The Intertwined Histories of the Milltown Road Farms -- Part 2, The McKee (Grendon Farms) Farm

McKee-Johnston-Stephenson Farm - 1952,
with modern streets overlaid

In the last post, we traced the history of the southern portion of the old Ball farmstead, through the ownership of Benjamin and William Sanders, to Robert McFarlin, to Robert Stuart, then to William and Elizabeth Murray, to Ellison Putney, and then finally to the Malmgrens. Now we move to the northern farm, which would eventually become Grendon Farms, and which was originally inquired about. First, we circle back to the time soon after Benjamin Sanders' death in 1860. I've frustratingly not been able to find this particular deed, but sometime between 1861 and 1868, the 78 acre farm (which makes sense -- that's what was left of his original approximately 150 acres after the sale of the southern 72 to son William) was purchased by Andrew McKee, who would have been in his early to mid 50's at the time.

Although a new landowner in MCH, McKee was no stranger to the area, nor was his family new to landowning. He was born and raised in Brandywine Hundred, on his father's farm just north of Wilmington, along the Concord Turnpike. The incline going up from I-95 to Fairfax is to this day known as McKee's Hill, as the family had been there since the earliest days of English occupation. Our Andrew McKee (not his uncle Andrew who the owned the Brandywine Hundred farm at the time) had moved to MCH sometime in the 1840's and leased the farm along Limestone Road directly north of Stanton (later the Satterthwaite farm).

A February 1886 article noting that Andrew McKee
had been attending the Wilmington market for 50 years

By the time they moved into the former Sanders farm, Andrew and wife Margaret had four children -- Sarah, John, Elwood, and George. McKee was a hard-working farmer even into later life, as the 1886 article above shows. He farmed a few more years, before passing away in August 1891 at the home of his son George, in Wilmington. Oddly, in the obituary seen below, it says he was a widower and had lost his wife. Unless he just misplaced her, Margaretta lived until 1901, and is shown in the 1900 Census living with son George's family (and daughter Sarah) in Lower Merion Township, PA. 

August 1891 notice of Andrew McKee's passing

But meanwhile back on Milltown Road, it seems that when McKee purchased the farm from Sanders in the 1860's, he borrowed money from him. Remember from the previous post how William Bright had the southern farm sold at a sheriff's sale in 1861 (purchased by Robert McFarlin)? Well, he struck again with the northern one in 1894, after Andrew McKee's death. If I understand it correctly, the heirs of Joseph Lindsey were collecting on a debt from Sanders, so Bright had the Milltown farm sold to collect money to pay off the Lindseys. However, the winning bid of $2000 was made by Mary P. McKee, George's wife. Whether or not the family was living on the farm at the time, I don't know (that lost 1890 Census would have helped a bit). I do know that three years later, in 1897, Mary and George ("of the city of Wilmington") did finally sell the farm, to a gentleman from a well-known family.

The new owner of the 78 acre farm was John Ball, a member of the same family as, although I don't think a direct descendant of, the Balls who had previously owned the tract. This John Ball owned the farm on the northeast side of Limestone Road, just above Milltown (and which we'll see mention of again later). He was almost 70 years old when he bought the McKee farm, so he was probably looking to help his children. And after John Ball died without a will in 1900, leaving a widow and seven children, the family sorted things out by selling the farm to one of the sons, Harvey Ball. I believe Harvey had been living on and working the farm, as the 1900 Census has him listed immediately before the widowed Jane McFarlin, who was still in her home on the southern farm.

1937 aerial showing the several farms. Milltown Rd. runs across, with St. James Church Rd. in
the upper right. The Northern/McKee Farm is in the upper middle, with the Southern/McFarlin
Farm to the left. The Holland-Plunkett Farm is directly below it.

