Returning Ann Stern McFarlan

Ann Stern McFarlan, c.1861

This story is going to be a little bit different than most I do, and it's one in which I'm going to ask for your help, local history community. It started a little while back when I received a a random-seeming email from a woman, stating that she had an old picture and thought it belonged in "my" area. (She had searched for history in the Wilmington area, and stumbled upon the blog.) She wrote that she had found this old photograph in an antique shop in New York City, and wanted to find it a home. She asked if I knew who it was and if I knew of any descendants or family who might like to have it. I said that I didn't, but that I would look into it.

I want to take a brief detour here and mention that the thoughtful soul who found the photo and contacted me was a NYC-based musician named Cat Popper. She's an amazing singer-songwriter and bassist, who over the years has played with the likes of Grace Potter, Ryan Adams, Nora Jones, Jack White, Bonnie Raitt and many others. You can see and hear more of her on her website. If you're into podcasts, she has one called Anecdope, where she interviews various musicians (some her friends, some friends of friends, all of whom you might know depending on the depth of your musical knowledge) and gets them to tell intimate backstage, behind the scenes stories of the roll and roll lifestyle.

But after that short and well-deserved plug, let's get back to our story. The first thing I did, as anyone who has handled old photos like this knows, was to check the back to see if anyone had written anything on it. Sure enough, they had! There were three pieces of information -- "Ann Stern McFarlan", "great great-grandmother", and "Also Helen Mc F. Cloud's great great-grandmother". (As we'll see later, I'm pretty sure this information is slightly off.) The photo, as you can see, was of an older woman in what appeared to be mid-to-late 19th Century dress. At the bottom was information about the photo studio where it was taken -- "From Wm. H. Curry, 309 Market St., Wilmington, Del.". It was this indication of Wilmington which ultimately led Cat to me.

Hillside School, Dist. #100 (aka, The Park Office) -- Part 2

Colorized photo of the former Hillside School,
now a home, in 1947 (courtesy, Allmond family)

In the last post we looked at the founding of the Hillside School, District #100, in 1891, as well as a few of the challenges it faced in its first few years. We learned that it was always a small district, but by the early 1930's it fell below the state's minimum mandated threshold for attendance and was closed at the end of the 1932-33 school year. While there would be no more classes held in the brick schoolhouse on Thompson Station Road and Chambers Rock Road, its story was not over. (I want to thank the Allmond family for their gracious and wonderful help in putting much of the story together.)

In November 1933, the Hillside School was put up for sale, along with the #29 Hockessin School, the #30 North Star School, the #90 Fairview School, and the #91 Yorklyn School. At the auction, the Hockessin and Yorklyn schools were withdrawn (to be sold later), the North Star school was purchased by the Mitchells of Woodside Farm (who had originally donated the land), and the Fairview school was purchased by Harold T. Little. Finally, the Hillside school was purchased by Elmer J. Leach, Warden of the New Castle County Workhouse, for $550.

Leach sold the schoolhouse and lot the next September to Charles H. Anderson, at a nice $250 profit (over $6000 today). It seems likely that the Leaches never lived there, but instead converted it from a school to a home. Anderson owned it until 1940, when he sold it to Joseph M. Brannan (price undisclosed). Brannan probably didn't live there, as I found multiple sales by and from him of lots in the Newark area (interestingly, this included his purchase of the District #42 school on Red Mill Road near Ogletown). He owned a store near Milford Crossroads, and would later buy a store in Stanton from Dutch Boulden. (I'm told the Milford Crossroads store building is still there, but moved a few hundred yards away.) It's quite possible that Brannan bought the Hillside School out of nostalgia -- it turns out he had been a student there, and that's him (2nd row, 2nd from the left) in the c.1894 photo of students in front of the school seen below.

Hillside School, Dist. #100 (aka, The Park Office) -- Part 1

The Hillside School (Park Office) today

After all these years, we may finally be covering the last of the pre-1900 schoolhouses in Mill Creek
Hundred! And unless I'm missing one (please feel free to speak up if I am), it's the last of the one-room schoolhouses built in MCH. From its inception it was always an almost ridiculously small district (but one the residents wanted) that almost immediately lost some of its tax base, and only operated for about 40 years. However, the building did survive and is even back in public use and owned by the state!

The school I'm referring to was known as the Hillside School, and designated as School District #100. The little brick school building sits on the east side of Thompson Station Road across from the eastern end of Chambers Rock Road, in the far western edge of MCH. The brick schoolhouse, since plastered over and with a few additions, now serves as the park office for White Clay Creek State Park (WCCSP). Its beginnings, however, go back more than 130 years.

Even today, if you go driving around on Thompson Station, Chambers Rock, Pleasant Hill, or Hopkins Roads, it can feel very (and in my opinion, wonderfully) empty. Even though you're only a few miles from bustling Newark and Kirkwood Highway, it seems remote. In the late 1800's it felt even more so to the relatively small number of local residents. This is one reason why, by the late 1880's, they were beginning to campaign for a new school for their children. At this point they were still part of District #31, attending the Union School all the way over on Corner Ketch Road. It was almost a mile and a half as the crow flies, but more like two or two and a half if the child walked along the road. 

