The History of the Harmon (Eli B.) Talley House

The (now, again) beautiful Harmon Talley House

Back in early 2015 I felt compelled to write a post about the Eli B. Talley House (now more correctly referred to as the Harmon Talley House), and about the intrigue surrounding it, involving the then-owners, the prospective buyer/developer, the Historic Review Board, local civic organizations, and area residents. There was quite a bit of frustration and bad blood at the time, and it really seemed (to me, at least) that it was just a matter of time before the beautiful stone house on Mt. Lebanon Road in Talleyville, Brandywine Hundred, was either torn down or allowed to collapse on its own. I'm happy to say now that I was wrong, and though there were some intermediate proposals for it that I'd describe as "Better than nothing", its current condition is absolutely amazing, and far better than I could have hoped for just a few short years ago.

But before we get into the recent and current states of the house (in the next post), I wanted to go back and take a better look at the history of this handsome home. My original post was focused more on what was going on with the house at the time, but luckily for us, since then, the wonderful people at the University of Delaware's Center for Historic Architecture and Design (CHAD) did some great research on the history of the property. They were contracted by the then-owner to produce a Determination of Eligibility report, as he was planning to ask the county for a Historic Zoning Overlay for the property. The following history is drawn primarily from that report, and I am indebted to them for their informative and thorough work. The entire report can be found here.

Since the CHAD report was more interested in the physical state and architecture of the house, the history they included was accurate, but not detailed in parts. Using their framework, I was able to flesh out the story a bit (ok, more than a bit). While the history of the land around it goes back much further, we'll enter the story in 1803 when Harmon Talley (already in the fifth generation of Talleys in Brandywine Hundred) purchased 105 acres from William Wood, which Wood had acquired from the McBride family.

William Talley House on Foulk Rd, childhood home of Harmon Talley

Talley was listed on the deed as being from Birmingham Township, Chester County, but he had grown up in Brandywine Hundred. He was born in April 1775 (9 days after the Battles of Lexington and Concord) on his father's farm on the northwest corner of what was known as Talley's Corner -- the intersection of Foulk and Silverside Roads. The house still stands (seen above), now hidden behind a small office complex. In 1797 he married Priscilla Foulk, sister of William Foulk, who about the same time was consolidating ownership of the former Evans (later Fell) Mill on Red Clay Creek. She also happens to have been Harmon's first cousin.

The couple quickly had two children (Julia Ann (or Julean Ann) b.1798 and John b.1799), but then tragedy seems to have struck with the third. In March 1802, Priscilla gave birth to another daughter, also named Priscilla. The records show that both mother and daughter died right about the same time, presumably in childbirth. Adding to the heartbreak, Priscilla the mother died on her 27th birthday. Given this situation, it's no wonder that Harmon Talley would have been looking for a new place to restart his life.

He did that in 1803, buying his new farm and quickly remarrying (remember, he had a 2 year old and a three year old, in a time when no farmer had the time to be a single father). His new wife was Rebecca Grubb, a woman he probably knew all his life. She grew up very close by -- the Grubbs were centered around the Marsh Road/Grubb Road intersection. It also wouldn't be the last Talley/Grubb match. Harmon and Rebecca would go on to have six children together.

But getting back to the farm on Mt. Lebanon Road, there's no evidence to suggest a house existed on the property when Talley acquired it in 1803, and it seems logical to assume he had it built soon after his arrival. This was in the era when fieldstone construction was in vogue in the area, and while we had a fair number of such homes in MCH they were even more common in Brandywine Hundred, given the ready availability of the building material. 

1881 article with stories
of Harmon and Isaac Talley

During his years in Brandywine Hundred, Harmon Talley made numerous contributions to the community. He served in the state legislature during the 1828/29 term. A later (1881) newspaper article relates several interesting stories about him. For instance, he was credited as being the first person to haul manure from Wilmington to Brandywine, and the first to build a large barn in Brandywine Hundred (from what I can tell, I think the barn was directly behind the house). Also, as a teenager in the 1790's, Harmon took part in something that seems amazing to me, but was apparently commonplace at the time. He helped haul flour from Wilmington's Brandywine Mills all the way to Pittsburgh, then brought wheat back east to be ground.

Harmon and his family lived in his beautiful stone house for 33 years, but in 1836 Rebecca Grubb Talley passed away, and Harmon was again looking for a change of scenery. This time, instead to moving across the Hundred, he moved across what was most of the country at the time. This kind of makes sense, knowing that he took long journeys earlier in life, too. First he moved with most of his family to eastern Ohio, then later ended up in western Illinois, not far north of St. Louis. Of his children who remained in the First State, two were the eldest from each wife. Julia Ann was by then settled in with her husband of 21 years, Adam Grubb. Yes, Adam was the younger brother of her step-mother Rebecca. Her step-uncle/husband was (only?) 12 years her senior. 

