The David Chambers House

David Chambers House, September 2013

Recently I reported on the status of two historic homes on Limestone Road, located just north of Paper Mill Road. The larger and more prominent of the two houses (which will both be saved and renovated) was the Samuel Dennison House, built in 1876 and now standing completely exposed on the property cleared for construction
(as of October 2013). The history of this house has already been covered, and can be found here. However, there is a second house on the property, which even though it sits closer to the highway is less conspicuous due to surrounding foliage. This house, which is actually about a half century older than its larger neighbor, is the David Chambers House.

The David Chambers House is a two story, stuccoed fieldstone home with 20th Century additions on its west and south sides. The main block has four unevenly-spaced bays, with the main entrance set in the middle right bay. A faint line over the first floor windows hints at a front porch, long since removed. As of this writing, small trees help insulate the house from the widened and encroaching Limestone Road out front.

Albert Gallatin Springer -- Delaware-Born Texas Cattle Rancher

I'm happy to say that this is another in our series of Guest Posts, kindly submitted to me by fellow readers of the blog. This one, in a way, is sort of a Guest Post once removed. Those of you who have been hanging around here a while probably recognize the name Rich Morrison from numerous informative comments he's left. Rich lives in Georgia, but his family roots go back far and wide in Mill Creek Hundred. Among the clans to which he has ties are the Springers, a family he's done a lot of research on. Rich recently retired (trying not to be jealous, trying not to be jealous..), giving him more time for important things, like genealogy. He recently connected with a professional historian named Bill Green, who had some information about an interesting member of the Springer family. Bill wrote a brief biography of the man -- Albert Gallatin Springer -- and has graciously allowed me to post it here.

I'll follow Bill's work with a few thoughts of my own at the bottom, but up here I want to forward along Rich and Bill's plea, which is for a picture. They've yet to find a photo of Albert Springer, so if by any chance anyone happens to have one, please let us know. It's a longshot, but we've already made some interesting connections through here, so you never know.

Albert Gallatin Springer

Unlikely as it seems, a Delaware native established the first cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle. Probably born in Pencader Hundred in 1844, the youngest of eleven children, Albert Gallatin Springer grew up in Wilmington. His father, Peter Springer, reputedly was a furrier who operated the only hat shop in town before moving in the mid-1830s to White Clay Creek Hundred where he farmed for a number of years. Then, Peter retired and the family moved back to Wilmington about 1855. Albert's mother, Elizabeth Heinold Springer, died shortly before his twelfth birthday in 1856. By 1860, he was apprenticed to Wilmington blacksmith John Wesley Sullivan.

Status Update on the Samuel Dennison House

Samuel Dennison House, September 2013

About two years ago, I did a post about the Samuel Dennison House located on the west side of Limestone Road, just north of Paper Mill Road. Last week I received a message through the blog's Facebook page asking me if I knew anything about the old houses on Limestone Road, around which a new development was apparently being built. I told Joanne, who sent me the message, that I didn't know anything about it, but that I'd take a ride up there and check it out. I did that over the weekend, and got a bit of a scare, then some information that put my mind at ease (at least for now).

Joanne said that from the blog she figured out that the house in question was the Samuel Dennison House, and that from what she could see driving by, she thought that it might be getting prepared either to be torn down or moved. When I got there, I could see exactly what she meant. The house now sits utterly exposed, surrounded by large stretches of barren earth, as seen in the accompanying pictures I took. All the smaller (and mostly if not all 20th Century) outbuildings have been removed, and it truly does look like the main house is about to go, one way or the other. After a quick bit of searching, I'm pleased to say that the future of the 1876 stone home seems to be secure.

The Whiteman Family Revisited Part 2 -- Henry Whiteman and AJ Whiteman Houses

Henry Whiteman House, 1913

In the last post I began to revisit the story of the Henry Whiteman House, a topic I first covered several years ago. As I noted, there are actually several Whiteman houses near Paper Mill Road, between Smiths Mill Road and Polly Drummond Hill Road. (There are maybe a half dozen others throughout MCH, but we'll focus on these particular ones for right now.) We've covered the oldest of these homes, the Jacob Whiteman House built sometime between 1804 and 1816. The next one, the Henry Whiteman House, sits on what was the southern portion of his father Jacob's original 196 acre tract. Henry purchased this half of his father's land shortly before Jacob's death in 1826, and by 1828 Henry had already erected a stone house on the property for himself and his family. At the time, he and wife Anna (Kinsey) had four children, with the fourth, Henry, Jr., being born in 1827, around the time the house was completed. The couple would ultimately have nine children.

Henry resided here for almost 30 years, up until his death in 1855. At that point, the history as written in the 1999 UD report stated that the house and farm went to his son George. This was another of the points at which I was confused the first time around, since I couldn't find a George Whiteman in the 1850 or 1860 censuses. I now know why, and I also know a bit more about this man.
 

