John "The Boyne Water Major" Montgomery and Family

The property of John Montgomery

It's a frustrating truth that as much as I'd like to be able to tell the complete stories of the places and people of Mill Creek Hundred, there are some subjects that just refuse to be totally revealed. With a lot of families, for instance, I can trace them back just so far, then they become a confusing jumble. Of all the clans who have frustrated me in this way, few have done so as much as the Montgomerys. There were unquestionably Montgomery families who were prominent in MCH society in the 18th and 19th Centuries, but there is precious little information about many of them, especially as you get deeper into history.

There was, for instance, an Alexander Montgomery who ran the Rising Son tavern in Stanton in the early days. There was also an Alexander who co-founded the first mill in Milltown in 1747. They may or may not have been the same person. A Samuel Montgomery purchased land from the Robinsons near Milltown in 1766, and William Montgomery built the house that still stands along Old Limestone Road, over 200 years ago. Again, these men may or may not (I think they probably were) have been related -- there's just no good data I've come across yet to make a firm connection.

Although all of these Montgomerys deserve to have their tales told (and hopefully I'll be able to do that someday), right now I'd like to focus on a different (and apparently unrelated) branch of the clan. This line of the family has its own rich heritage, and thanks to some typically fabulous work by old deed-miner extraordinaire Walt Chiquoine, we have a pretty decent grasp on who they were and where they lived. And as a bonus, I hope to have an interesting follow-up to this story sometime in the near future.

A Couple New Picture Additions to the Collection

William "Dutch Billy" Losien, 1921

I was going to subtitle this "A Hick and a Brick", but decided that didn't sound very nice. Recently, two fellow history aficionados have been kind enough to allow me to post pictures of theirs on the blog, and I wanted to make sure that everyone got a chance to see them. They've been added to the appropriate original posts, but I wanted to make sure they didn't get lost in the shuffle. One image is an old (almost 100 years) photograph of an old man, while the other is a new image of an old artifact. Both are fascinating and I'm thrilled to be able to share them.

The first picture is one you might have seen alluded to in a comment recently, and it kind of blew my mind when I saw it. I honestly never even considered the possibility that we might one day have a photograph of this man, but here we are. The picture was taken near Pleasant Hill (south of Corner Ketch) in 1921, and comes to us from Rob Hobdell, the grandson of the original photographer.

The Hanna Family

The Hanna Family, c.1910

On a number of occasions here I've talked about the possibilities and excitement of finding heretofore unseen-by-the-public historical photographs from the area. I know there have to be a good number of them out there, and it's a thrill to be able to find them and share them with people who'll enjoy seeing them. There's only one little problem -- they often come with less than complete documentation.

If we're really lucky, the photo will come with good information as to who or what is shown. A lot of times, though, the accompanying information can be frustratingly sparse. It might give the general location of a house, but not the exact location. Or we might know what family the subject of a photograph is from, but not exactly (for sure) who they are.

These are the issues I ran into with a couple of pictures sent to me a while back by Donna Peters. There's a photograph of an old house, and one of four people (and a dog) on what's obviously the porch of that house. We knew that they belonged to the Hanna family, but, initially, not much more than that. After going around and around for a while (and thoroughly confusing myself in the process, not that that's a high bar), and with the last-minute help of a few additional pictures, I'm confident that I know who the people are. The house, though, is a different matter. We'll get to that in a moment, but first, the people.

The Magical 1948 Map

Lower left quadrant of 1948 map

Of all the resources I've found for use while researching Mill Creek Hundred history, some of the most useful have been maps. The first one of these I found was the 1868 Beers map (found at the upper right of the page), and it's no exaggeration to say that none of the rest of this would be here without it. There are a few other 19th Century maps that have been very helpful, but very little from the 20th Century. I have a 1904 topographic map, but it doesn't have any names on it like the older ones do. Most of what you'd get are just road maps, and not very detailed at that.

The two exceptions to this that I've come across are the circa 1941 New Castle County Bus Map and the 1948 map shown here. This is actually only a quarter of the entire map, the lower left quadrant to be exact, it doesn't have names of property owners like the earlier ones, but there are several things on and about it that make it interesting enough to take a closer look at.

First of all, it comes from a transitional time in the history of Mill Creek Hundred (and the rest of the Wilmington suburbs, for that matter). 1948 was right near the beginning of the post-war suburban expansion in MCH, and the map reflects that. There are a few new developments shown (Kiamensi Gardens, for example), but not many. You can see the suburbs expanding out of Newport and Elsmere, but for the most part things are pretty clear west of the Red Clay.

Mitchell Station -- Part 2

In the last post, Guest Blogger SteamCarriage mentioned an odd artifact found in the fields of Jim Mitchell's Woodside Farm southwest of Hockessin, with the date of 1892 on it. He gave us an excellent background on the creation and evolution of Delaware's (and Mill Creek Hundred's) unique, curved northern border. In this post, SteamCarriage will delve deeper into the events of 1892, and explain exactly how this MCH hill was used. Now, the exciting conclusion of  Mitchell Station...


