The Fanning Houses of Marshallton

The Walter Fanning House in 2012,
one day before its demise

One of the over-arching themes I've stumbled into after years of writing this blog is the idea that just about every place, no matter how unassuming it might seem, has a story to tell. This has been borne out again in the history of the Fanning Houses of Marshallton. I initially didn't know there was this much of a story when a commenter recently asked if I knew anything about the house that used to stand at 3419 Old Capitol Trail, in what's now an empty lot fronted by a beautiful stone retaining wall. I knew of it but not about it, but I did recall something from right near its end.

Back in March 2012, when he was still writing his Lower Red Clay Valley blog, Denis Hehman noticed activity at the property and talked to the owner. He learned that the house was about to be torn down (which it was, two days later!), but was able to get some information as well as a few before and after pictures. I thank Denis greatly for that, because that was the starting point for this investigation. The owner (an older woman) told him that her family moved there when her father was four, and that she herself was born in the house. He didn't mention her name, but this was Miss Eleanor B. Fanning, who sadly passed away in February 2022, on her 88th birthday. The Fannings' story, though, starts long before that.

It begins with Henry Fanning, who brought his family to America from Ireland, probably in the 1850's. I can't find them in the 1850 Census, but by 1860 Henry is working as a weaver in the cotton factory on Red Clay Creek, just below Marshallton. It was operated at the time by fellow Irishman John Wright, but in 1864 would be purchased by the Dean Woolen Company, converted from cotton manufacturing to wool, and renamed as the Kiamensi Woolen Company. Henry died in October 1861 at the age of about 50 of "consumption of the lungs" (tuberculosis), but his son George carried on working in the cotton-then-woolen mill.

The Springer-Chandler Farm

The Springer-Chandler farms, 1927

For this story we venture again outside the confines of Mill Creek Hundred, but not by much. In fact, 
the land in question was originally part of a tract that extended into MCH, and ultimately ended up as part of one which was featured in a post not long ago. It's a story that is, on the one hand, fairly simple. Over the course of more than 300 years, it was really only owned by members of four (although, really three) different families. But on the other hand, there are a few details and actions that make the chain of ownership a lot more complicated and confusing when viewed on a closer level. Also, there are actually several tracts in question, which multiple times are split up, only to be later reunited in ownership. Also also, I don't have a strong understanding of the exact boundaries of most of the tracts. 

"Originally", the land in question (which is along Lancaster Pike between Centerville Road and Red Clay Creek) seems to have been on the eastern end of the holdings of the Barker family, who began acquiring much of the area around what would become Wooddale from the Penns as early as the 1680's. There were several members of several generations of Barkers who bought a number of tracts over the years, from Wooddale up to Mt. Cuba. For our purposes here, suffice it to say that in 1764, several grandchildren of Samuel Barker (who had purchased the land in 1685 from William Penn) sold a 200 acre tract in western Christiana Hundred to Charles Springer, son of Jacob Springer. While the exact boundaries are unclear to me (lots of white oaks and hickories and other property lines I don't know), it seems to generally sit now between Lancaster Pike and Barley Mill Road, mostly (or entirely) west of Centerville Road.

Charles presumably settled on the land and lived there for almost 40 years. In his 1802 will, he divided his land between sons Reese (who got the westerly part) and Thomas (who got the rest). Apart from being severed from the other Barker holdings, this is the first of several instances of the property being split up, only to be later reunited. Thomas Springer died in 1824, and in his will gave most of his land to his son Charles, except for about 40 acres that he says he bought from Joseph Robinson in 1809. This portion went to son William Foulk Springer. I was frustrated at first because I could not find any record of that 1809 sale, but I think I finally have a theory as to what happened. 

The Travelling Newport-Gap Pike and Mt. Cuba Bridge

The Newport-Gap Pike bridge
in its original location, 1921

I have to admit that this post is a follow-up that took way, way too long to come about. Like, kids are in middle school now who weren't even born when I wrote the original part of this story. Back in September 2010, I did a post entitled "Marshallton's Travelling Bridge", which I later realized was not completely accurate. In that post I stated that the bridge installed over Red Clay Creek in Marshallton (Newport/Duncan Road) in about 1900 was moved in 1925 to another location across Red Clay Creek. Then, 45 years later, it was moved yet again to the site where it remains to this day.

