The Trolleys of Brandywine Springs -- The Kennett Trolley

A Kennett trolley passing by Lake Washington
at Brandywine Springs Amusement Park

In the last post, we looked at the Peoples Railway Company, formed by Brandywine Springs Amusement Park manager Richard W. Crook with the main objective of providing the residents of Wilmington and beyond with easy, cheap, quick access to the park. It did a fine job of that, and allowed the park to flourish during its decade and a half heyday from about 1901-1915. That being said, it actually barely made its way into Mill Creek Hundred, with the exception of the Marshallton spur, and even that was barely in the hundred. There was, however, another trolley line built to service the park, and this one had well over five miles of track in MCH.

In May 1899, the West Chester, Kennett, and Wilmington Electric Railway Company (WCK&W) was chartered with ambitions not quite as grand as its name, and a future that would be even less so. It never ended up getting anywhere near West Chester, and only made it to Wilmington for a very short time and with the help of the Peoples Railway. The original plan was to connect to the Peoples Trolley at Brandywine Springs, build a line northward through Kennett Square to Unionville, and connect with a proposed extension of the West Chester Street Railway. Only part of that plan actually happened.

The WCK&W first had to wait for the Peoples Railway to be built, and as we saw in the last post that did take a few years. Once they knew it was "on", the first proposal was to build a line from Kennett Square through Avondale and West Grove, terminating in Oxford. Long story short, by 1906 the line had extended to West Grove, but never made it any further west, and never got anywhere near Oxford. The line that interests us was completed in 1903, with service first being available from Kennett Square to Yorklyn in May 1903. By August, trolleys were running from Brandywine Springs all the way to Toughkenamon. In contrast to the Peoples Trolley's 5 cent fare, the ride from Kennett to the park would cost you 20 cents.

The Trolleys of Brandywine Springs -- The Peoples Trolley

Doing its job advertising the park

Of the three trolley lines that once made their way into Mill Creek Hundred, two of them were created primarily to shuttle passengers and park-goers to and from the Brandywine Springs Amusement Park. It would be hard to talk about the two lines independently, and pointless to discuss them with out also including the park. We've discussed the park before -- how it started as a resort hotel in the late 1820's, then operated mid-century as a smaller hotel. In 1886, Richard W. Crook took over the hotel and slowly changed the property from a hotel to an amusement park. In the waning years of the 19th Century, he realized what his park needed to thrive into the 20th -- a trolley line that would make it easier for the city-dwelling folk to visit his park out in the country. This would turn Brandywine Springs into what amounted to a trolley park in reverse.

Trolley parks were ubiquitous in the late 1800's and early 1900's, with well over a thousand dotting the national landscape in the early part of the last century. They were built by the local trolley companies, out at the end of their lines usually on some sort of water (a lake, river, or creek), to serve a couple of purposes. First, in an age when the trolley was many people's primary transportation to and from work and school, the parks helped to boost ridership on the weekends. The second purpose had to do with that great advancement of the age, electricity.

While many started out horse-drawn, by the 1880's trolleys were electrically-powered. The trolley companies either paid a flat rate for their electricity, or more commonly, generated it themselves. The power cost them money either way, so they might as well have the trolleys running as much as possible. Plus, in the days when electrification was still an ongoing concern, the trolley parks would be lit-up as much as possible, dazzling their guests with the modern miracle of electricity. For example, the Brandywine Springs' entrance archway was covered in lights, and lit at night was probably the most lights that most guests had ever seen in one place before. So whereas in a traditional trolley park the line existed first and then the park was built, at Brandywine Springs the opposite was true.

The Walker-Maclary House

The Walker-Maclary House

If you've read a few of these posts before (especially some of the more recent ones), you'll have noticed that there are two different aspects to researching and telling the story of any given property. First, there's the chain of ownership of the land itself, as documented in the various deeds and indentures. With the resources I have available to me now, that part is relatively easy and I've gotten pretty good at it, for the most part. I've even gotten better at mapping out the metes and bounds of some of the tracts (Do you know how long a perch is? I do, and I don't think I'll ever forget it now).