--Researched and written by SteamCarriage

Stone found in the fields of Woodside

United States Coast and Geodetic Survey

It took nearly 40 more years before another Commission sought out the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (an early version of the US Geological Survey) to resolve the matter.  The Survey appointed William Chandler Hodgkins to lead the project.  The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey published a very detailed report titled “A Historical Account of the Boundary Line between the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware” by W.C. Hodgkins, dated December 1, 1893.   The 52-page report is available online through Google Books and well worth the read for anyone wanting to know the particulars of the survey.  It is part of the Report of the Superintendent of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1893 (in two parts).

After initial field work, Hodgkins discovered two circles would best define the northern border between Delaware and Pennsylvania and he proposed a solution to the Commission.  They accepted Hodgkins’ analysis and he completed the official boundary survey in 1892-1893 defining the eastern arc boundary of Delaware and Pennsylvania along with the intersection of the Delaware-Maryland border.  The Wedge became part of Delaware and the Delaware-Pennsylvania arc border is a complex arc defined by two different radius arcs with neither center point at the New Castle Court House (but very close).

Mitchell Station -- Part 1

Time for another guest post, this one from a new contributor, SteamCarriage. It's about a subject I've always meant to get around to, but never have -- Delaware's unique northern boundary. What's neat about these posts are how they tie the topic in to MCH with a specific object and site, located on a historic property previously covered here. Thank you, SteamCarriage for all your work, and enjoy!


-- Researched and written by SteamCarriage

Stone, urn, and spike found in the fields of Woodside

While working a field on one of the higher locations of Woodside Farm, owner Jim Mitchell uncovered a flat square stone that had long been buried. On it was chiseled a triangle with a hole in the center along with the markings “U S 1892”. Under the stone Jim found a clay urn with a square iron spike secured in the center that aligned with the hole in the cover stone. Jim shared the find with the author and asked if we could determine the stone’s origins, use, etc. After some research it was learned that Mitchell Station was a point selected by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1892 for the purpose of settling, once and for all, the disputed 12-mile arc boundary that existed between Pennsylvania and Delaware. What follows is a brief history of how the dispute came to existence and how the stone came to Woodside Farm as a key element in the process the US government used to resurvey and establish the 12-mile arc boundary putting the matter to rest in 1892-3.

Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland
The first settlers arrived to the lower shores of Delaware in 1631. In 1632 King Charles I granted Cæcilius Calvert, the second Baron of Baltimore, a large estate between the 38^th and 40^th parallels of north latitude. The land included the present states of Delaware, Maryland, and the lower portion of Pennsylvania. In 1664 King Charles II granted his brother, James Calvert, the Duke of York, all the lands between the Connecticut and De la Ware (Delaware River as it is known today) Rivers which encompassed parts of the present states of eastern Pennsylvania, eastern New York, and most of New England and included the colony at Newcastle (New Castle, Delaware as we know it today).

Help with the Sinclair Station and/or Campbell's Store

Location of Campbell's store, next to the library

One of the fun things that has happened since I’ve been writing the blog is that by default (and partially by intent) I’ve set myself up as, well not so much an “expert”, because I don’t claim to be that, but maybe as a clearinghouse of local history information. In that capacity, I often find people emailing me with questions about people, places, and events from MCH’s past. Sometimes I can answer them, sometimes I can’t, and sometimes –like now— I think, “I’ll bet someone else knows about this!”

The most recent query relates to a property that apparently served numerous roles during the early to middle part of the last century. It's a white house, with some obvious additions added on over the years, located on the northeast corner of Old Capital Trail and Wollaston Road, directly across Wollaston from the Kirkwood Highway Library. Anyone who's gone to the library over the years has gone right by it countless times but, like me, probably had no idea that the house had it's own unique history. Problem is, we're not real sure exactly what that history is.

A family member of the current owners contacted me and asked if I knew anything about the history of the property. I don't, but we're hoping someone out there does remember something. The current family came into the property in the mid-to-late 1950's, when it was purchased by Vickers (Vick) and Mary Campbell. They had previously lived on a farm near Richardson Park Elementary, but decided to buy this property instead of that farm.

The Forest Oak District #35 School

Forest Oak School #35, in 1926

This is going to be one of those frustrating posts where I have precious little of what you'd technically call "facts", but the pictures are worth it alone. Maybe I'll look at this as just the beginning of this topic, and add to it as more information comes along. The subject this time is another school -- one likely unfamiliar to most, but with a name known by many. It was the District #35 school, which was located on St. James Church Road in what's now the Village of Lindell, and it was called Forest Oak.

The exact early history of the Forest Oak School is not well-documented (at least not that I've found), but a general timeline can be inferred from other sources. The school that preceded Forest Oak as the District #35 school was also on St. James Church Road, but a little further south. Initially founded in 1808, the St. James School was located across the road from the church of the same name. After the passage of the Free School Act in 1829, the subscription school became the District #35 public school. Although the school house remained standing until 1915 (when it was torn down and stones from it used to build a sexton's house, which now forms part of the parish house), it had long since ceased to be a public school. When, exactly, I can only somewhat narrow down.