To be fair, much of that post is correct, with two glaring exceptions -- I had the wrong bridge and an incorrect first move date. I think I realized that fairly early on, but I never got around to actually giving the correct information. However, very recently a commenter (thank you, Larry Davis!) asked about a story he had heard in his younger days, about how the Newport-Gap Pike bridge over Red Clay Creek at Greenbank had been repurposed somewhere else. That immediately rang a bell with me, and here we are. Yes, Larry, you were right.

It turns out that it was not the Marshallton bridge that has travelled around -- it's the Newport-Gap Pike bridge. They are very similar bridges, both being Pratt Pony Truss bridges. The Pratt Truss design was invented in 1844 and was one of the more common designs in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, both for railroad and roadway bridges. The "Pony" designation indicates that the trusses are not connected at the top. I haven't been able to determine when this particular bridge was built, but I did find an 1884 newspaper article about New Castle County bridges that did indicate that there was an iron truss bridge in place at that time. It's quite possible that this is the same bridge.

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).

Weedon's Foray Historical Marker

The Weedon's Foray Historical Marker

This past July (2023), an exciting historical event took place in Mill Creek Hundred. Nestled down in the Mill Creek valley, off of Stoney Batter Road down at the bottom of the hill, a brand new historical sign was unveiled! It memorializes an event from the days of our country's founding, and the marker was largely the result of one man's tireless work (no, not me). The event is known as Weedon's Foray, and it was (until recently) a largely forgotten event that really does deserve more recognition.

Weedon's Foray was a small skirmish that took place between two other, more well-known engagements, but which did end up having an importance of its own. The date was September 8, 1777, and just 5 days earlier British and American forces had clashed at the Battle of Cooch's Bridge, south of Newark. The Redcoats had disembarked a few days earlier at the Head of Elk in Maryland, and everyone knew their ultimate destination was Philadelphia -- the only questions was, by what route would they go?

After the engagement at Cooch's Bridge, convinced British General Howe would take the most direct route through Wilmington, Gen. Washington moved his army back to take up positions where the road crossed Red Clay Creek, at Stanton. They camped between Marshallton and Newport, waiting for the enemy to arrive. Howe, however, had other plans. He intended to take a slightly more circuitous, northerly route. The Americans, though, had not yet figured this out.

The Convoluted History of the Roseville Farm -- Part II

Eastward-looking view of the old stone farm
house (right) and 20th Century barns (left)

In the first post about the history of the Roseville Farm property, we followed the chain of ownership all  the way from Brewer Sinexon in the 1680's, through the McMechans, the Blacks, the Newbolds, Connelly, and even a Cooch (and a few others thrown in along the way). We saw that the farm had a grist and saw mill erected on it sometime prior to 1765, and a cotton factory built about 1815. It was likely about that time that the original (possibly 1735) brick farmhouse close to the main road (and mills) was complimented by a new, fieldstone house set closer to the middle of the tract. In 1843 the property was purchased by Arthur Chillas, who immediately attempted to (but ultimately did not) sell it.

I won't go too deeply into the Chillas family here, as they've already been mentioned in a previous post (you can also find good information here as well). The short version is that the Chillases were Scottish immigrants (Arthur by way of Liverpool, England) based out of Philadelphia, and Arthur was, at the time, president of the North American Coal Company. He probably bought Roseville as a business proposition, although the 1843 ad does seem to imply he was living there, at least for a short time. By 1850 Arthur was living in a boarding house in Philadelphia. He was a widower, but his second wife (who he would marry in 1851) was listed 11 lines above him in the same boarding house.