Another child who remained here was Isaac Grubb Talley, a blacksmith and wheelwright by trade, to whom Harmon sold the house and farm in April 1836. I believe that Isaac was already settled into a home by then, and probably rented out his father's farm. This was only for a few years though, as Isaac G. Talley sold the property in 1839 to Alexander McCaulley, "late of St. Georges Hundred". Actually, there were four properties sold to McCaulley at that time. Besides the farm with the stone house, there was a ten acre parcel with a tavern house (which Harmon had acquired), adjoining it on Concord Pike. However, from it, Isaac held on to two lots, one on each side of Mt. Lebanon Road (then known as the public road to Young's Mills). There were also tracts of 86 and 58 acres, acquired from the heirs of William Young, owner of the mills at the foot of Mt. Lebanon and Rockland Roads (later Jessup & Moore, and Doeskin).

Although it looks like McCaulley did move into the house (he seems to be listed here in the 1840 Census), his motives for the purchase may have been more forward-looking. Alexander McCaulley died in February 1841 at the age of 73, and in his will he set up trusts for his three sons to split the proceeds from the rents and profits from his Brandywine Hundred properties. So it seems all the properties, including the Harmon Talley House, were rented out by the family during this era. In 1855, one of those sons, Samuel McCaulley (a brick manufacturer in Wilmington), consolidated ownership of all four properties. To abide by the original will, the heirs actually first sold it all at auction to Jacob Rice, Samuel's business partner and brother-in-law, then Rice immediately sold it back to McCaulley.

Portion of the 1860 inventory of Samuel McCaulley's estate.
Earliest mention I've seen of the name Tippecanoe Grove Farm

Samuel McCaulley presumably continued to rent out the farms until his own passing in 1860. It's in the probate records and inventory of his properties that we first see the name Tippecanoe Grove Farm for the old Talley house (when it seems to have been leased to Joseph B. Langley). It's not clear whether it was Samuel or his father who gave it the name, but one of them must have been a William Henry Harrison supporter back in 1840 (his campaign slogan and song was "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!"). The name of Tippecanoe seems to have been kept by the next owner of the farm, who purchased all four properties from Samuel McCaulley's estate in 1861.

Eli Baldwin Talley

That new owner was 60 year old Eli Baldwin Talley, nephew of original builder Harmon Talley. Eli was already well-established on his own farm, located north of Naaman's Road, where the Brandywine Town Center (and before that, Brandywine Raceway) is now. Like Alexander McCaulley, Talley was probably buying the farms for his sons -- except unlike McCaulley, Talley's sons actually occupied the properties. Fairview, the farm just south of Mt. Lebanon Road, was occupied (and later purchased) by Elihu Talley, while Tippecanoe Grove was farmed by William Talley. In 1872, three years prior to Eli B.'s death, William Talley purchased Tippecanoe Grove (along with the old tavern lot between it and Concord Pike) from his father.

It's hard to determine exactly when William moved in, and even trickier due to one other fact. Remember Joseph B. Langley, who was leasing the farm at the time of Samuel McCaulley's death in 1860? Well, in 1869 his daughter Sarah married William Talley. So it's quite likely that at some point William moved into the house that his father owned and that his father-in-law had most recently occupied. In any case, the couple raised two children -- John Wesley and Mary -- and William lived there until his death in 1896.

William Talley

Upon his death the farm went to son John Wesley Talley, who three years earlier had married Caroline Talley (his fourth cousin). The couple raised ten children in the house and John W. farmed the land through the 1920 season. In October of that year, however, a big change came for Harmon Talley's old house. That's when John W. Talley sold about 135 acres, including the house, to Woodlawn Trustees, for $32,500. 

Woodlawn Trustees, still very much in the news today, was incorporated in 1901 by William P. Bancroft, a Wilmington textile mill owner and devout Quaker. Bancroft began buying up land in and around Wilmington in the late 1800's with the intent of preserving it for parkland and for affordable worker housing. He formed Woodlawn to continue and oversee his work, and in the early 20th Century began acquiring land in Brandywine Hundred. Some of his land was donated for park use (forming the basis of the Wilmington and NCC park systems), some preserved as undeveloped tracts, and occasionally, some land sold for residential use to continue to fund the work.

Woodlawn rented out the house, and as best as I can tell, some of the land was still farmed at least into the 1950's. In the late 1960's, however, big changes would come for Harmon Talley's old farm and home -- changes that set the course for the next 50+ years, leading us to where we are now. In the next post we'll get an uplifting update on the house, and take a look at what could have happened to the house, and what actually has happened. And unlike so many other tales of endangered historic homes, refreshingly, this one has a happy ending.