David Chillas -- Lithographer



Ad for David Chillas, c.1855

In February 2011, I did some cursory research and wrote a post about the Roseville Cotton Mill, which was located along White Clay Creek near Kirkwood Highway, just east of Newark. In the last paragraph of the post I mentioned that after its manufacturing days were over, the property seemed to have been sold to the Chillas family. I had all of two sentences about them, noting only that the owner appeared to be Scottish-born David Chillas, then later his son Arthur. Then the other night, while trolling around for something completely unrelated, I happened to come across the Chillas name again. At first I didn't believe it was the same person, but when I finally realized it was, I think my jaw did literally drop. It seems that Mr. Chillas had a surprising career before moving to Mill Creek Hundred.

David Chillas was born in Scotland about 1817, but eventually ended up in Philadelphia. There he became an artist and a printer -- a lithographer, to be precise. Lithography had first been developed just prior to 1800, and was popular throughout the 19th Century. Using a combination of acid, wax, water, and oil-based paints on a stone plate, lithography represented the first method that allowed artists to make multiple prints of the same high quality as the original. When chromolithography was developed around 1840, artists and printers could finally mass-produce color images. It was in these early days of chromolithography that David Chillas worked in Philadelphia.

The Armstrongs of Woodland and Brookland

Brookland

In the last post, we began looking at the Armstrong family of southwestern Christiana Hundred, a portion of which they came to dominate in the 19th Century. We saw four generations of Robert Armstrongs, at least three of whom lived on the farm called Hedgeland, located at the present-day site of DuPont's Chestnut Run facility. The funny thing is, this is not even what I started out researching. Initially I was looking into two other Armstrong properties -- Woodland and Brookland -- situated west of Centre Road (Route 141) and south of Faulkland Road. The recent removal of the Woodland name (which I doubt many people knew dated back at least 200 years) from a prominent place along the road got me thinking about the area, which in turn lead me down the whole Armstrong family path.

In the Armstrongs of Hedgeland post I noted that most of the family biographical information (which primarily came from Runks) began with Robert Armstrong (1743-1821). It said little other than A) he served in the Revolutionary War, B) owned a farm called "The Hedge", and C) had two sons, Robert and William. In the first post we followed the line of son Robert. In this one we'll take a look at William and his descendants.

The Armstrongs of Hedgeland

Hedgeland, circa 1880

One phenomenon that I've run across in my research that I've always thought was interesting was how certain families end up controlling certain areas, with multiple adjacent or near-adjacent farms all owned by relatives. Often this is a result of an early, large tract being broken up over the years but staying within a family, or by related men purchasing farms near each other (or a combination of both). We can see this with a few families in Mill Creek Hundred, like the Whitemans, the Eastburns, the Walkers, the Dixons, and the Jacksons. Another good example can be found just over the border in the southwestern part of Christiana Hundred, around the intersection of Centre Road (Route 141) and Faulkland Road.

The family that controlled this particular area was the Armstrongs, and their legacy can still be seen if you know where to look, although one highly-visible example recently disappeared (that's actually what got me interested in this in the first place, and we'll get to it in the next post). The Armstrongs, as I quickly learned, are one of those very old families that has semi-related (or possibly not related) branches in several places around New Castle County. The farther you go back, the more difficult it becomes to sort out exactly how everyone is related to everyone else. It didn't take me long to realize that I really just wanted to focus on the branch that settled near the 141/Faulkland Road area.

Mid-Week Historical Newsbreak: Lost and Found Department

For this week's Historical Newsbreak, we'll keep it shorter and lighter. It comes to us from the August 2, 1904 edition of The Washington Times.

