairly quietly, except for one incident in July 1947.

I know many of you know of the 1978 plane crash in nearby Klair Estates (which happened to be across the street from my house), but did you know there was a similar incident 31 years earlier? On July 18, 1947, a three passenger Piper Cruiser with two people onboard (the 1978 crash was a four-seat Piper Cherokee with three onboard) crashed on the Woodward farm, about 100 yards from the house. In both incidents, the passengers were killed instantly in the crash.

View looking north through the Limestone Road - Kirkwood Highway intersection, late 1950's

The rest of his time on the farm seems to have been quieter than that, and by the mid-1950's the Woodwards were looking to get out of farming altogether. Although Charles had been living on and working the farm, Eugene still retained ownership until selling to his son in 1956. The following year, Charles R. Woodward sold most of the farm to a developer, ending the family's 155 year ownership of the property. The Midway Shopping Center opened in the Fall of 1960, and soon the intersection went from looking like the above picture to looking like the one below, taken in the early 1960's. Although the barn is gone, the house is somewhat visible through the trees. The Woodwards would eventually sell the farmhouse in 1978 and move into a smaller home across the road in Limestone Acres. 

The Limestone Road - Kirkwood Highway intersection in the early 1960's,
beginning to look much more like it does today

The old Rubencame-Woodward House would stand until sometime in the 1980's, when it was finally razed. It looks like there might have been a plan for a restaurant at one point ("Dempsey's Restaurants of Pennsylvania" sold the lot in 1985), but in 1999 Rocco's Automotive opened where Rubencames and Woodwards once resided. This area in the heart of the Kirkwood Highway corridor is now home to a myriad of shopping and dining choices, but before that it did have three centuries of rich, agricultural and family history.