The Long and Convoluted History of Sugar Loaf Hill Farm -- Part 2

My best estimation of the 147 acres
of Sugar Loaf Hill Farm

In the last post we were introduced to the property (originally four properties) later known as Sugar 
Loaf Hill Farm. We followed its story through the Nivin family (although starting out as Evans) and saw how it was acquired, then sold out of the family after William Nivins' death. It was owned for a while by John Dickinson, then sold in 1812 by Dickinson's son-in-law Albanus Logan to Joseph Johnson. It was Johnson who made some significant changes to the farm, mostly by breaking it apart.

First, in 1813, he sold 46 acres to Thomas Graves, which I think was all on the south side of Lancaster Pike, just west of today's Hercules Road. Then he sold 62 acres adjoining those to John Gray (no, not that one, Outlander fans). That got rid of most of the northern portion of the Nivin tracts. In 1814, Johnson made two sales on the same date to a pair of brothers. To John Mendenhall he sold 85 acres, which I believe was essentially all of his land between Newport Gap Pike and McKennans Church Road. Then he sold 147 acres, basically the central portion of the property, to Abraham Mendenhall. It appears that Abraham paid half of the $6000 cost upfront and mortgaged the other half from Johnson (he paid it off in October 1817). John and Abraham were sons of Aaron Mendenhall, patriarch of the Mendenhalls in MCH, and first of his family to operate their mill on Mill Creek.

While John sold his portion of the old Nivin farm just four years later (a property we can follow another day), Abraham's acquisition remained in the family a good bit longer. In fact, Abraham held it until his death in 1833. Most of his ten living children at the time were still in the area, although, notably, son William would later migrate west with the Mormons, as mentioned in a previous post about his cousin Ellis Sanders. William would become an important builder among the early Later Day Saints, and would be among the first of them to make it to Utah, arriving in Salt Lake City in 1852.

The Long and Convoluted History of Sugar Loaf Hill Farm -- Part 1

What I believe to be a close approximation 
to the original four Nivin tracts

Over the years here on the blog, we've seen that there are many different paths that the story of a 
property can take. It can go centuries being owned by just a few families, or it can change hands many times. It can start as one big tract and get broken up, or start smaller and get built up. It can be owned by people whose names you know, or by smaller and lesser-known families. In this story, we have pretty much a little bit of everything. This is a farm that has been mentioned in passing a few times before, always with the "I'll have to look more into it later" caveat. Well, it's now later.

The farm in question is often known as Sugar Loaf Hill Farm, although it's unclear when that moniker was attached and by whom. My best guess is sometime in the mid-19th Century, which will be much later in our story (in the next post). That's because the really interesting stuff took place a century or more earlier, and while I don't have every detail nailed down just yet, I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened and when. Our first question though, is where. 

This particular property was both built up, and then later broken apart. The tract lies on the north side of Hercules Road, and at its greatest extent, very generally, stretched from about McKennans Church Road on the west to about halfway down Hercules Road to Lancaster Pike. It then extended up and over Lancaster Pike, over to almost Old Wilmington Road, stepped south and west a few times, ending up on McKennans at about McKean High School. At its largest, the farm included about 420 acres, but it didn't start out that size. Quite confusingly, at the point where I had first jumped into the stream (a few sales in the late 1760's/early 1770's) the property was being sold as four separate (but presumably contiguous) parcels -- of 200, 39, 102, and 80 acres. It was unclear whether they had been acquired simultaneously or cobbled together over the years. I still haven't found all the answers, but I do have enough to piece the story together.

The Surprising Tale of Herbert Singer and his Yearbook

Front of the '46/'47 UD yearbook

I want to tell a bit of a different type of story than we usually have here, and one that I recently stumbled upon quite accidentally. Most of the tale is outside of Delaware, let alone Mill Creek Hundred, but it does begin with a Delaware connection. In fact, it all began simply with me looking down and seeing the word "Hen". It's one of those stories that just kept getting more interesting the more I dug into it, and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

As noted, this all began very simply, with no notion where it would ultimately lead. I was walking around one day and happened to look down in a bin of discarded items (I don't want to bore you with the specifics, but suffice it to say that the item was retrieved very legally and safely). I saw the word "Hen" on what appeared to be a book or certificate of some sort. Thinking that it might have something to do with the University of Delaware (and since my daughter currently attends there and I've recently "reconnected" with UD and Newark) I grabbed it out of curiosity. Once I did, I realized that it was a book, large and hardbound. In fact, it was a UD yearbook -- from the 1946/47 school year! I assume you all know me well enough to know I was excited.