Yes, not particularly historically notable, especially in a week that sees major anniversaries of the Gettysburg Address and the Kennedy Assassination. Still a cute little story, though. The lucky farmer was Richard S. Fisher (1848-1925), the son of English immigrant Richard G. Fisher (1809-1885). I don't have the portion of the 1893 map that would show him, but I'd assume that his farm was the same one his father had owned since at least 1868. It was located east of Old Wilmington Road, south of Brackenville Road. The farmhouse does not appear to have survived, but I believe the property is now a part of the Mt. Cuba Center. The Fisher family is interred at Red Clay Creek Presbyterian Church.

Mid-Week Historical Newsbreak: Train Mayhem Edition

This week we have a couple of iron-horse-related stories, sent to me by Donna Peters. They both come from the 1890's and occur along the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore tracks near Stanton. This is the present-day Amtrak line just south of the village. I don't know what they say, except that life has always had its dangers.

From the Alexandria (VA) Gazette, December 7, 1893:

From the (Flagstaff, AZ) Coconino Weekly Sun of October 8, 1896. Ouch.

Mid-Week Historical Newsbreak: Animal Anomalies

Welcome to the first of what I hope will be a regular feature (at least for a while) here on the Mill Creek Hundred History Blog. For a while now I've had a random assortment of very short historical newspaper clippings, but I could never quite figure out what to do with them. Very rarely have I been able to find out much, if any, additional information about the stories, and, well, you know how I am. I don't usually like to post stuff unless I feel I have something to add, even if it's just pulling a few things together. Because of that, I've only ever posted a few of these clippings here and there, normally when they're somehow connected to a larger story.

A good number of these clippings have come to me from Donna Peters, and recently she sent me another good batch. Since I can't justify holding on to them any longer, here's what I've decided to do. For the foreseeable future, once a week (probably about Wednesday) I'll post one or two of these clippings as a Mid-Week Historical Newsbreak. Depending on the selection, there may or may not be much in the way of accompanying text. Even if so, it may be as simple as, "The farm mentioned was located here", along with a map snippet. I hope you enjoy these brief glimpses of the past.

Possum Park

Unlike other times when I've made this statement and been wrong, I'm pretty sure this will be a short post (at least compared to some recent ones). In fact, stick around a few paragraphs and watch me dig really deep for some facts to throw in. This post came about the other day when I was trying to gather some information about the origins of the name of a particular road -- Possum Park Road, to be precise. In case you're not familiar with it, Possum Park Road runs north from Kirkwood Highway to Milford Crossroads, just east of Newark.

The road itself long predates the name, and was in place before 1820. At that time and at least as late as 1912, the thoroughfare was known as the Hop Yard Road. The Hop Yard tract was a large and old property occupying the northern part of Milford Crossroads, on the north side of Paper Mill Road. So when and why did the name change from Hop Yard Road to Possum Park Road? I've never found an explicit explanation, but a big clue lies on the 1868 Beers map, located in the upper right of this page.

The Henry Clark Woollen Mill

Sunnybrook Cottage

From the late 17th Century through the early 20th, Mill Creek Hundred was home to numerous water-powered mills. For obvious reasons of power, most were seated where you would expect -- along the main waterways of the region (Red Clay and White Clay Creeks) or their major tributaries, like Mill Creek and Pike Creek. A few, though, sat on smaller streams where, frankly, you're likely to look at them and say, "There was a mill powered by that?" One of those streams (which actually hosted at least two mills), was the usually tame Hyde Run, which winds its way from north of Loveville down to join the Red Clay in Brandywine Springs Park. And for nearly 100 years, in a now-wooded area east of Newport Gap Pike, stood a textile mill.

The story begins, though, more than a century before any cloth was manufactured on Hyde Run, or Great Run as it was referred to in the oldest documents. The property was originally part of a larger 239 acre tract purchased in 1689 by Bryan McDonald (or McDonnell, or MacDonald, or McDannell, or...don't even go there), of which this was in the northern part. It went next to Brian, Jr., who in 1747 sold his holding at the time to Jeremiah Wollaston. Wollaston in turn sold a 147 acre portion of the tract to George Robinson in 1757. Its location can be seen in the illustration below.