The Buckingham-Pierson House

The Buckingham-Pierson House today

When a house stays around for long enough, it usually will pass through a number of different owners. Normally it ends up being a combination of passing to various generations of the same family and being sold off to different families. One house in Hockessin, however, had the good fortune to remain in one family for over 260 years, although it took me a little while to realize that. The beginnings of the house and farm reach back to the earliest days of European habitation in the area, and its present and future look strong and secure.

The home in question is the Buckingham-Pierson House (or Thomas Pierson House), located on the north side of Southwood Road, about mid way between Valley Road and Limestone Road. The half stone and half frame house sits up on a rise, today overlooking modern housing developments. Once, it overlooked a 100 acre farm and even passing trains. Now a part of modern, beautiful Hockessin, the origins of the farm date back to the Penn family, when the community surrounding the Hockessin Valley was in its infancy.

In 1701, William Penn had a 30,000 acre tract (called the Manor of Stenning) surveyed by Henry Hollingsworth, lying mostly in Chester County but extending down into Mill Creek Hundred (the tract, not Hollingsworth). That same year Penn granted the western 14,500 acres to his son William, Jr. and the eastern 15,500 acres to his daughter Letitia. Letitia Penn married William Aubrey, and in the ensuing years they sold off portions of their holding. More importantly for our purposes, in 1725 they sold a 100 acre lot to a man named William Buckingham. Direct descendants of Buckingham's would retain ownership of the property until half way through the George H.W. Bush administration.

William Buckingham was born in Pennsylvania in 1701, the same year the Manor of Stenning was laid out. He purchased his 100 acres in 1725, and the following year married Jane (or Jeane) James. The couple raised six children in their home, the oldest part of which was probably built soon after Buckingham acquired the property. The left (west) half of the house is built of stone, and likely is the original portion. At some later time (and it may not have been all that much later), a frame addition doubled the size of the home. In the later 19th Century a classic gothic gable was added to the front of the house.

Approximate bounds of the 100 acre tract purchased by
William Buckingham in 1725

While the main points in the property's history are fairly clear, there are a few details that provide a little confusion. For one, Buckingham's original 1725 sale is unavailable, as the book it was recorded in was lost during the Revolutionary War. The most reliable reference to it comes from a 1774 deed that I can't completely explain. In it, it appears that Buckingham is purchasing the property from "Peter Gaskel Surgeon of Bath in that part of Great Britain called England & Christiana Gulielma his wife by their Attorney Joseph Galloway Esq. of the city of Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania". To even try to make sense of this, we need to take a step back.

Christiana Gulielma Penn Gaskell was the great-granddaughter of William Penn, Proprietor of Pennsylvania (through his son William and his grandson William III). Her Great Aunt Letitia Penn Aubrey (remember her from the top?) did not have any children, and so passed much of her real estate holdings down to Christiana when she died in 1746. My best guess is that when William Buckingham bought his 100 acres in 1725, he may not have paid the entire amount to the Aubreys. In 1774, with the threat of rebellion on the horizon, Christiana and Peter Gaskell came looking to settle old accounts (I've seen a few other, similar deeds from about the same time). Since the Gaskells lived in England, they operated through their attorney in America, Joseph Galloway. A paragraph tacked on to the end of the 1774 indenture details the 1725 sale and the passing down from Letitia to Christiana.

If you can read it, this is that final paragraph of the 1774 deed,
detailing the original 1725 Buckingham purchase

William and Jane Buckingham lived the rest of their long lives in their Hockessin home. Jane died in 1783 at the age of 75. William survived her by six years, passing away at the age of 88 in 1789. So often when discussing the passing along of property, we concern ourselves with one of the family's sons. However, in this story we will twice focus on a daughter and her husband (and that's not even counting the aforementioned Letitia Penn Aubrey and Christiana Penn Gaskell). Back in 1748 one of the Buckingham daughters -- Ruth -- married Brandywine Hundred native William Cloud.

I'm not completely sure where Ruth and William Cloud first lived, but one possible clues lies in the fact that in 1788, William Cloud sold about 90 acres (partially in Christiana Hundred and partially in Mill Creek Hundred) to Caleb Sharpless. I believe this is land that would later comprise much of Oversee Farm. It seems logical that the Clouds then moved to the Buckingham farm to assist Ruth's elderly father. Buckingham had already written his will that would bequeath the land to them, and when he died in 1789 the Clouds took ownership of the 100 acre tract. The Clouds' daughter Sarah, meanwhile, had just married Thomas Pierson in 1786.

The Piersons seem to have been living in Christiana Hundred, probably just west of Centreville, at least in the 1800 Census. In 1810, Thomas Pierson acquired from Jacob Dixon's estate 24 acres, adjacent to the Cloud farm. On the same day in June 1810, Pierson sold William Cloud seven of those acres (presumably as a retirement home for the 82 year old), and Cloud sold to Pierson the 100 acre former Buckingham farm. In this later indenture lies a reference to the second deed that I don't yet understand.

The 1810 deed is fairly straightforward and normal, except for the part where it says that Cloud bought the tract in 1790 from Christiana Gulielma Gaskell. We know that's not exactly right (or the whole story) because Cloud received the land though his father-in-law's will the year before. Since this Gaskell/Cloud transaction (which I also cannot find) took place only months after William Buckingham's death, it's possible that this, too, was some sort of settling of old debts or accounts. Whatever the case, in 1810 the house and farm came into the Pierson family, although it was really still with the Buckinghams, since Sarah Cloud Pierson was William Buckingham's granddaughter. The final Pierson to reside at the home is still alive (as of 2022), and later in life married into another of the prominent Hockessin area families.

