The Bartley-Tweed Farm

Bartley-Tweed House

Tucked away on a bend on what I always thought of as a "cut-through" road (on the back way to Newark), sits a brick house with a few surprises, and an interesting story. The house, which turns out to be quite a bit older than I thought it was, is flanked by a somewhat newer (but still historic) carriage house/granary. And until recently a barn stood across (and unnervingly close to) the road from the house, all making up what is known as the Bartley-Tweed Farm.

The house sits on the north side of Fox Den Road, a few hundred yards west of Polly Drummond Hill Road (across from the Polly Drummond Shopping Center and McGlynn's). From the construction of the earliest remaining part until the late 19th Century, the property was owned by at least 5 different families. Unfortunately, not much is known about most of the owners except for one, and he's more closely connected with another site -- even though he owned this one for almost thirty years. The property itself is notable for two reasons: 1) it was the site of several undertakings not common elsewhere in the area, and 2) in several instances some of the construction here was a bit ahead of its time.

The Cedars

Ad promoting the sale of lots in The Cedars

If asked to describe Mill Creek Hundred today, I think the word near the top of most people's list would be "suburban". Obviously, this was not always the case, and the transition from a rural area with a few interspersed villages to full-blown suburbia had to start somewhere. For the most part, the suburbanization of MCH took place after World War II, when all those returning servicemen (and women) wanted to move out of the cities and have room to spread out to raise their generation of Baby Boomers. I happen to live in a house that was part of that first wave of post-WWII building (it was first sold in March 1947).

However, even my neighborhood was not even close to being the first planned housing development in the hundred. A full 45 years prior, streets were laid down and lots drawn up for a housing development right next to one of the busiest places in the area. This was not a coincidence, for while the post-war flight to the suburbs was made possible by the automobile, this earlier wave was enabled by that great turn of the century aid to commuting -- the trolley. The development of The Cedars, located on Newport-Gap Pike and backing up to Brandywine Springs Park, was an example (though not a prototypical one) of what was called a trolley (or streetcar) suburb.

R. R. Banks: MCH's Automotive Pioneer



Richard R. Banks' Wilmington Automobile Company

 As we've seen in numerous previous posts, there has been a wide range of different industries active at one time or another in Mill Creek Hundred. One industry I'm willing to bet that you haven't associated with the area is the automotive industry (although, to be fair there are/were/will be auto plants in two neighboring hundreds). No, I'm not going to tell you that there was once an automotive plant in MCH, but there is a local connection to the early days of the automotive age. It seems there is good evidence that the first automobile to be built in Delaware was constructed right here in MCH. And the men involved were pioneers in the field, at a time when many thought the car was just a passing fad.

The Stanton and Brandywine Springs Schools

Stanton School, 1926

By the mid to late 19th Century, Mill Creek Hundred contained all or part of at least 17 separate school districts. Each district contained one school, and at least 13 of those schools were situated within the boundaries of the hundred. We've already looked at a few of them (Harmony, Fairview, Mt. Pleasant and Union), and even at a few of the teachers. As the 20th Century progressed, these old districts and schools were eventually consolidated into larger ones, and many of the schoolhouses lost. In this post, we'll focus on two more of these schools, each representing old districts -- the Stanton School (District #38) and the Brandywine Springs School (District #33). Both of these today have "descendant" schools still in operation, and one of these old schools (although not the first one at the site) is still serving its community, albeit in another capacity.

The District #38 school in Stanton was undoubtedly one of the longest-serving schools in our area. It was your classic one-room schoolhouse, made of stone, and measuring about 30x27 feet. It had two outhouses (which sometimes needed to be emptied, as this 1886 report shows), and stood on the north side of Main Street, west of Limestone Road, about halfway between the Friends Meeting House and Telegraph Road (about where the Goodeals is now). Exactly when it was built is a bit of a mystery. The number "38" does appear on the 1849 Rea & Price map (although, oddly, there is no "S.H." as there is by the other school houses), so it was surely built by then. Scharf claims that it was the first public school in Mill Creek Hundred, which would probably put its erection sometime around 1829, when the first real public school act in the state was passed. Writing in 1888, to Scharf it was already the "old stone school-house".

The David Eastburn Farm

David Eastburn House

Author's note: This was the original post about the David Eastburn farm. For a much more detailed history of the property itself, a follow-up post can be found here.