And if keeping all these adjacent farms straight wasn't already hard enough, in 1903 Harvey purchased the 108 acre former Holland farm from Phillip Plunkett. This was the farm on the east side of Milltown Road, between it and Mill Creek, just south of the Lynam (soon to be Lindell) farm. He sold 14 acres off of the southern end of the farm to Joseph Eastburn in 1909. Then in 1910, Harvey Ball sold just shy of 90 acres to Samuel L. Johnston. As best as I can make out, this was basically the former McKee farm, with some of the Holland-Plunkett land on the east side of Milltown Road added on. Ball sold the remainder of the Holland-Plunkett farm (74 acres) to Emanuel and Savilla Biser in 1918.  And it's not your imagination -- just about all these farms were around 70-some acres at some point, making sorting them out harder than it needed to be (in my opinion).

Samuel L. Johnston had grown up on his father's farm north of Newark, just west of the Chambers House, between Hopkins Road and Chambers Rock Road (it was in Delaware then, but is in PA now). As prosperous and industrious as Samuel was, he might have been one of the underachievers in his family. His brother John K. Johnston was vice president of the National Vulcanized Fibre Company, chairman of the Delaware State Racing Commission, and a member and director of too many other groups to list here. His sister Deborah was married to Edward Laurence Smith, a popular professor at Delaware College (now UD). He became Dean of Arts and Science in 1915 and of Delaware College in 1922. Both he and Deborah died of pneumonia in 1923. Did you ever have a class at Smith Hall? That was named for Samuel L. Johnston's brother-in-law.

Though not on the level of a corporate VP or college dean, Samuel and wife Cornelia (nee, Dempsey, of Corner Ketch) Johnston were very involved in the community. Both were involved with White Clay Creek Presbyterian Church and school, and Mrs. Johnston was the president of the White Clay Creek Improvement Society, who they often hosted for events at their home. Samuel for years served as the president of the Stanton Civic Association. The importance of education to the family was also shown through their daughter, Madeline. She was a graduate of Newark High School and of the University of Delaware (in 1922, when her uncle was the Dean). She was a teacher in the Newark schools for 17 years, I believe until her marriage in 1942.

June 1942 announcement of the
wedding of Madeline Johnston
and Henry C. Lynam 

Her wedding, (the notice for which calls the Johnston home "Wayside Farm", the only mention I've seen of that name) was to Henry C. Lynam -- literally the boy next door. Sadly, though, Madeline Johnston Lynam passed away seven years later, in 1949, leaving her husband and four year old daughter. Three times over the previous ten years Samuel Johnston had sold off small lots of his land (one, one, and five acres), but in November 1950, the 73 year old sold (most of) the rest of his farm. He and Cornelia kept a small lot along Milltown Road (I believe it was across from St. James Church Road) and built a home for themselves.

So this (finally) gets us back to where we started, with Joseph Gheen Stephenson as owner of the farm of just under 82 acres. Gheen, as he was known, was born in Philadelphia in 1918 to Joseph and Emily Stephenson. Although they lived in Philadelphia, Joseph's family was originally from the Middletown area, and were living near Kennett Square in 1900. Emily Woodward Klair was the daughter of David and Clara Woodward Klair. Although of the Milltown-area Klairs, Emily grew up on her father and grandfather's Klair farm in Christiana Hundred, near where the Greenville Country Club is today. As the Klairs and Woodwards had the propensity toward large families we won't get into it all, but I'll mention that Emily's mother, Clara Woodward, was from the same Woodward family we've run across multiple times recently. She was the daughter of George Woodward (whose mother was a Klair) and half-sister of Eugene Hendrickson Woodward (owner of the Rubencame-Woodward Farm).

And though all these connections would be interesting in their own right, they become more relevant for us after the untimely death of Joseph Stephenson in 1928, at the age of 32. Emily was left with a son and daughter, ages nine and ten. In the 1930 Census she's shown living with her sister and brother-in-law, the Millers, in Wilmington. However, in November 1934, Emily Woodward Klair Stephenson remarried to -- Irvin G. Klair. I don't know where this stood on the spectrum of marriages from true love to convenience and practicality, but she was a 41 year old widow with two teenaged children, and he was a recently widowed 58 year old, with two young adult sons.