The Whiteman Family Revisited Part 1 -- The Jacob Whiteman House

The Jacob Whiteman House

During a recent exchange of emails (unrelated to this post), a descendant of several local families wrote that she hoped she wasn't boring me with her "little family stories". I quickly assured her that she was most definitely not boring me. In fact, I realized and told her that these little family stories are local history. They may seem inconsequential in relation to "The Big Picture", but they can be important for any of a number of reasons. They can provide a missing piece to a larger mystery, or they can be touching stories in their own right. The stories I received recently relating to the Whiteman family certainly tick both of these boxes. (We'll actually get to those stories in the next post.) They also prompted me to revisit an old mystery.

Almost exactly three years ago, I delved into and wrote a post about the Henry Whiteman House, located on Paper Mill Road and Smith's Mill Road, just north of Foxden Road. In the initial post, I stated that the history of the home and the property didn't seem quite right to me, and I laid out an slightly different scenario which represented my best guess at the time. Even at that, it still seemed like there was something I was missing. I still didn't have a really good grasp on the family or the history of the houses in the area. Now, after being prompted with new information to go back and look at it again, I think that finally I know what the real story is (with only one slight hedge).

Brandywine Springs Tour -- September 21

Alright, I hope this isn't too last-minute of a notice, but I think we've come to a consensus. Although I did say I'd do a tour with just a few people, it seems that there are several people who can't make it this week, but can make it next week. Since this isn't anything where there's a reservation or set plans involved, I've decided to wait the extra week in order to allow more people to attend. I hope this isn't a problem for those who said they could come this week. And for what it's worth, the Weather Channel's long-term forecast has it in the 70's with a 0% chance of rain on the 21st. All in all, this seems like the best thing to do.

We can nail down a time that's best for everyone, but since a few seemed to indicate that early afternoon was good, I'm suggesting 1:00 for now. [Edit: See below]The tour should take somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half, depending on how much I ramble on. As I mentioned before, we'll walk through the park, stopping and talking about the various rides, attractions, and structures present a century ago. There are some signs in the park with pictures (installed over the years by the Friends of Brandywine Springs (FOBS)), and I'll have some additional pictures with me as well. If you don't know much about the park, I think you'll be amazed at what it was like.

In the mean time, there a a few resources available to "bone up" a bit on the history of the amusement park. You can start with my post of a few years ago (good Lord, three years ago), which gives a brief overview of the park. Additionally, FOBS has a website that contains a good history and some pictures. FOBS does now also have an excellent Facebook page, containing LOTS of pictures and features. The page is accessible to everyone -- you don't have to be on Facebook to view it. If you really want to be thorough, you can check out the two posts about the original hotel, too.

Now we've got another week to work out any issues, but if anyone has any questions, concerns, or suggestions, feel free to speak up. Hope to see you there!!


Update 9/18/13: I've now "officially" set the time for 1:00 PM on Saturday, September 21. Weather looks good. If anyone would like to attend but needs directions to the park, just let me know. We'll meet in the near end (closest to the entrance and basketball courts) of the parking lot. We'll talk for a few minutes there, and then work our way down to the amusement park site.

The 1844 MCH Election Flag

This is another item from the cache given to me by Fran Casarino, descendant of the Banks and Chambers families. (The Jabez Banks items from a previous post came from her, as well.) I don't really have a whole lot to say about it, but I thought it was certainly interesting enough to share with everyone. It's a newspaper article from 1959 that mentions an item I had seen referenced once before. One that would have been quite familiar to Mill Creek Hundred residents a century and a half ago.

As seen in the photo on the right, the item in question is a flag, purchased by a group of MCH residents in 1844. The accompanying article, shown below, gives the rest of the story. (Reminder: click on the image to view a larger, easier to read version.) Way back (in this blog's very first post, as a matter of fact), it had been noted that the Mermaid Tavern on Limestone Road (just north of the Pike Creek Shopping Center) was for many years the polling place for the hundred. One of the reasons I chose the Mermaid for the inaugural post was that it was the closest thing MCH had to a town hall or central public location. If this was the de facto town hall, then this banner was the town flag, albeit one displayed only on specific days.

Brandywine Springs Tour and/or Next Gathering

OK, time for me to 'fess up (and for those of you of a certain age, no, this has nothing to do with Davey Crockett). Back when we all met up in February (where has the year gone?), we seemed to decide that we'd like to do some sort of gathering again sometime. A meeting at Brandywine Springs park in the spring was suggested, an idea I liked. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to seeing if I could reserve a pavilion they were all booked for the entire summer. With the demographic range we'd be likely to have present, I felt a reserved pavilion was necessary to ensure that everyone had a comfortable, shaded place to sit. Once the spring sprinted by me, I figured that trying to get a reasonable quorum together during the summer would be tricky. And considering the weather, probably also sticky.

Now that the summer of '13 has been laid to rest (again, wasn't it February like a few weeks ago?), I thought it was a good time to start thinking about group activities again. When the idea of a Brandywine Springs meeting was bandied about, there was a suggestion of walking down the hill and taking a tour of the old amusement park site. I was wondering if anyone was still interested in that? I've given tours of the site before (in conjunction with the Wilmington & Western RR), and it takes about an hour or so. It's all on trails, but there is a decent hill on the way down and back up. The other caveat is that it, of course, would be dependant upon the weather. (I.E., I ain't walkin' around no park in no rain.)