It's been a while since we've focused directly on the Eastburn family (although it's hard to stay more than two or three steps away from them), so we'll now return to northern Mill Creek Hundred and take a look at a farm anchored by a mid-19th Century home, but with elements a good deal older than that. I started thinking about this property while revisiting the Josiah Hulett House recently. While there are not too many examples in the area of the mid-century architectural styles that featured square-shaped houses, the David Eastburn house is a good one. Located on the northeast side of Corner Ketch Road, partway between Paper Mill Road and Doe Run Road, the farm dates back to the time when the Eastburns were the preeminent family in the area.

Although there are older structures extant on the property, the Italianate Style (as best as I can determine) house was built in the mid 1850's by David Jeanes Eastburn (1811-1899), probably at the time of his marriage in 1857. David was the seventh child (of fourteen!) of David and Elizabeth Jeanes Eastburn. The elder David was, along with brother-in-law Abel Jeanes, the co-founder of the Eastburn-Jeanes Lime Kiln business. After the younger David's father died when he was only 13, he, like most of his siblings, stayed in the area to help run the family business and farm the surrounding land.

The Stanton Hotel

The Stanton Hotel, c. 1900

A while back, we looked at the hotel that, during its time, was usually looked upon as the "main" hotel in Stanton -- The Riseing Sun. And while it was likely the site of the first hotel/tavern/inn in Stanton, it was not the only one in town. Across the street from the Riseing Sun, operating for almost 100 years, was another hotel, whose memory -- and whose very name -- has almost been lost to history. Whereas there's been a decent bit written about the Riseing Sun, the Stanton Hotel has been nearly forgotten. To be honest, I wasn't really able to find to much more than some basic facts, and a long list of probable proprietors.

The hotel (or much more likely, hotels) sat on the northeast corner of Limestone Road and Main Street in Stanton, next to where the palm reader is now. I believe it was probably centered right about where the sign is in the grass on the corner. Although this fact is only ever alluded to as far as I can tell, it seems as if there were two different structures that served as the hotel over the years, and only vague references as to when the old one was razed and the new one built. It's not even clear who actually owned the property. And to make things even more confusing, for much of its history the hotel seems to have been operated by a long list of different proprietors. Seriously -- everywhere I look, there is a different list of operators, with almost no overlap of names.

Josiah G. Hulett's House -- Found

Josiah Hulett's old house, 1939

Over the summer, I did a post about Josiah G. Hulett which included information about a house that he and his family resided in for about ten or fifteen years. Thanks to Josiah's great-granddaughter, Jeanne Jackson Dell’Acqua, we knew a little about the house, but not everything. Jeanne was fairly sure that the house stood somewhere near (or most likely, on) the Hercules property off of Lancaster Pike and Hercules Road, but we didn't know for sure exactly what its location was. Now, we do. It was exactly where I thought it was -- I just couldn't find any proof until now.

The picture above is a close-up of an aerial photo taken in 1939 by the Dallin Aerial Survey Company, many of whose pictures can be found on the Hagley Museum website. Luckily for us, probably due to its connection with the DuPont Company, the site includes several pictures of the Hercules property dating to the late 1930's. Luckily, again, the pictures are of a fairly high resolution, which allows you to zoom in pretty tight. To refresh your memory, the picture below was the one of the house provided by Jeanne, and taken about 1920.

Brandywine Springs Video

Over on DelawareOnline, there is a nice little video piece focusing on the Brandywine Springs Amusement Park. You can find the video here. The two men featured in the video, Mark Lawlor and Mike Ciosek, are without a doubt the two foremost experts on the park and its history. Lawlor is the author of the book Brandywine Springs Amusement Park: Echoes of the Past 1886-1923, which is the only comprehensive work on the history of the park (and an invaluable resource). In the early 1990's, spurred on by his research, Lawlor co-founded the Friends of Brandywine Springs with Mike Ciosek, who has served as its president for nearly 20 years. (Mike has also served, among other things, as the lead in all the archaeological digs at the park, and certainly knows more about how it was built than anyone else alive.)

I happen to know a good deal about the park myself, so if you have any questions about anything mentioned in the video (which can also be found after the jump), or about any of the wonderful pictures used, feel free to ask. Other than that, enjoy!