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The Murray Farm in 1937 |
In
the last post we traced the early history of the farm located due north of Delaware Park, along Old Capitol Trail, where the Murray Manor trailer park and the wedding venue known as
The Farmhouse are located today. We saw it go from being part of a large, pre-William Penn era land grant, to an 80 acre mid-18th Century farm, to being incorporated again inside a larger tract, to finally being a 155 acre family farm. It went through numerous families with names like Cann, White, Reynolds, Rice, Brown, and McCallister. Finally, in 1917, it was sold to Levi W. and Kate Murray for $13,000. This was both the beginning of a new era for the Murrays, and the culmination of generations of family work.
Although many of you may know the name only from Murray Manor (Mill Creek Trailer Park until the late 1980's), besides being in that location for more than a century now, the Murray family goes back several more generations and another three quarters of a century in New Castle County. We begin with Levi W. Murray, Jr.'s grandfather, Samuel. Samuel Murray was born about 1809 in Pennsylvania, possibly in Philadelphia. I say that because the first record of him in Delaware is a December 1842 deed in which Samuel, Elizabeth, Ann, John, Levi, and David Murray -- all described as being "of the City of Philadelphia" -- purchase a "Tavern house or tenement and lot of land" in the Village of Glasgow. I've yet to find proof, but I assume that this is Samuel and his five siblings. I don't know why they purchased the tavern, or what their connection was at the time to the area. They only held it for a few months, selling the tavern and lot in March 1843, so it could have just been an investment opportunity. Glasgow was originally known as Aiken's Tavern, named for the colonial-era establishment. The old tavern was torn down in the 1830's and a new one built across the road (where the Arby's is now), and this is presumably what the Murray kids bought.
In any case, if this was Samuel's first introduction to Pencader Hundred, he seems to have taken to the area. He may have even moved down around that time, because a mere two years later, in October 1845, Samuel Murray purchased 17 acres of land, about two miles southwest of Glasgow. In the deed, Murray is described as already being a resident of Pencader Hundred. He obviously knew this farm well, because dated the same day, he sold six acres of it that sat on the south side of the railroad tracks.