The Abners Woodward House

The Abner Woodward House 

A little while back there was a post about the Stephen Mitchell House, located on North Star Road, in the community of the same name. Toward the end of that post, we learned that the farm associated with the house was sold as part of a larger tract by Ellen du Pont Wheelwright in 1952. She sold it to a group of Dupont Company employees working at the new, nearby Louviers site, who were providing convenient housing opportunities for themselves and their co-workers. However, while the Mitchell, or North Star, Farm was the largest portion of the newly-created community of North Star, it was not the only part.

On the west side of North Star Road, Mrs. Wheelwright had another property she called Barnstable Farm. Its farmhouse is located along North Star Road, and for 121 years it was owned by three generations of the Woodward family. The house itself may have been built by the first Woodward there, or it may have already been standing when he arrived in 1808 -- that's yet to be determined. However, the history of the farm definitely goes back further than that.

Unfortunately though, much of that earlier history has thus far eluded me. I know that in April 1798, James Short sold a 129 acre plantation to John Heron, "late from the County of Donagall in old Ireland". Frustratingly, the only document I can find is actually the mortgage from Short to Heron, not the actual sale. This means it's written as if Heron is transferring the land to Short (which he would if he doesn't pay the debt), so while it does have a detailed description of the metes and bounds (which are too confusing for me to map out), it does not have any information on how or when Short came into possession of the land (only that Short, "of Mill Creek Hundred", sold to Heron dated the same day).

I have every reason to think that Short did in fact reside on the farm, and the mortgage refers to a messuage, or dwelling house. It's very possible that this messuage is the house that still stands along the road today, although it's also possible that it was an older (maybe log) house that was soon replaced. Whatever the case, Heron was not on the farm along Pike Creek for very long. By 1802 he found himself indebted to a James Watt, and the following year his property (now listed as 120 acres) was seized by the sheriff and sold to John Robinson of Brandywine Hundred. Robinson would own the farm until April 1808.

In the 1808 sale, Robinson is described as being a cordwainer (a shoemaker) in Mill Creek Hundred. It's quite possible that he moved onto the property, worked as a cordwainer, and had someone else farm the land. He, again, was only there for a few years, but the quick turnovers were about to come to an end. The new owner was Abner Woodward, and the farm would not be sold out of his family again until 1929.

A portion of the 1849 map showing Abner Woodward along North Star Road

Abner Woodward was born in 1765 in West Bradford Township, Chester County, to Quakers Joseph and Rebecca Woodward. In 1798 he married Elizabeth Clark Harlan, widow of Stephen Harlan. She had two children with Harlan (William and Sarah) and four more (Joseph, John, Rebecca, and Abner) with Woodward, by the time the family moved to their new MCH farm in 1808. Son William married, lived for a time in Delaware, then moved to Cecil County. Sarah married in 1810 to a local, and we'll get back to her shortly.

Rebecca married late in life and had no children. John remained in the area, but never married. Joseph did marry, in 1828 to Mary Klair. In 1834, Joseph Woodward purchased a farm just east of Price's Corner, in what would eventually be the western edge of Elsmere. Unlike that more famous pairing of a Joseph and Mary, these Woodwards would have 14 children together. Many of the Woodwards who have resided in MCH and surrounding areas to this day are descendants of this family. I don't know why anyone would be crazy enough to write a post detailing 14 children, but we don't have the time to do that here. However, a few of these Woodward kids have popped up in previous posts.

Aaron Klair Woodward lived on a farm along Faulkland Road (where the development of Oak Hill is today), and in 1874 inadvertently killed a young man. Elizabeth married Benjamin Gregg, who owned the farm where Delcastle Golf Course is today. Eldest son Abner owned a farm along Barley Mill Road east of Wooddale, which would later be purchased by Breidablik Farm owner A. Sonnin Krebs. Eldest daughter Hannah would marry John Armstrong and live on their farm near Mt. Cuba. George's son John Paul would sell his farm in 1923 to the State Industrial School for Colored Girls, now the site of Delcastle High School. The point is, there were a lot of them.

But back to North Star, the youngest of Abner and Elizabeth's children was their son Abner, born in 1805. He would have been three when they moved, so he probably only really remembered his MCH home, and he would live there the rest of his life. When the elder Abner died in 1846, his will stipulated that the farm should go to the younger Abner. It also had some interesting and specific bequests for his wife Elizabeth. She was to be allowed to select any household goods and furniture she needed -- and one cow. She was to be given the use of two rooms on the first floor, and two rooms on the second floor of the west end of the house. She was also to be given, yearly, 250 lbs. of pork, one hind quarter of beef, 10 bushels of wheat, five bushels of corn, sufficient firewood for the stove (delivered to the door in suitable condition), and twenty dollars. Unfortunately, Elizabeth passed in 1844, so none of that was necessary. 

Portions of Abner Woodward's 1840 will (if you can read it) devising very specific
items to his widow Elizabeth. Abner went to great lengths to make sure she would be
provided for, but unfortunately she passed away in 1844, two years before Abner

The farm, though, did go to the younger Abner, who in 1839 had married Julia Ann Hoopes, with whom he'd raise six children (Sarah, Abner, Ellwood, Elizabeth, Mary, and James). Oldest child Sarah married George Foote (who grew up in his family's home along Mill Creek) and moved to Colorado. Next child, Abner (yes, another Abner), moved for a short time to Colorado with his sister and brother-in-law, then moved back to MCH. He never married. Elizabeth married Benjamin Few and moved back to East Bradford, PA, near where her grandfather was born. Mary never married, and James died of an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1875.

