The Bernhard Family Cemetery

Likely the house occupied by Regina Bernhard 

I freely admit that when I first started writing and researching Mill Creek Hundred history, I pretty 
much ignored anything after about 1900. I've since changed my ways, and good thing, too, because an adventurous reader recently brought to my attention a very interesting, and very 20th Century, story. Its physical manifestation here is fairly unique for us, and the family's story is both very typical and kind of unusual. 

While Casey was walking one of the White Clay Creek State Park trails near the Judge Morris Estate a while back, she came across some burials in the woods. No this isn't the start of a new Stephen King novel -- it was a small, family cemetery. When she looked closer, she expected to see old, worn headstones dating back a couple hundred years, much like those not all that far away at the old White Clay Creek Presbyterian graveyard. However, though the wrought iron fencing, she was surprised to see newer, mostly mid-20th Century headstones. The story of whose they are and why they're there is one we only mostly understand.

The cemetery belongs to the Bernhard family, as does (apparently) the 2 acre lot it sits on, located on the south side of Old Coach Road between Polly Drummond Hill Road and Upper Pike Creek Road. And though I actually have very briefly mentioned the Bernhard family once before in a post, the "Bernhard" family did not exist prior to about 1914. However, Bernard Steigelfest was born in 1866 in Rzeszow, in what's now southeastern Poland, but what was then part of the Austrian Empire. Although the town was largely Polish and about half the population was Jewish, as far as I can tell the Steigelfest family was ethnically German.

Bernard Steigelfest emigrated to New York in 1888 and in 1894 married Regina Einhorn. She was from northeastern Romania, but like Bernard's, I believe her family was ethnically German as well. Regina (who also went by Jennie) also came to New York in 1888, and the couple resided in various places around New York City. Bernard was consistently listed in censuses as a grocer or dry goods salesman. Bernard and Jennie had three children -- Arnold (b. 1901), Cecilia (b. 1904), and Harold (b. 1907). The next change for the family came around 1914, and is why we have the Bernhard Family Cemetery and not the Steigelfest Family Cemetery.

Jennie Steigelfest's registration in Germany, where
she had gone in May 1913 with the children for their
education. They would return the following August

It actually began in late May 1913, when Regina and the children boarded a ship bound for Europe and settled themselves in Leipzig, Germany. It appears that Bernard may have gone over and back a time or two, and that the family intended to stay for about two years, for the purpose of "education of children" (from Jennie's Certificate of Registration of American Citizen in Germany). However, their stay was cut short, and they returned in August 1914. I think it's safe to say the reason for their return was the outbreak of the Great War (they left only a few weeks after the first declarations of war). 

What's just as interesting is that the Steigelfest family left in 1913, but the Bernhard family returned a year later. From then on the family name would be "Bernhard". I can only assume that the reason for the change was the growing anti-German sentiment in the United States, and Bernard and Jennie's desire to have a less German-sounding name than Steigelfest.  They were not the only ones with that thought, and it wasn't just in the US. Three years later the British royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, for the same reason. They took their new last name from their castle, while Bernard took his from, well, his first name.

The Bernhards settled back into their New York home (which was in Brooklyn by then), with Bernard being listed in the 1915 NY Census as a manufacturer of infants wear. In 1920 (in Rutherford, New Jersey), he was a salesman for a manufactory. And now, after going from Europe to America to Europe and back to America, we finally get to Mill Creek Hundred. (Thank you for hanging in along the way!) On March 1, 1920, Bernard and Regina (she had been going by that since the 1915 NY Census) purchased three tracts totaling about 59 acres from Arthur and Martha Maclary. The farm was on the southwest corner of Upper Pike Creek Road and Old Coach Road, and had previously been owned by William Little. 

The 59 acre Springer-Little Farm purchased in 1920 by the Bernhards.
Old Coach Rd is to the north, Polly Drummond Hill Rd and the
Judge Morris Estate to the west, Kirkwood Hwy to the south

When I wrote about the Springer-Little Farm a few years ago, I actually did (very briefly) mention the Bernhards. As best as I could determine from my research, there had been an 18th Century log home on the property, replaced perhaps in the 1860's by a frame house. But by the time the Bernhards came along even that "new" house was about 60 years old and from a different era. Since they obviously had some money by then (although not nearly as much as one of them would have later...that's what they call in the business "foreshadowing"), it's no surprise that they would want to build a new house for themselves on their new property. To my admittedly untrained eye, the only remaining house on the property (seen at the top of the post), the one the Bernhards presumably lived in, looks to be of a 1920's style. 

The next question is which Bernhards lived there, and for how long? Although the sale was made in March, the 1920 Census done in June still lists the family in Rutherford, NJ. In fact, youngest son Harold graduated from Rutherford High School in 1924, and the family seems to still living up there then. Perhaps the MCH house was a summer home, or rented out for a few years, or maybe it wasn't built until they were ready to move down here full time. One thing we do know is that Bernard Bernhard, the former Bernard Steigelfest, died in June 1921 (in Rutherford) at the age of 55, "following a lingering illness". That makes it highly unlikely that he ever lived in Delaware.

