More of the Village of Greenbank

The William Elliot House

In the last post we were introduced to the idea that Greenbank (the area around Greenbank Road, 
Newport Gap Pike, and the Wilmington & Western tracks) was primed to grow into a full-fledged village in the 1870's. With the newly-constructed railroad, the turnpike, the Philips (Greenbank) Mill, and nearby Marshallton, the Village of Greenbank was beginning to form. We also met Andrew Jackson Williams - Civil War vet, train station agent, shopkeeper, ladder manufacturer, and all-around busy guy in Greenbank.

We also learned that he may well have been responsible for building not only his own home, but as many as a half dozen houses along Newport Gap Pike, between present-day Kirkwood Highway and Duncan Road. There were two houses on the west side of the turnpike, between the railroad tracks and Kirkwood Highway (which of course wasn't there until about 1940), where a parking lot is now. Williams' house, as detailed in the last post, was directly west of the railroad tracks.

All of this land south of Newport Gap Pike and east of the creek was owned by James Cranston, part of a 17 acre tract acquired in 1865. This was about the time he was moving from his old house in Marshallton (the Springer-Cranston House) to his new one on today's Old Capitol Trail. Whether or not he originally acquired the land with the intent of leasing and/or selling it, by the mid-1870's that's exactly what he was doing. Some of it back along Red Clay Creek was leased for use as Green Bank Park (presumably he got paid for this). Along the road, Cranston sold off lots for housing. 

Andrew Jackson Williams and the Beginnings of the Village of Greenbank

The Andrew Jackson Williams House (1988)

A little while back I was invited to participate in the Greenbank Mill's Folklore Fridays program, and I decided to do a short talk about the short-lived Green Bank Park. As I went back and refreshed myself on it, I became much more appreciative of the history of the Greenbank area of the late 19th Century. There was a lot more going on there than I had known, as well as some interesting characters. The most frequent name that kept coming up was Andrew Jackson Williams, but as I learned more about him I realized that his story and the story of the Village of Greenbank were inextricably linked.

Due to circumstance, I was not able to share these stories that night at Greenbank, but I present them here, now, in two parts. In this post I'll introduce the Village of Greenbank and take a closer look at probably its busiest citizen. In the second post we'll delve more into some of the other residents and residences, and look at the end of the idea of this area as a distinct community.

When we think about “Greenbank” today, we tend to maybe think of Greenbank Mill, the Wilmington & Western station, Greenbank Road, or maybe Greenbank Park. We think of it more as an area with a few things with Greenbank in the name, not really as a Place. But for about 20 or 30 years starting in the early 1870’s, it truly was a Place. There really was a legitimate village growing up there. But why there, and why then? Most of us probably don’t think of that stretch of Newport Gap Pike as much more than just the dip between Kirkwood Highway and Milltown Road.

There are a few good reasons why it made perfect sense for a village to spring up there, and a really good reason why it started when it did. That reason was the railroad. They were the superhighways of the 19^th Century, so when the Wilmington & Western began running in October 1872 and put a station there, it made sense that more might spring up around it. It had not only the railroad, but also a major turnpike, the mill, and a large operation and population not far, in Marshallton. The area seemed primed to explode into a full-fledged village.