USA > Delaware > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 15
USA > Maryland > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 15
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Entering the house through the heavy doorway with its very decided Dutch character, one finds oneself in a hallway bisecting the house and facing a broad stairs with deep, generous steps. To the right is a living- room, the opposite wall of which is heavily and beauti- fully panelled in wood. To the left is a dining-room. The house contains much panelling throughout and the north wall of the aforementioned living-room has set
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in it two secret cupboards on either side of the big, old fireplace. In them the master of the house in other days kept the wines and tobaccos with which he regaled his guests. The house, in its present beautifully main- tained condition, owes much of its charm to the energy and discretion of Mrs. Hay, who set herself to renovate and restore it where necessary to the state it held when it was new. That she was successful is evidenced by the very charming glimpse its interior gives of home life in the externals as it was lived in the days of our forefathers.
DICKINSON HOUSE KENT COUNTY, DELAWARE DICKINSON-LOGAN
HE Dickinson House, a bout seven miles from Dover, Dela- ware, in Kent County, near Del- aware Bay, is a well preserved example of colonial home build- ing. It is a large brick edifice with wings, and its beauty is much enhanced by the fine trees surrounding it.
Samuel Dickinson, the first of the name in Delaware, began to buy lands along St. Jones' Creek and its vicinity about 1715. He was born in Talbot County, Maryland, and moved to Delaware rather late in life. Other branches of his family are still seated in the former state, where an interesting memorial of its existence is Crosiadore, an old homestead not far from Easton, Talbot County, Maryland. On December 3, 1743, he received a deed embracing one thousand three hundred and sixty-eight acres which he named Dickin- son's Manor, and on this, about 1750, he built his resi- dence. In 1738 he became one of the magistrates of the court of Kent County, continuing in office for many years. He died at his residence and is buried in a family graveyard adjacent.
" Crosiadore," the Dickinson home in Talbot County, Maryland, is still in existence. A sketch of the old
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place has been given by Prentiss Ingraham in his " Land of Legendary Lore."
Here lived the eldest sons of the Dickinson family for many generations. The first house was remodelled into a modern country home ; was built of English bricks and in English style. The wainscoted walls and winding staircases spoke of the age in which they were built, then regarded as the most costly and elegant finish for a gentleman's home. The whole appearance and air of the place gives one the impression of refinement and hospitality, while the resourceful country and the beautiful river afford Crosiadore a situation and advantage that make the spot an ideal one for a home. On the walls to-day hang tapestries spun and embroidered by the ladies of that house, and in several instances the subjects of the pictures were romances in the lives of members of the family. On the lawn are grand old trees which have stood guard these many years and have been the silent witnesses to many a gathering of old and young. Alike to wedding marches and funeral dirges have their soughing winds played soft accompaniments ; and now in turn they, too, are in the " sere and yellow leaf," yet still replete with memories dear to those who read. "Crosiadore " is a corruption of the French " croix d'or " meaning " cross of gold," derived perhaps from some heraldic design of the ancestors who were engaged in the crusades.
In this old home was born, in 1732, John Dickinson, Governor of Pennsylvania, and founder of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was the second son of Samuel Dickinson, the grandson of the first proprietor of the estate, and of Mary Cadwalader, his second wife, sister of Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, of Philadelphia. In 1740 Samuel Dickinson moved to Kent County, Delaware. Another scion of this house was the Dickin- son who fought and was killed in a duel with President Andrew Jackson. The cause of difference was a trivial one, but, accord-
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ing to the code of those days, honour had to be satisfied by resort to arms. At the first fire Dickinson wounded his opponent, but Jackson, reserving his fire, advanced, shot and killed Dickinson instantly. His body was brought to Talbot County, and he was buried in the adjoining county of Caroline.
