The Baileys of Faulkland, Revisited

The 68 acre farm sold by Ephraim Yarnall
to Amor Bailey in 1829

After not having really updated many old posts in a while, I seem to be on a bit of a roll now. This one is especially exciting because after revisiting an old topic after a question about a certain house, I ended up answering questions about not one, but three different properties and houses! They were all in the same family, the Baileys, although one of the houses I had no idea had been in that family until I followed along the family's trail of deeds. All three houses are in the Faulkland area, just north of Faulkland Road near Brandywine Springs Park. The original post about the Bailey family was written more than ten years ago, and while I believe all the information in it is correct, I can now add a good deal more and fill in some holes along the way.

While that original post focused more on James Bailey and his farm on the east side of Newport Gap Pike (it was sparked by questions about his granddaughter, who still lived there in the 1950's), here I want to look closer at what was going on earlier and on the west side of the turnpike. I still haven't really been able to clear up much more about the Baileys' history prior to moving into the Faulkland area. What I can elaborate on is exactly when they moved and what the farm was that Amor Bailey purchased.

In the old post I had said that it appeared Amor Bailey and family had moved to somewhere north of Brandywine Springs between 1820 and 1830. I've now found that on March 24, 1829, Amor Bailey purchased 68 acres of land from Ephraim Yarnall. This was on the west side of the Newport and Gap Turnpike, which had opened only 11 years earlier. Even more recent in the area was the Brandywine Chalybeate Springs Hotel, which had opened less than two years earlier just below Bailey's new farm, also on land formerly owned by the Yarnall family.

Sunset Cottage and the Golding House -- Part 2

The lot sold to Annie Golding in 1880

In the last post we took a close look at Sunset Cottage, the Hockessin retirement home of John G.
Jackson. We learned how the property came to be acquired by the Jacksons, some of the unique features of the house, who owned the home after the Jacksons, and how the look of the house changed after a serious fire. We also learned that just before Sunset Cottage was built, John and Elizabeth Jackson sold off 1-1/2 acres of the original 5-3/4 acre lot. This acre and a half was on the corner of Valley Road and Southwood Road, and like its neighboring lot would have a house built on it in the early 1880's.

From a distance these homes looked similar to each other, and even though this house didn't have the unique features that its neighbor Sunset Cottage had, it has its own interesting history. In a small town like Hockessin (heck, I often think of MCH in general as just a spread out small town), it's no surprise that there were some connections, both professional and familial, between the residents of the neighboring homes. This starts right off the bat with the first owners of the lot, and the couple responsible for the building of the Golding House -- Edwin and Annie Golding.

In January 1880, the Jacksons sold the 1-1/2 acres to Annie H. Golding for $375. That price would seem to imply that there was no house there yet (when Annie sold just 9 years later, the price was $2200), but the home must have gone up very soon after. In the 1880 Census, taken June 10/11, the Goldings are listed right beside the Jacksons. (Incidentally, this could either mean that Sunset Cottage was completed by then, or that the Jacksons were still residing in their old home with no one between them.) So who were the Goldings?

Sunset Cottage and the Golding House -- Part 1

Sunset Cottage

If you've paid attention to these posts (and no judgement if you haven't, that's between you and your conscience), you'll have noticed that once in a while I say something about going back and revisiting or updating old posts. This isn't because history has changed, it's more an issue of my having better resources now and being able to do more in-depth research than I could ten years ago. And while this is an honest and well-intentioned thought, between you and me, I rarely actually do go back and revisit old topics, mostly because people keep bringing great new topics to my attention.

However, in researching an offshoot of a recent story I came to the realization that a few years back I had made an error in identifying a particular house. Although I didn't actually state it in the post (so the original post is not technically incorrect), the house I was talking about was not the right one. Now I have a lot more information about both of the homes and their relationship to each other.

The post in question dates back almost ten years, and was about "the most famous Victorian to live in Hockessin", John G. Jackson. Towards the end of the post there are three paragraphs that talk about Jackson's final home, which he called Sunset Cottage. To the best of my knowledge, all the information in those paragraphs is correct. The house was built by Jackson in the 1880's on Southwood Road, it had a telescope in it, there was a fire in the early 20th Century, it was rebuilt in a different style, and it still stands today.