The next Woodward move in the area came in 1865, courtesy of one of Joseph Woodward's 14 children not mentioned earlier. Frederick Klair Woodward purchased an 80 acre farm along North Star Road, just north of his Uncle Abner's homestead. The property was purchased from Thomas Mitchell, the son of Joseph Mitchell, owner of the Woodside Farm on the east side of North Star Road. Remember Sarah Harlan Woodward, who moved to MCH with her family in 1808 and I said married a local in 1810? That local was none other than Joseph Mitchell. Although Sarah had died back in 1834, it was from her son Thomas (and Frederick's cousin) that Frederick K. Woodward bought his farm.

A portion of the 1881 map showing the Woodwards, both Abner's house (with the
 estate still being sorted out) and Frederick K. up the road.

But as for the original Woodward farm, it remained with Abner and Julia Ann until his death in 1879. Abner's 1878 will was pretty straightforward, with two items of note. First (and this was just of interest to me), he stated that Julia Ann could have "household goods to the value of two hundred dollars, which she may select at her discretion at the valuation of the appraisers." I'm picturing her walking around the house selecting things, like the shopping showcase on an '80s episode of Wheel of Fortune.

More pertinently for us, though, Abner bequeathed the farm to sons Elwood (often spelled Ellwood) and Abner, as tenants in common (meaning they both owned a half share of the whole thing, as opposed to dividing the farm). Elwood had lived on the farm his whole life, and Abner had moved back not long after returning from Colorado. Things seem to have been relatively quiet on the North Star farm, except for the fact that their barn burned down twice in six years (1887 and 1893). It was rebuilt each time, and in fact, the barn (probably the one rebuilt after the 1893 fire) was recently converted into a beautiful residence. Notably, Elwood was also active in local politics, running for local office several times and serving as a road commissioner. He had no children, but the 46 year old Elwood did marry (to Margaret Maree) in 1891.

19th Century barns were pretty much just fires waiting to happen,
 and for Ellwood it did happen, in 1887 and again in 1893

In addition to farming, his brother Abner was in business in the 1870's with Marshall A. J. Springer, and the firm racked up some debts -- enough in fact that in 1896 Abner's half share of the farm was sold at public auction by the sheriff. I admit that I don't fully understand how that whole process always worked, because to pay off almost $1000 in debt, Abner's share was sold for $100...to Maggie S. Woodward -- Elwood's wife. The upshot is, the farm remained in the Woodward family. It would remain even after Abner's death in 1905 and Margaret's in 1911. (Technically, Margaret's will gave her share to her niece Anna May Garrison and husband William, of Chadds Ford. They sold it back to Elwood the following year.)

However, in February 1912, Elwood sold all his farming equipment, supplies, and livestock (as well as many household items), and retired from farming. He rented the farm to the recently widowed Martha Snitcher, and her adult children Samuel and Florence. It seems, though, that Elwood continued to live with them in the house, as he's listed immediately before them in the 1920 Census. He probably did so almost all the way through the Roaring Twenties (although I can't see them as being all that "Roaring" in North Star).

But finally, after 121 years of Woodward ownership (and three full generations of Abners), the farm was finally sold out of the family. Two months after they began Crashing down, and two weeks before the Twenties would end, Elwood sold the property on December 18, 1929 to the Wilmington Trust Company. A year later Wilmington Trust sold it to the Nemours Corporation, but in reality the sale all along was to Junius Simpson Dean, husband of Paulina du Pont. Paulina was the daughter of William Kemble du Pont, and her brother Samuel Hallock du Pont was at the time busy buying up much of the farmland just west of North Star. As an aside, J. Simpson Dean was also a high-level golfer.

J. Simpson Dean, 1929 (See, I told you he was a golfer)

Dean held the farm for ten years, then in 1940 sold it and the Mitchell's North Star Farm to Ellen du Pont Wheelwright. She was the daughter of T. Coleman du Pont, and second cousin to Paulina. Wheelwright gave the property the name of Barnstable Farm, which she used as a country home and for entertaining, foxhunts, and horseback riding. (Her main residence was the estate of Goodstay, located on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the Tower Hill School.) However, the area changed in the early 1950's with the opening of the Dupont Company's Louviers site, nearby at Milford Crossroads. To make a long story short, a bunch of Dupont Louviers employees (most of whom lived either in Wilmington or north of it) decided they wanted to find a more conveniently-located site to build homes for their families. After conducting a thorough search (what else would you expect from Dupont engineers?), they purchased five contiguous properties, including the old Woodward Farm, in 1952.

There were three existing homes already on the North Star properties (the Stephen Mitchell House, the Woodward House, and another frame house), and it was decided to sell them separately with larger lots. In 1952, the Abner Woodward House and about seven surrounding acres were sold to Godfrey Taylor, another Duponter. The Taylors were very involved in the community, hosting meetings at their home as well as at least one Easter Egg Hunt in 1957. They lived there for ten years before selling to builder and businessman Alton Neal. The house remained in the Neal family until the late 1990's, and through the years the original 7 acre lot has been subdivided and developed. Now there are now five homes on those 7 acres, including the old carriage house and barn, both of which have been converted into beautiful residences.

The North Star area today is not quite as quiet and remote as it was in 1952 (or 1852 or 1752), but it's still a wonderful, tree-filled residential area that so far has avoided the ever-encroaching commercially-developed suburbs (excluding, of course, the amazing Woodside Creamery up the road, which is still in the hands of descendants of Sarah Harlan Woodward). I can happily say that the Abner Woodward House is in the hands of new owners who are very aware and appreciative of the history of their home, and who are fervently working to piece together its story -- a story that draws a direct line from the earliest days of settlement in the area all the way into our modern world.