The Stephen Mitchell House, aka North Star Farm

The Stephen Mitchell House

There are several different ways in which an old home can be considered "Historically Significant". It can be particularly old. It can be unique to its area, or very typical. It can have an association with important people or events. Sometimes, though, you find a house that ticks multiple boxes. Such is the case with a beautiful stuccoed stone house on North Star Road, just south of the Woodside Creamery. The Stephen Mitchell House, or North Star Farm, is definitely one of the older homes in the area, dating to at least the early 1800s, and probably quite a bit earlier than that. The house and property are in the unique position of having been associated with one of the biggest family names in the area from each of the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries. On top of that, in the mid-20th Century the property was involved in what I believe was a unique experiment in home ownership.

The origins of the property along North Star Road go back to the early 1700's. When and with whom, exactly, I'm not quite sure. There are several tracts in this area and few good landmarks to use in identifying their precise location. The "large white oaks" and "dead black oaks" used as markers are not exactly helpful nearly three hundred years later. However, I do know that a Scotch-Irish immigrant named Archibald McDonald did buy land in what would become the North Star area. The McDonalds were the first of the major families associated with the house, and I've come to understand them a bit more now. I had been familiar with Bryan McDonald, who had purchased land in the Brandywine Springs area as early as 1689. I also knew that the McDaniel family eventually owned land in the Paper Mill Road/North Star area. I had a pretty good idea -- since McDonald was alternately spelled as McDonnell, McDannell, and McDaniel in various documents -- that those McDaniels were connected with the earlier McDonalds. I assumed, as it turns out incorrectly, they were descendants of Bryan McDonald.

What I didn't know at the time is that there was another McDonald in the area early on -- Archibald McDonald. I have no direct evidence, but it appears that Bryan McDonald, Sr. and Archibald, Sr. were brothers. It was Bryan, Sr. who originally bought the land at Brandywine Springs, then left it to his son, Bryan. The younger Bryan and his siblings seem to have eventually left the area. Archibald, Sr. appears to have lived in MCH, but I'm unsure where. The first land purchase I can find is for Archibald, Jr. in 1737, when he purchased 150 acres from William Thomas. When Archibald died in 1749, the property passed to his son Thomas.

Limestone -- The du Pont Carousel Estate

A. Felix and Marka du Pont in Virginia, 1949

Most of the stories we see here take place primarily in the 18th and 19th Centuries. However, there are some more recent interesting tales, some recent enough that I know there are those who remember them and their aftermath firsthand. One of those is the story of Limestone, the estate of Mr. and Mrs. A Felix du Pont, Jr., which stood in the middle of what's now Carousel Park. I had heard stories from people in the past (and very recently) about the old stone house that stood there, which by the 1970's was a burned-out wreck. I never knew the story of the house before, but I do now, and it's ready to be told.

The story begins in 1939, when du Pont made two purchases from the Klair family -- a bit over 16 acres from Irvin and almost 53 from Willard (another 40 acres in 1964 from a different source would round out his his local holdings). Felix planned on building a home that, unlike some of the other MCH du Pont country estates, would actually be his primary residence. But who was this member of Delaware's First Family who wished to move his family to the rolling hills above Milltown?

Alexis Felix du Pont, Jr. was born in Wilmington in 1905, the son of A. Felix, Sr. and Mary Chichester du Pont. The elder Felix was a vice president and director of the Dupont Company. In 1929, he founded the St. Andrews School in Middletown (on the board of which his children and grandchildren would later serve). Senior's father, Francis Gurney du Pont, is credited as being the creator of smokeless gunpowder, and was the one who wished to sell the company out of the family in 1902, when cousins Alfred I., Pierre S. and T. Coleman gained control.