But if I'm being honest, although I didn't specifically say which one it was in the post, the house I thought at the time was Sunset Cottage... is not. It was in generally the right place and looked a lot like the house in the one photo of Sunset Cottage, but maybe that should have told me it wasn't since we know the house was restyled. As I started researching the property records it became clear which house was which, and though the house I had originally thought was Sunset was not, I came to realize that it was intimately linked to John G. Jackson's retirement home.

Southwood

The Southwood area in 1881

It was a while back that I stopped thinking about these posts as "reports" and began approaching them more as I see them -- as stories. I try to tell the story of a given person, place, thing, or event, at least to the extent that I understand it. Granted, some of those stories are more intricate and, frankly, interesting than others, but all are worth telling. For example, we recently delved into some of the people, places, and history of the area surrounding the Wilmington & Western's Greenbank Station.

But there were of course other stations with other areas around them, and of all those other stations, one of them was Southwood. And though there was never any sort of defined community around the Southwood Station, there are some interesting aspects to the area. There are also some things that I did not know until I was asked about the area (thanks, Erik!).

First, though, we'll start with where Southwood is, since it's completely understandable that you might not be familiar with it. The area we're referring to as Southwood sits along Limestone Road immediately south of the DE/PA state line, west of Hockessin. Also in the vicinity is the intersection of Limestone Road and Southwood Road, which runs west from Valley Road. The name "Southwood Road", however, seems to be a 20th Century moniker (at least for its eastern end, where it was previously known as Sunset Avenue, among other names).

More of the Village of Greenbank

The William Elliot House

In the last post we were introduced to the idea that Greenbank (the area around Greenbank Road, 
Newport Gap Pike, and the Wilmington & Western tracks) was primed to grow into a full-fledged village in the 1870's. With the newly-constructed railroad, the turnpike, the Philips (Greenbank) Mill, and nearby Marshallton, the Village of Greenbank was beginning to form. We also met Andrew Jackson Williams - Civil War vet, train station agent, shopkeeper, ladder manufacturer, and all-around busy guy in Greenbank.

We also learned that he may well have been responsible for building not only his own home, but as many as a half dozen houses along Newport Gap Pike, between present-day Kirkwood Highway and Duncan Road. There were two houses on the west side of the turnpike, between the railroad tracks and Kirkwood Highway (which of course wasn't there until about 1940), where a parking lot is now. Williams' house, as detailed in the last post, was directly west of the railroad tracks.

All of this land south of Newport Gap Pike and east of the creek was owned by James Cranston, part of a 17 acre tract acquired in 1865. This was about the time he was moving from his old house in Marshallton (the Springer-Cranston House) to his new one on today's Old Capitol Trail. Whether or not he originally acquired the land with the intent of leasing and/or selling it, by the mid-1870's that's exactly what he was doing. Some of it back along Red Clay Creek was leased for use as Green Bank Park (presumably he got paid for this). Along the road, Cranston sold off lots for housing. 

Andrew Jackson Williams and the Beginnings of the Village of Greenbank

The Andrew Jackson Williams House (1988)

A little while back I was invited to participate in the Greenbank Mill's Folklore Fridays program, and I decided to do a short talk about the short-lived Green Bank Park. As I went back and refreshed myself on it, I became much more appreciative of the history of the Greenbank area of the late 19th Century. There was a lot more going on there than I had known, as well as some interesting characters. The most frequent name that kept coming up was Andrew Jackson Williams, but as I learned more about him I realized that his story and the story of the Village of Greenbank were inextricably linked.

Due to circumstance, I was not able to share these stories that night at Greenbank, but I present them here, now, in two parts. In this post I'll introduce the Village of Greenbank and take a closer look at probably its busiest citizen. In the second post we'll delve more into some of the other residents and residences, and look at the end of the idea of this area as a distinct community.