Thomas and Sarah Pierson would raise 10 children on their farm, born over the course of about 20 years. Pierson took a mortgage on the property in 1813 from William Tussey, who lived on Philadelphia Pike north of Wilmington. Pierson was able to pay off this debt by April 1821. In 1835, Thomas sold six acres to his son Laban. I'm not sure, but this could have been the house originally built for William Cloud in 1810. It was on the western edge of the property, on the north side of Southwood Road. Thomas Pierson also took out another mortgage on the property in 1839, this time to neighbor Ephraim Jackson. This debt, too, was paid off in full, in 1841.

Obviously looking to retirement, in 1842 the 81 year old Pierson sold the bulk of his land to two of his sons. Laban Pierson (a saddler) purchased just over 20 acres, while 90 acres went to Thomas Pierson, Junior. Laban's portion was contiguous with the six acres he bought in 1835. These, along with another few acres purchased in 1860, he sold in 1867 to Patrick Reardon. Laban then moved to just north to New Garden Township, where he lived until his death in 1877.  

The younger Thomas' portion acquired in 1842 included the old Buckingham home. He and his wife, the former Martha Wilson, would raise seven children on their farm, which would undergo one interesting change near the end of Thomas' life. In 1871-72, the Wilmington & Western Railroad was constructed, with its tracks going right through the lower portion of the Pierson farm. It was still such a novelty that when the property was put up for sale a few years later, the ad specifically mentions that the railroad "passes through the property in front of the buildings, affording one of the best views on the road."

Ad taken by Samuel Pierson in May 1879,
aimed at his father's former patrons

Another interesting ad (seen above) from just after Thomas, Jr.'s death in January 1879 was taken out by his eldest son, Samuel. In it, he's advertising his services as a veterinary surgeon, and is aimed at his father's former patrons, which implies that Thomas also acted as a veterinarian. He's never listed as such in any Census, but then the profession seems to have been still somewhat informal at the time. There were veterinary schools, but it doesn't seem necessary to have attended one to act as a country vet, or "horse doctor". One could learn the trade as an apprentice, much as a blacksmith or carpenter would. Apparently this is what Thomas and Samuel Pierson did.

After Thomas Pierson's death in 1879, as all his older sons were by then set up in their own lives, the siblings sold the home farm in 1881 to the youngest son, Philip Thomas Pierson. In 1872, Philip had married Sarah Foote, daughter of William Foote. They had one child together (Carrie) before Sarah passed away in 1879. He remarried in 1881 to Emma Lamborn, daughter of Chandler and Edith Lamborn. They would have three children together, daughters Ida and Edith, and son Wilson.

Philip T. Pierson was actively involved with local agricultural organizations such as the Grange, and was the president of the Farmer's Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Mill Creek Hundred. It also seems to have been during Philip's ownership that real appreciation of the property and of the Pierson family flourished. As early as 1897 there were family reunions held at the old homestead, celebrating the history of the Pierson clan. Some of the history related to the newspapers of the time is a bit suspect, as they keep giving Joseph Pierson (Thomas, Sr.'s father) credit for being the first in the area and building the house. I don't believe either of those things to be correct. These reunions regularly had three hundred or more people in attendance.

January 1927 obituary of Philip T. Pierson

When Philip T. Pierson died in January 1927, his widow Emma and his daughters sold the home and farm to the only son, Wilson Thomas Pierson. This made Wilson the fourth generation Pierson and the sixth overall in his family, dating back to William Buckingham, to call the house on Southwood Road his home. Wilson followed his father's lead in being involved in scientific farming and in the Hockessin Grange. He also continued to hold family reunions, usually five years apart.

Wilson was engaged in 1914 to Elizabeth Peoples of Kennett Square, but sadly she passed away in September 1915. In May 1922, Wilson did marry, to Sara Emma Sharpless. Wilson and Emma would live the remainder of their lives on their farm, raising three children of their own -- William, Philip, and Ruth. The Piersons continued to farm their land, first mainly as a dairy farm, then later focusing more on poultry and eggs. Wilson was a regular at the King Street Market in Wilmington until 1964, and provided eggs for Hockessin-area stores until 1973. He even carried on the tradition of the Pierson Family Reunion, which he hosted as late as 1967.

Wilson T. Pierson at the King Street Market
in Wilmington, July 1963

Although the 250 or so year run of Buckingham-Cloud-Pierson farming in Hockessin ended with the passing of Wilson T. Pierson in 1979, it has carried on elsewhere. In 1969, son Philip W. Pierson moved to Clayton, DE and founded Aynestead Farm, which carries on today, even after Philip's passing in 2018. The last direct descendant of William Buckingham to reside in the house was Wilson's daughter Ruth, who married Thomas C. Marshall, Jr. of Auburn Heights in 1985. The house was finally sold out of the family in 1990, ending their 265 year ownership of the property.

While it no longer overlooks a 100 acre farm, the Buckingham-Pierson House remains as a beautiful reminder of Hockessin's bucolic past. The home has come into new ownership recently, and I can happily pass along that the owners are appreciative and interested in its history, and that it's in very caring hands. Not bad for a home under only its third separate family since seven years before George Washington was born.