As best as I can guess by looking at the 1850 Census, the operator of the Roseville Factory might have been a man named Edward Garrigues. He's listed as a Manufacturer, and the next 15 or so families are all in the textile industry (weaver, spinner, carder, etc.). Immediately after the them is Uriah Drake, the next farmer over, who lived in the Meeteer House (now the Yasik Funeral Home). As best as I can tell, Garrigues was a pharmacist in Philadelphia, so he may have known Chillas from there and been brought in to supervise the factory.

The Convoluted History of the Roseville Farm -- Part I

There are certainly many properties in Mill Creek Hundred that have had multiple phases or lives 
through the course of their history, but there's one in particular that through much of the 19th Century had a bit of a split personality. The property in question has been known as Roseville for at least about 200 years, and sits (mostly) on the north side of White Clay Creek and west of Possum Park Road. Roseville has been featured in blog posts quite a few times: about the Roseville Cotton Factory, the nearby development of Roseville Park, the Roseville Covered Bridge, the Roseville Electric Plant, and about the Italian community at Roseville. There were also two posts about the Chillas family -- one about David Chillas and another follow-up about the Chillas family and their connection to the cotton factory.

Pretty much all of the posts and discussion about the Roseville property have focused on the very southwestern edge of it, along White Clay Creek. This is where the Roseville Cotton Factory was, and where the other various buildings stood that were related to it. However, this was not just a small mill lot -- the land it occupied was actually part of a larger 174 acre (and other amounts over the years) tract with a history that both predated and outlasted the industrial activity. That history got more than a bit convoluted at times, with multiple sales and lots of mortgages placed on it covering almost every owner, but I'll do my best to give a cohesive overview.

The history of the first 100 years or so of European occupation of the land is laid out very nicely in a deed from 1778. That deed, which records the sale from John Evans to James Black, shows that the first transfer (at least under English control) was back in 1683. In that year, William Penn warranted land (surveyed the next year at 300 acres) to Brewer Sinnexon, although I have a feeling that Sinnexon was probably already here. That tract lay on both sides of White Clay Creek, but in 1698 Sinnexon sold 100 acres on the north side of the creek (meaning, in MCH) to John Gardner. In 1701, Gardner sold the 100 acres to Cornelius "Neals" Cook, who also owned other land in the area.

The Rescuing of the Harmon Talley House

The Harmon Talley House

In the last post we took a deep dive into the history of the Harmon Talley House on Mt. Lebanon Road 
in Talleyville, and looked at some of the people who lived there over the past 200 years. In this post I want to bring the story up to the present day, and show you some of what's been going with the house over the past few years. At the time of my original post in 2015, the state of the house was, to put it mildly, poor. It had been all but abandoned for seven or eight years, there was a large hole in the roof, and the interior was in bad shape because of it. I really expected at that point that it would fall down or be torn down sometime in the very near future.

This was all set in motion where we left the house in the last post, when in the late 1960's Woodlawn Trustees decided to sell off most of what had been Tippecanoe Grove Farm. If you recall, Woodlawn was (and still very much is) a trust formed by William P. Bancroft in 1901 to oversee his acquisitions and disposition of land in Wilmington and in Brandywine Hundred. At one point Woodlawn owned over 2000 acres in Brandywine Hundred -- most of the land between Brandywine Creek and Concord Pike, from Sharpley Road up to the PA state line. In a contentious point that still comes up today, Woodlawn Trustees has always had a dual mandate to both preserve land and to occasionally sell off some of the land to help fund the rest of its work.

In the late 60's they decided to sell the old Talley farm, and the neighborhood of Tavistock was born. A lot of about an acre was carved out for the old house, and in 1975 it was finally sold. Woodlawn regularly placed deed restrictions on properties it sold (I've heard stories of residents in Tavistock, even recently, having to go to court to fight some of these), but in this case some of those restrictions probably ended up saving the house. It was resold in 1982, and when we picked up the story in 2015 those owners had allowed it to deteriorate so badly that a developer at first wanted to tear it down, claiming it could not reasonably be restored. At that point, it seems that only the Woodlawn deed restrictions against it prevented the house's demolition, and those plans were rebuffed.