Arrests Made in Father Kenny House Fire

Kenny House after the Feb. 10 Fire

As was mentioned in the earlier post about Father Patrick Kenny and the Coffee Run Church, Kenny's 1812 home was destroyed in a fire on February 10, 2010. The blaze, determined to have been arson, began right at the outset of one of our major blizzards last year. Due to the conditions, by the time firefighters arrived and extinguished the flames, most of the three stories of the house and the roof were gutted. The structure was deemed to be unsafe, and although there was a stop-work order in place, property owners Harvey Hanna and Associates demolished what remained of the house on March 2. For their actions, the redevelopment firm was fined $1000 and prohibited from receiving county permits for the site for three years.

Father Patrick Kenny and the Coffee Run Church

I recently had the honor of visiting the Coffee Run site on Lancaster Pike, where the first Catholic Church in Delaware was built. Even though the clouds opened up as my family and I were exiting the car, and we were drenched by the rain as we ran across the field to catch a glimpse of the burned-out remains of the Patrick Kenny house, it did not take away from the inspiring reality that we were standing on a historically rich piece of land in Mill Creek Hundred.

The early 1800’s brought many immigrants to America from Europe; one such immigrant was Reverend Patrick Kenny. Father Kenny emigrated to Wilmington, Delaware from Ireland in the summer of 1804. He was born June 6, 1763 in Dublin, Ireland and educated in Paris (a fact that would become quite helpful to him later). Upon his arrival in America he lived with the Hearn family in West Chester until September 11, 1808. During this time, Father Kenny traveled and conducted Catholic Masses at five stations and one church, which included two different states -- Delaware and Pennsylvania.