When we think about “Greenbank” today, we tend to maybe think of Greenbank Mill, the Wilmington & Western station, Greenbank Road, or maybe Greenbank Park. We think of it more as an area with a few things with Greenbank in the name, not really as a Place. But for about 20 or 30 years starting in the early 1870’s, it truly was a Place. There really was a legitimate village growing up there. But why there, and why then? Most of us probably don’t think of that stretch of Newport Gap Pike as much more than just the dip between Kirkwood Highway and Milltown Road.

There are a few good reasons why it made perfect sense for a village to spring up there, and a really good reason why it started when it did. That reason was the railroad. They were the superhighways of the 19^th Century, so when the Wilmington & Western began running in October 1872 and put a station there, it made sense that more might spring up around it. It had not only the railroad, but also a major turnpike, the mill, and a large operation and population not far, in Marshallton. The area seemed primed to explode into a full-fledged village.

The Clarnen-Armor House

The Clarnen-Armor House

One of the things that initially helped to spark my interest in local history was when I discovered how
many old houses were sitting in the middle of mid-to-late 20th Century developments. It's fascinating to me to drive down a neighborhood street and see split level, ranch, split level, ranch, HOLY CRAP 18TH CENTURY STONE FARMHOUSE! And most of the time it's very easy to tell the old houses from the new. Once in a while though, there's a historic house that for some reason seems only slightly out of place amongst its newer neighbors, and I'd bet that most people who pass it by don't realize the history behind it.

One home like this is in the development of Highland West, on the northwest side of McKennans Church Road and Mill Creek Road, across from Red Clay Creek Presbyterian Church (and below McKean High School, for all you former Highlanders). With a brick façade on the front covering its frame construction, the house is different from the surrounding 1960's homes, but not too different. Except for the fact that it sits further back from the street, you might not even notice it. But in reality, this home was here, all by itself, a century before its neighbors.

The house's story begins more than 30 years before its construction with a young couple -- one a local native and the other a recent arrival. The new arrival was James Clarnen, and I only know a little about his early life. He was born in Pennsylvania, and it was in a Pennsylvania regiment that he served briefly in the War of 1812. His father presumably had died, because his mother Jemima remarried to William Whaley, who took James on as his son. I can't find exactly when Whaley bought his property, but I know where it was and what he did on it.

The Fredericks of Mt. Cuba and Beyond

Location of Peter Frederick's Mt. Cuba property

It's not unusual for me to be contacted by someone, asking if I have more information about their historic home (and I'm deeply grateful to everyone who's done that). What's less common is for someone to ask about an historic home that used to be on their property, but that's just what happen not long ago in regards to a property near Mt. Cuba. The owners recently moved into a beautiful mid-20th Century home in one of the most scenic sections of the Red Clay Valley. They have a wonderful property with something unusual toward the back -- the remains of a much older house.

The property in question is located in the western edge of Christiana Hundred, in the roughly triangular area between Mt. Cuba, Pyles Ford, and Creek Roads. They knew that the house had belonged to the Frederick family, and that they had been butchers. Turns out that was true. That's all, thanks for reading folks, see you next time!

Ok, actually there was more to the story than that, as I'm sure you were hoping(?) there was. It began with a pair of German immigrants, Georg Peter Friederich and his wife, Catherine. They had come from Hesse-Darmstadt in western Germany in 1857, and were married in Philadelphia the same year. They soon made their way down to Delaware, where their first child, daughter Emma, was born in 1858. The 1860 Census has Peter (as he went by) working as a farm laborer, possibly for Samuel Armstrong on the farm that's now the Delaware Nature Society's Coverdale Farm. The Frederick family (the name was Americanized) is listed directly after the Armstrongs in 1860.

Seven more children would follow for Peter and Catherine over the next two decades or so, but their next big move came in 1862, with the purchase of some nearby land from farmer Otley Vernon. This first purchase was for about 3 acres, nestled along Pyles Ford and Mt. Cuba/Creek Roads, and includes the property that the current owners have. It seems that this was just land carved out of Vernon's larger tract, so the Frederick's house was probably built just after the 1862 sale. Ten years later, in 1872, Frederick purchased another 11 acres from Vernon. This land was across on the north side of  Pyles Ford Road.