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The Samuel H. Brown House in Talleyville |
The house in question no longer stands, but I'm sure that many of you have passed right through where it once was. And though the story will end in Talleyville (the area around Concord Pike (Rt. 202) and Silverside Road), we'll begin a few decades earlier, in Christiana Hundred. That was where, in the 1840's, the eponymous Samuel Hanby Brown's great grandfather Joseph Brown owned and worked his 85 acre farm. It was situated just north of Mt. Cuba, right where the Fieldstone Golf Course is today. Since I was curious, I decided to take a quick, simple look into when the family might have first arrived on this particular farm. The search ended up being neither quick nor simple -- but it was very informative (and I ended up possibly pushing my wife's family tree back to her 7th great grandfather).
Since these things tend to be more clear going forward in time, we'll jump back to 1750 to begin our abbreviated trip though the history of the tract. That's the earliest I've been able to prove that a man named William Kirkpatrick owned a farm in Christiana Hundred. With the help of several wonderfully detailed deeds, we know that in 1788, 150 acres of the recently deceased Kirkpatrick's land was granted to Ann Wallace (presumably his daughter). By 1792, Ann's husband Thomas Wallace had died and she sold the tract to William Johnston, who is stated to be her son (by a previous marriage?). William Johnston died in 1834 without a will, and his real estate then passed to his only child, Ann. Back around 1815 or so, Ann had married Joseph Brown.