Family progression over 17 years. Left: 1917 wedding announcement of
Joseph Gheen Stephenson and Emily Woodward Klair. Middle: Stephenson's
 1928 obituary. Right: 1934 wedding of Mrs. Emily Stephenson and Irvin G. Klair

As far as their familial connections go, there are several. The most direct connection is through their Klair lines. Emily's father (David) and Irvin were first cousins -- their fathers (Frederick and Jonas) were brothers. That would make Emily Irvin's first cousin, once removed. But that's not all - Irvin's late wife was the former Adaline Woodward, daughter of George and Ellen Hendrickson Woodward. Adaline was the half-sister (same father, different mothers) to Clara Woodward, Emily's mother. So although only "half" for Adaline and through marriage for Irvin, they were her aunt and uncle. But also, Clara and Adaline's father George was himself a Klair, through his mother Mary, daughter of the patriarch Frederick. So George was a cousin to Jonas and Frederick. Hopefully Gheen never had to write up a family tree for school. And for context, again, Emily and Irvin were both older when they married, and had no children together

But back to slightly more relevant facts to our story, Frederick and Jonas Klair both grew up in the McKennan-Klair House on Limestone Road. Jonas inherited the house, while Frederick moved to Christiana Hundred. Irvin grew up in the McKennan-Klair House as well, then bought the farm of Bayard Derickson, located on the west side of the road (about where the Carousel Park parking lot is). About the same time in 1934 that he was marrying Emily, Irvin bought the former John Ball farm (remember that?) at Milltown for his son Marvin. No doubt some of you remember Marvin Klair. I guess the point of all this is that when Emily married Irvin and moved to his home on Limestone Road, it put young Gheen in close proximity to what was then the Johnston farm on Milltown Road.

In 1941, Gheen married Jayne Drayton Harrison and the couple resided at Irvin's Limestone Road farm, where Gheen worked with his step-father. In late 1950, the Stephensons purchased the Johnstons' farm and moved into the home in the Spring of '51. Gheen began farming the property, but he would be the last to do so on a farm that even then had a 250+ year history. Gheen and Jayne were deeply involved in the community, especially through Red Clay Creek Presbyterian Church, the Harmony Grange, and other farming and dairy organizations.

A July 1958 ad for the new Grendon Farms

It seems that Stephenson enjoyed farming and was successful at it, but the world was changing. It was getting harder for smaller dairy farms to compete with larger operations, so in 1958 he decided to begin developing part of the farm. The new firm of Grendon, Inc., with builder Anthony Conforti as president (and presumably Stephenson, as he owned the land), began building homes on the 17 acre parcel on the east side of Milltown Road -- what's commonly thought of as Grendon Farms today. This first section was to be completed by the spring, with the full 80 acre site (the rest of the farm on the other side of Milltown Road, aka Section 2) developed within three years. 

Grendon, Inc. continued to sell homes in both sections throughout 1959 and well into 1960, with John T. Lamper and Robert R. Carl acting as real estate agents. Around that time, the old farmhouse (and at this point I could only speculate as to when it was built -- whether it was a Ball home or built by Benjamin Sanders) was taken down to make room for the new homes. The house and barn (the barn remained for a short time longer than the house) sat on the southwest side of Grendon Drive (the left, as you're coming in from Milltown Road), between Carl and Drayton Drives. The Stephensons, however, did not move away and become absentee owners -- they built a new home on Milltown Road, in the very corner of the property.

They remained part of the community, reflected in the fact that the annual meeting of the Grendon Farms Civic Association was held in their home in May 1961. After giving up the dairy business, Gheen Stephenson worked for Hercules for 26 years, and eventually the family moved to Hockessin. As noted in the last post, in late 1960 all the remaining shares of Grendon, Inc. were purchased by developer Frank Robino, who had just acquired the neighboring McFarlin-Putney Farm. Apparently he originally planned to build a shopping center as well as housing in what would become Heritage Park, but that plan was nixed by local residents before the combined Heritage Park in Grendon Farms came to be.

So now we have the combined, separated, combined, separated, and finally combined histories of what's now Grendon Farms and Heritage Park. This is a great example of how, sometimes, you can't get the whole story of a property by looking at it alone. Much like the families who lived on it, the history of the land oftentimes is more of a meandering, interconnected web than a straight line. It's also another great example of how even a place like this, which just looks like one more mid-century suburban developed area, has its own rich stories to tell.