The Greenwalt Quarry

Notable sites in the Greenwalt area

In the 19th Century, most of the US population lived in rural areas, and most of them were engaged in farming. However, it was always a difficult life and farming alone rarely made anyone comfortably wealthy. For that reason, farmers were always looking for other ways to supplement their income. It might have been doing handyman-type work, carpentry, helping out on neighboring farms, or pretty much anything that someone would pay them for. They also might look around and try to utilize whatever resources they had available to them. This is a both a story about such a situation, and about how it took a few strokes of luck to uncover it.

In the course of my research over the past decade, I've come to appreciate how fluid it is and how often one investigation flows naturally into the next. In no small part, this is because in an area like MCH the lives of the residents are so interconnected that it's almost impossible (and in my mind, undesirable) to separate them and try to fully understand anything cordoned off and in a vacuum. The chain of events that lead to this particular story began a few posts ago, with the Italian community at Roseville. In trying to understand that tale better I ended up with the story of the first trip along the B&O line, and how they stopped to admire the new bridge over White Clay Creek and its stonework.

This in turn led Newark-based historical researcher Jim Jones to take a trip to the bridge himself, just to see what the area was like today. While there, his keen eye detected what appeared to him to be an old quarry, just a couple hundred feet southwest of the bridge. There was a sheer rockface wall that looked very much like it had been quarried. The questions then became...Who created this, when, and for what reason? With the close proximity of the railroad, my first thought was that it might have been a B&O operation, perhaps quarrying stone for use as ballast along the tracks. That would have dated it back as far as the 1880's.

It was at this point that the quest intersected yet another old blog post, this time regarding something mentioned by Ray Albanese when he originally shared with us his pictures of the B&O's White Clay Creek bridge a few years ago. Ray recalled that as a boy, he and his friends encountered some sort of cable car contraption strung across the creek, just north of the bridge (this would have been in the early 1960's). The car was outfitted with makeshift seats, and was big enough to fit four boys pulling themselves across the water. He didn't know why it was there, who built it, or how old it was. He also could find no trace of it when he visited the area a couple years ago.

Once I remembered this story, my next thought was that perhaps the two were related. We know that there were some smaller quarries around, often dating to the early 20th Century and used to quarry and crush stone for roads. There was one of these quarries along Mill Creek at Stoney Batter and another along White Clay Creek at Roseville. Maybe this one was used for the same purpose. And since there was no evidence of a railroad stop or siding here, even though it was next to the tracks maybe the stone was hauled out manually. I theorized that the stone could have been hauled across the creek using Ray's cable car. If so, it would have been a short cart ride up to the main road (today's Kirkwood Highway), coming out where the Western Branch YMCA is now. But without more information, these were all just guesses.

We thought about it, but could come up with no better ideas. Jim and I even went out to explore the area again and I got to see the quarry site, but we could find no trace of the cable car system. I decided to put this on the back burner and continue with what I was researching at the time, which happened to be Fair Field. If you recall from that post, in 1898 Kate Thompson of Fair Field married Lewis Greenwalt. Five years later Lewis' father, John L. Greenwalt, purchased Fair Field from Kate's ailing mother. As I would usually do in such a situation, I did a quick search to see if I could find anything interesting about Lewis or John Greenwalt. I didn't find much on Lewis, but what I learned about John shed a great deal of light on the mystery I had all but given up on.

Area around John L. Greenwalt's farms, 1881.
Purple line is approximate path of Kirkwood Highway

John L. Greenwalt was born in 1847 to John and Margaret Greenwalt, on their farm in southern central MCH, on the east side of Pike Creek. On Christmas Eve 1868, John L. married Ann (or Anna, or Hannah) McElwee, and the couple would eventually raise four children: John E., Lewis, Alfred, and Anna. As best as I can tell, John L.'s farm was on the southern end of his father's tract. His house stood on the south side of the Road to Newark (later, the Telegraph Road; later, Capitol Trail; later, the Lincoln Highway; now, Kirkwood Highway), just east of Harmony Road. The catch is that at the time, the road dipped for a stretch around Harmony Road, down from where Kirkwood Highway is now. John L. Greenwalt's home actually stood near the west end of what's now Madeline Court in the condos of Creekside at Green Valley.

Announcement of Greenwalt's finding of iron ore on his
farm. From the Delaware Republican, April 16, 1874

Finally we get to the discovery that tied Greenwalt to the mystery quarry...maybe...probably. As I was searching for "dirt" on the Greenwalts, I came across the notice above. As you can see, it was announced in April 1874 that Greenwalt had "discovered a small vein of iron ore on his farm". Unfortunately for him it wasn't enough to mine profitably, but not wanting to let a good resource get away he began quarrying stone instead. I know of no other quarries in the immediate area, so my assumption is that this is sort of a birth announcement for the quarry near the railroad and White Clay Creek. There is however, one slight issue.