But it's the second part that's often the tricky and more frustrating one -- trying to determine exactly when a particular house was built, and therefore, by whom. I've taught myself a little over the years, but I am definitely not an architectural historian. Unless there's some sort of contemporaneous report of construction or a reliable date stone, we're often left to detective work and guess work. That usually entails judging the style of the house for a likely era, and seeing who owned it then to determine who might have built the house. In this case, though, we're fortunate enough to have a story passed down about part of a home, albeit a second-hand story. (Ironically, the house was only one story.)

The property I'm referring to is located at 4925 Old Capitol Trail, in the middle of Penndrew Manor, near Old St. James Church. I usually don't use street addresses, but in this case the house has already been referred to by the address in a previous post. However, after researching the history of the property, I've chosen to call it the Walker-Maclary House for reasons that should soon be apparent. And it's from information obtained relating to the previous post that we get the story about part of the house. This is also an example of how a property doesn't have to date back to the 1700's to have an interesting history.

The Levi McCormick House

The Levi McCormick House

Back in 2012, I wrote a post about the Randolph Peters Nurseries, located on the western end of Mill Creek Hundred. I now want to revisit not Peters, but the house shown here and on that post, which at the time I very hesitantly said might have been his. Thanks to inquiries from the current owner of this beautiful home and much better information available this time, I can now unequivocally state that this was not Randolph Peters' home, although it was in his family for a short time.

This is what I've chosen to call the Levi McCormick House, although the history of the land (and almost certainly of the house) goes back much further than McCormick's arrival in 1879. The farm was originally part of a larger tract that extended all the way up to Possum Park Road, but was down to about 105 acres by the time Nivin Caldwell acquired it sometime before 1777. Caldwell died in 1787, and in 1795 his widow Agnes sold a tract of about 72 acres to another widow, Mary Black. The farm was approximately the shaded area seen below, located east of Newark and on the north bank of White Clay Creek.

Spring Grove Mills and Estate -- Part II

The Spring Grove Mills Estate today

In the last post, we followed the story of the Spring Grove Factory from its beginnings as Henry Brackin's grist mill, through its history as a cotton and woolen mill under various owners. When we left it, the factory had been converted back to woolen production under owner Aquila Derickson. And after Aquila's passing in the early 1880's, the property was sold to one of his sons, Joseph W. Derickson. Although many of the facts are clear, there is a glut of confusing information about what exactly was going on during the 30 or so years the Dericksons owned Spring Grove, especially during the 1880's.

We get some frustratingly incomplete and at times contradictory details from several sources. Of Calvin Derickson, J.M. Runk in 1899 says that he was involved in the manufacture of spokes (which we knew) and in the wool and cotton business with James Ford. I do not know who James Ford was, nor does his name show up anywhere else. Of Joseph, Runk has this to say: "For a period of ten years he operated the Spring Grove mills, manufacturing silk and woolen yarns. The mills were destroyed by fire in 'the fifties', and he sustained a loss of more than five thousand dollars." The last part is just wrong, as we know exactly when the mill was destroyed, and it wasn't in "the fifties". If there was a fire then, it was before the Dericksons were involved and it was rebuilt. But, it does give us our first mention of silk being made here. Now read what Scharf has to say about the site:

Spring Grove Factory and Estate -- Part I

Spring Grove, taken by Charles Philips, 1895

Many of the recent posts here have been about families and their farms, but as we all know, this ain't Farm Creek Hundred, it's Mill Creek Hundred. It's been a while since we've taken a look at one of the many mills that one graced our region, and one of the main reasons for that is that I've already written about most of the major mills that operated here. There were, however, numerous smaller mills around that operated for varying lengths of time, and about which we know very little. This is the story of one such mill -- Spring Grove. This is a fascinating story, with only a few small holes remaining in the narrative.

I've known of the existence of the mill for quite a while, but I had been unsuccessful in finding very much information about it, until recently. Through my own research and through the amazing and detailed research of the site's current owner, David Deputy, we've come up with an almost complete history of the site, the mill, and the house built next to it. And what a story it is!

We begin in the days prior to the American Revolution, when Henry Brackin, Sr owned a large tract of land along what would become Stony Batter Road, as well as an old sawmill built along Mill Creek. His land actually stretched slightly across Mill Creek, and it was on or very near the southeastern portion of Henry's farm, very near that sawmill, that on September 8, 1777, British and American sharpshooters traded shots as the invading Red Coats camped along Limestone Road. This event would be known as Gen. Weedon's Foray, and was uncovered by Walt Chiquoine during his research for his paper Finding the Nichols House. When Henry died in 1779, his property went to his son Henry Brackin, Jr.