June 6, 1921 notice of Bernard Bernhard's death

In fact, just about the only evidence I could find of the Bernhards residing in the First State in the '20s is a series of classified ads in 1925, '26, and '27. They started with "5-room house, chicken houses, large barn, suitable mushroom raising, two acres or more" for sale. Then it progressed to the house, barn, chicken houses, and 50 acres, to be rented together or separately. Finally they advertised a furnished room for rent in a private house. I still don't actually know whether these were referring to the "new" house or the old farmhouse. All the ads were placed by "R. B. Bernhard, Marshallton, Del.", so at least Regina was living here by then. (I know the "Marshallton" doesn't sound right, but I think it had to do with the post office, and one of the ads does say "Pike Creek Road, Marshallton, Del".)

The only other evidence I could find was from Cecilia's 1927 Marriage Certificate, when she wed Edward King of Rutherford, NJ, at the First Unitarian Church in Wilmington. On the certificate, Cecilia's address was listed as Marshallton, as was that of her brother Harold, who signed as a witness. If Harold was living on the MCH family farm at the time, he didn't stay long. He would move about several places, working as a union representative and arbitrator. Cecilia also moved back to Northern New Jersey after her wedding.

Regina Bernhard's May 1942 incident, breaking her leg trying to extinguish a fire

Their mother Regina, on the other hand, seems to have mostly stayed in Delaware for the rest of her life. She's listed here in the 1930 and 1950 Censuses, and there's a newspaper story (seen above) from 1942 about how she was rescued after breaking her leg trying to extinguish a brush fire near her home. She's listed with Cecilia's family in northern New Jersey in 1940, but that could have been a temporary situation. And in a 1958 article about her granddaughter's (Cecilia's daughter's) wedding, she's described as being "of Polly Drummond Hill, near Newark". Regina died in 1959 in NJ, but still owned the farm here (and I assume lived here). We'll get to the interments in a moment.

Now we get to the oldest of the three Steigelfest (later, Bernhard) children -- Arnold. He moved around with his family as a boy and eventually graduated from Williams College (MA) in 1925. He first took a job as a newspaper reporter, reviewing nightclubs, movies, and plays. Soon however, he took a job with Moody's Investors Service, but was fired in 1930 after some clients complained that he hadn't protected their investments well enough. Arnold carried on and went into business for himself.

Arnold Bernhard's entry in the Williams College yearbook

His great crusade and goal was to find a way to value stocks unemotionally, using data and formulas instead of emotions and gut feelings. This stemmed from personal experience involving his own mother. Apparently after Bernard Bernhard's death, much of his insurance money was placed into shares of Cities Service (now CITGO), held by Regina. In the aftermath of the stock market crash in 1929, the value of those shares began to plummet, ultimately falling from $50 a share to only $2. While it was happening, Arnold begged his mother to sell her holdings and cut her losses, but she was unwilling to let them go.

He worked on better ways to evaluate stocks, and founded a new company, which he called Value Line. Arnold hand-cranked the first copies of the Value Line Investment Survey on his mimeograph machine in 1936, and the firm took off. Still around today, Value Line is one of the most highly-regarded investment research companies in the world. When he died in 1987, Arnold Bernhard, the son of modest immigrants, had a personal wealth valued at about $230 million (over $600 million today). He was buried, I believe, near his home in Connecticut.

Arnold Bernhard

The rest of the immediate Steigelfest/Bernhard family, however, is not interred near any of their homes in NYC or in northern New Jersey -- they're buried in the small cemetery off of Old Coach Road. The area, enclosed by a nice wrought-iron fence, houses the remains of Bernard and Regina Bernhard; Cecilia and Edward King, and their son Edward, Jr.; and Harold and Connie Bernhard. Except for one, all the deaths (and burials) range in date from the late 1950's (Regina) through 2015 (Edward King, Jr.). Bernard Bernhard was originally buried on Long Island in 1921, but his remains may have been moved at a later date.

There are other questions yet unanswered, too. The biggest is why and how Bernard and Regina came to buy the MCH farm. What was their connection to here? What made them -- decidedly city-dwelling folk -- decide to buy a random farm more than 100 miles away? Was Bernard planning to live here and died before he could, or was it acquired for the family's use after his death? Was the house really built by them in the 1920's? And finally, what made the family feel so connected to this property that they all came from far and wide to be laid to rest here?

The two acre cemetery lot lies right up against other lands of the state park, but is in private hands -- the listed owner is Arnold Bernhard & Co, Inc, the parent company of Value Line. The most recent burial there would have only been about eight years ago, so the family must still have ties to it. I've reached out to a direct descendant of Bernard and Regina, but due to the nature of the contact I'm not real hopeful of hearing anything back anytime soon. If I am able to get any more information, I'll be sure to pass it along.

For sure, most MCH residents over the past few hundred years were buried in an organized cemetery or graveyard somewhere, and walks through them are like a stroll through the past. I'm also sure that there must have been more private, family graveyards around over the centuries, probably even some that got lost over time. However, the Bernhard Family Cemetery is unique, I believe, in being completely a 20th Century creation, and by a family that had no previous ties to the area. The fact the the family involved went through immigrations, migrations, name changes, and had a member make it big from Wall Street only makes the story more interesting. Truly one of the more fascinating little corners of Mill Creek Hundred.