As I looked through the book, I came across one fascinating thing after another. First in the faculty/administration section, I saw several names I recognized from the buildings later named in their honor -- Dr. Wilbur Owen Sypherd, Francis Hagar Squire, and John Fenton Daugherty. And while I didn't recognize any specific names of students, there were plenty of family names I knew -- Duncan, England, Townsend, Winchester, and Hollingsworth, among others. I also had fun identifying the buildings that were pictured. Most looked the same, but with slightly different (and generally sparser) surroundings. Only one building was named differently -- then University Hall, now Hullihen. Well, also Memorial Hall was then the Library.

The Crawford-Rankin Farm

The 200 acre Crawford-Rankin Farm

In the south-central area of Mill Creek Hundred, there lies a farm that for almost 150 years was owned by only two families (although really just one), but now is the home to several hundred. It has a history that reaches back to a colonial business venture which I hadn't (knowingly, at least) run across before, and forward to the biggest family in the state. Part of it now includes street names that wonderfully reflect the history of this region of MCH. 

The property in question lies on the east side of Polly Drummond Hill Road, mostly north of the western end of New Linden Hill Road. However, its story goes back long before the current path of New Linden Hill Road, and even generations before Mrs. Drummond graced the hill that now bears her name. The original tract we're looking at was a 300 acre parcel owned in the early 1770's by something called the Pennsylvania Land Company (PLC). The PLC was a Quaker-owned corporation which bought large swaths of land from William Penn and resold it in smaller parcels. But it was not only Quaker-owned, it was Quaker affiliated -- to the point that there seems to be a discussion among historians as to just how much it was a part of the Society of Friends. I think that most of their land was in the current Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (and I can't recall coming across them before), but they did own this 300 acre property in MCH.

The PLC was founded in 1699 by four Friends in London: Michael Russel, Tobias Collet, Daniel Quare, and Henry Gouldney. The last three of them are named in the deeds I've found relating to this tract. On March 14, 1722, they sold the 300 acres -- bounded on the east by Pike Creek (then called Peck's Creek) and extending likely just past Polly Drummond Hill Road -- to Griffith Lewis. Lewis was a weaver by trade, probably born in the early 1680's (although details about him are scarce). Four years later, in 1726, he also bought 200 acres bordering Red Clay Creek, which will be the topic of an upcoming post. Unfortunately, Griffith and wife Catherine didn't enjoy these properties together for long, as Griffith Lewis died in the early days of January 1731. He willed all his real estate and assets to Catherine (it does not appear that they had any children), and she sold the Red Clay farm in 1738.

The Sanders-Currinder Farms Part Two

Ellis Sanders' 150 acre farm

In the last post, we saw how the land roughly bounded by Kirkwood Highway, White Clay Creek, Harmony Road, and Red Mill Road passed through the Bryan, Shields, Saunders (Sanders), and Currinder families. We learned that in 1819, brothers Amos and Ellis Sanders divided the 200 acre farm, previously owned by their father John, which they had purchased jointly in 1792. We followed Amos' western 42 acres through his long lifetime, and then saw it sold to Jacob Currinder, who also added 53 acres on the western end (from miller David Eastburn). However, Currinder didn't just add those 53 acres to land he already owned. Amos' 42 acres also were an addition to an existing Currinder farm -- namely the farm formerly owned by Ellis Sanders. But to get there, we have to back up a bit.

We last left older brother Ellis Sanders after the 1819 division of their father's old farm, in which Amos got the smaller farm with the house, and Ellis got the larger, eastern portion. Ellis' farm, seen above, comprised 150 acres nestled along White Clay Creek, extending east of Harmony Road and north of what was then the Road to Stanton (or Newark), later the Telegraph Road, and finally Capitol Trail/Kirkwood Highway. I should mention that there were two slight road differences in the pre-suburban era. One was the placement of Harmony Road, now Old Harmony Road, just slightly east of the current thoroughfare. The other was the Road to Stanton, which deviated in this stretch from the modern Kirkwood Highway (to Upper Pike Creek/Old Harmony Roads)/Capitol Trail (westward to Newark). Heading west, the road dipped south through today's Green Valley, followed about where Green Valley Drive is now and crossed Pike Creek, headed straight west crossing Old Harmony Road at the bend, went behind Richardson's Garden Center, dipped down a bit again and went in front of where Shue-Medill Middle School is, then angled back up to join the current highway.

In 1789, Ellis married Edith Yarnall (of the Yarnalls living near Brandywine Springs), but she died the following December, only two weeks after the birth (and death) of their only child. Ellis remarried five years later to Hannah Mendenhall, daughter of miller Aaron Mendenhall. They had two children -- Ann (who apparently never married) and Ellis Mendenhall Sanders, who had quite the eventful life. The elder Ellis lived the remainder of his life on his farm, until passing in 1843 at the age of 77. In his will, he gave his farm to his son, but that son would not remain on it. Although born a Quaker, in 1843 Ellis M. was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He travelled to Nauvoo, IL (where the Mormons were settled at the time) in Spring 1844 and met with founder Joseph Smith. He was ordained an Elder by Joseph's brother Hyrum, and returned to Delaware. Both Smith's would die in prison at the hands of a mob in June.