Billion Gallon Border: Part II - The Old Mill Stream

In the last post, guest writer Robert Wilhelm began telling us the story of Hoopes Reservoir by first relating the tale of the Red Clay Creek reservoir that never was. In this post, he tells us of the background and construction of the reservoir that was created, and a bit of what once stood where the water now is.

-- Researched and written by Robert E. Wilhelm, Jr

Hoopes Reservoir, 1933

An alternate reservoir location involved Old Mill Stream, a tributary of the Red Clay Creek in Christiana Hundred and the location of the present day Hoopes Reservoir and Dam. A dam constructed across the Old Mill Stream valley could contain water at a higher level (~ 225’ water surface elevation above sea level) than a dam associated with the Red Clay Creek Valley (~180’ water surface elevation above sea level if a reservoir was to remain inside Delaware; 150-160 feet if not impacting Yorklyn). Holding 2-billion gallons of water, an Old Mill Stream reservoir offered greater water depth at the dam with equivalent storage capacity and less surface area as compared to a Red Clay water pool.

There was little infrastructure present in the Old Mill Stream valley which was not the case for the Red Clay Creek Valley. Within most of the 480-acre footprint of the proposed ‘Old Mill Stream Reservoir’ was the former mill property and farmland belonging to T. Coleman du Pont including Dupont’s summer home. Once an operating water-powered stone mill constructed in 1732, du Pont personally converted the idle mill into a mansion. A smaller stone mill constructed in the 1850s on the property was in ruins and would remain to succumb to the reservoir’s rising waters, while du Pont’s home would be demolished leaving only the stone walls behind.

Thomas Coleman du Pont and his wife Alice Elsie du Pont (his cousin) bought the property in 1906. By 1910 they had converted the original mill building to a rural weekend home to complement their home at 808 Broom Street in Wilmington. Called ‘Old Mill’ the original mill’s stone, quarried on the property, contained quartz, mica, and garnet speckles that the du Ponts left exposed on inside walls. The first floor, below grade and adjacent to the mill pond and millrace, contained the mill home’s water wheel powered electrical generating system. There was central heat with fireplaces in each of the major rooms. The second floor was assigned to the caretaker and family. The du Pont’s occupied the upper two floors with the third floor being open architecture for use as a living space or ballroom. Bedrooms and baths were on the fourth floor.

Billion Gallon Border: Part I - The Red Clay Creek Proposal

I'm excited and proud to present here another Guest Post from Robert Wilhelm. Bob has done some great research into the origins and construction of Hoopes Reservoir, and in this post and the next relates to us the story of how it came about. But first, this post tells the story of the reservoir that wasn't -- the proposed Red Clay Creek reservoir. I think you'll agree they ended up making the right call.

-- Researched and written by Robert E. Wilhelm, Jr

Hoopes Reservoir today

The centerline of the Red Clay Creek serves as the border between Mill Creek Hundred and
Christiana Hundred. During most days, the creek is only a few tens of feet wide. In the late 1920s, a proposal was seriously considered that would have changed the Red Clay Creek’s width to hundreds of feet for nearly a third of the creek’s length within Delaware. The City of Wilmington, needing another potable water reservoir to support a growing population and industry, studied flooding much of the Red Clay Creek Valley north of Wooddale for a reservoir that spanned both Mill Creek and Christiana Hundreds.

By the early 1900s, it was apparent to Wilmington Council members that any number of events might place the city’s reliance on the Brandywine Creek for potable water in jeopardy. While the city had reservoirs, they were proving inadequate. A study, commissioned in 1919, recommended an additional reservoir of at least a billion gallons be added to the city’s water systems for use during drought, Brandywine Creek contamination, or for emergency use.

In 1924, Wilmington commissioned a study as the first step for a project to eventually construct a large reservoir outside of city limits to store water for augmenting the Brandywine’s supply. Wilmington Water Department engineers considered multiple natural landscape locations associated with the Brandywine, White Clay, Christina, Pike, Red Clay, and Mill Creeks where land might be purchased for a new reservoir. Northern New Castle County’s Piedmont stream valleys are rich in spring-fed tributaries feeding creeks. This combination results in ideal natural opportunities for the creation of water storage lakes and reservoirs.