If you look at the 1881 map above, you'll notice that the B&O tracks are not yet present (they'll be built a few years later, north of the one you can see, which was then the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore RR). You'll also see that John L. Greenwalt has two more or less adjacent farms. The 47 acre one above the creek is what I believe to be his home farm. The 60 acre farm south of the creek is the one on which our quarry sits. The problem is that Greenwalt didn't purchase that farm until February 24, 1879 -- almost five years after he began his quarrying operation.

He purchased the farm from George D. and Philena Medill for the sum of $2700, but for generations before that it had been the Morrison farm. A deep dive into the Morrisons will have to wait for now (I can already hear you emailing, Rich), but suffice it to say they had been there since 1727 on a 170 acre tract that spanned both sides of White Clay Creek. The last Morrison to own it all was Douglass, who in his 1849 will split the MCH and WCCH sections. The farm north of the creek went to his son David, who in 1857 sold it to his brother-in-law David Medill. When Medill died only four years later, his son George D. Medill took over.

April 1878 notice of the sale of the southern
Morrison farm, purchased by J.L. Greenwalt

The 60 acre southern portion (in White Clay Creek Hundred) was given by Douglas Morrison to his daughter Ann, wife of David Medill. This would explain why it stayed with her (and didn't go to her son George) when husband David died in 1861. Morrison's will, however, stipulated that upon Ann Medill's death the farm would then go to his grandson, Lewis Morrison. It seems that Lewis did reside on the farm, at least until it was sold in April 1878. Contrary to the sheriff's sale notice above for April 22, it was actually sold on April 15 to George D. Medill. Another note -- back in 1867, Lewis Morrison married Sarah McElwee at White Clay Creek Presbyterian Church one week before George D. and Philena Medill's nuptials. And yes, Sarah McElwee was the sister of Ann McElwee, John L. Greenwalt's wife. Now to circle all the way back to Greenwalt...

Little less than a year after George D. Medill bought the southern Morrison farm he sold it to his neighbor John L. Greenwalt. However, since all these families were intertwined, I think Lewis Morrison may have continued to reside on the farm. His death notice in 1880 describes him as "a well esteemed citizen residing near Harmony Mills". It seems that his brother-in-law Greenwalt may have either leased the farm to him or allowed him to live there. All which makes the quarry story more confusing.

The only other mention of Greenwalt's quarry - July 6, 1880

Above is the only other mention of Greenwalt's quarry that I could find. This one is from July 1880, and is after he purchased the WCCH farm. As for the first notice from 1874, there are a couple of possible explanations. One of course is that the quarry by the railroad bridge was not Greenwalt's, and that he had another one somewhere on his MCH farm. If this is the case I don't know where it was, unless there's one hidden along the banks of Pike Creek somewhere. If ours was Greenwalt's, then he may have been involved with the southern (WCCH) farm prior to actually buying it. If he was leasing and/or working the farm in 1874, that could explain why the newspaper reporter described it as his. It's also possible he could have had a leasing deal with Ann Medill and Lewis Morrison whereby he quarried the stone and and gave them a cut (of the money, not the stone). This happened often with kaolin mining in the area. And there's one more find that made me think he continued to quarry the stone at least for a few more years.

Notice of John L. Greenwalt's new house - Oct 1885

The notice above states that John L. Greenwalt "...has erected a very fine and large dwelling house, on his premises. The house is built of stone, and presents a fine appearance." It doesn't actually say that he built it from stone he himself quarried, but that's what I believe is the case. Although it's not unheard of for a house to be built of stone in the 1880's, as far as I know it was no longer nearly as common as it was earlier in the century. By the later Victorian period most houses were of frame construction. However, if you happen to have access to free stone, it makes perfect sense.

When I first saw this, my thought was that this 1885 stone house was the one located on Springlake Drive in Brookmeade. It's an old house located where the old maps show the old Morrison home to be. This house is clearly older than the neighborhood, but with the new additions to it it's not clear to me how old it actually is. I figured that John L. Greenwalt replaced the older Morrison house with his new one. However, the more I looked at the records, the more it appeared that Greenwalt was always a MCH resident. That now makes me think that his new house replaced his old one on the 47 acre farm in what's now Creekside at Green Valley. Sadly it looks like that house was razed when the condos were built in about 1986.

So where does all this leave us? We have a small, by commercial quarrying standards, quarry (which we can thank Jim for rediscovering) and evidence that John L. Greenwalt did quarry stone on his land. Greenwalt did own the land on which the quarry sits, but didn't officially own that land until at least five years after quarrying may have begun. We have three families involved with the property, all very much intertwined by proximity and by marriage (and almost certainly by close friendship). Until I find evidence of another quarry on the Greenwalt farm in MCH, I have to assume that the site near the White Clay Creek railroad bridge was operated by John L. Greenwalt, even if it started before he bought the property.