John Dickinson, son of Samuel, and the next occu- pant of the Dickinson House, was born in Maryland two years before his father moved to Delaware. He was the author of the famous "Farmer's Letters," which created so much discussion just prior to the Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic, and it was in this house that they were written. After the close of the conflict between Great Britain and her colony, Mr. Dickinson moved to Wilmington, and later to Phila- delphia where he died in 1801, aged seventy-five years. He left two daughters, Sally N. and Maria. The former was the inheritor of the homestead, but at her death, unmarried, it passed to her sister's children. " At the time of her death," says Scharf, " she was the largest landowner in Kent County, and was assessed on over three thousand acres of highland and marsh."
Maria Dickinson married Albanus Logan, who was descended from William Logan, a man of consequence under Penn's administration, and they had four chil- dren. These were Dr. John Dickinson Logan, Gustavus G., Mary N., and Mrs. Betton. When the property was divided between them, Samuel Betton received the north part as his mother's share; Gustavus G., the home
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property; Doctor John Dickinson, the lower part; and Mary, other lands adjacent.
The only piece of land sold of the Dickinson estate, since 1743, was disposed of by Miss Sally Dickinson in 1823 to Levick Palmer, who was thus singled out for favour because he was a Quaker.
THE KENSEY JOHNS HOUSE
KENSEY JOHNS HOUSE NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE JOHNS-STOCKTON-MOORE
HE Kensey Johns House, New Castle, Delaware, faces the his- toric court-house square which has seen four flags fly and four nations conduct their tribunals of justice and is on the northeast corner of Third and Delaware Avenues. It is the largest of the older mansions of the quaint city and is the only one that has that distinctive feature of many colonial homes-a wing. Now occupied by the family of Dr. Lewis Booker, a well-known physi- cian of New Castle, it was built about the close of the eighteenth century by Chief Justice Kensey Johns, one of the distinguished men of the early days of the state of Delaware. The house is two stories and a half in height and has a long extension in the rear. The door- way is chaste and graceful in design, and the interior of the house contains much fine carving.
The builder of this house was noted for his hospi- tality. He was a man of broad culture and great learn- ing and his library contained more books than were to be found in almost any other collection in the state in that day. He was of Maryland family, and of that family with which the founder of Johns Hopkins Uni- versity and the Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore
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was connected. Upon the marriage of his son James, he built the old home now occupied by Mayor James Rodney, of New Castle, as a wedding gift to the pair setting forth upon the seas of matrimony. When his son Kensey married he built for him that house opposite his own at Third and Delaware Avenues; and these two houses, with his own, stand as monuments to his love of fine things and the generosity both of his temperament and his pocket-book. He had three daughters, Susannah (who married Dr. David Stewart, as has been related), Ann, and Nancy (who married Governor Stockton, of Delaware).
Upon the death of its builder, the Johns House descended to his daughter Nancy and was thus for a while the governor's home of Delaware, during the in- cumbency of Governor Stockton. The mansion de- scended by inheritance to the Misses Nancy and Fidelia Stockton, who did not marry, and finally to Miss Eliza- beth Moore, of New Castle, their niece, who is the present owner, though not the present occupant.
THE RODNEY HOUSE Built by Kensey Johns, Esq
LOOCKERMAN HOUSE DOVER, DELAWARE LOOCKERMAN-BRADFORD-CULBRETH
IKE almost all of the other Dela- ware colonial homes, the Loocker- man House, in Dover, has a great deal of personal charm. It is a brick building two stories in height, without wings, and is re- markable for the beautiful old garden which it retains, a memento of other days. The rooms are large and with lofty ceilings, and the hall has a very quaint and delightful staircase, while in the parlour back of the hall is some very well-preserved panelling, exquisite carving and charming shell-cup- boards containing a veritable prince's hoard of old china and glass-ware.
A glass goblet in this collection has cut on it in bold Briton character, " Confusion to the enemies of King George in the Colonies." Another one wears defiantly, "To our Hessian confederates. Confusion to the Colonies." It is not hard to guess the complexion of the house during the revolutionary period.
To get to the famous garden of the Loockerman House, one merely steps through the old-fashioned doorway in the parlour and immediately finds himself in a wilderness of towering box-bushes, great trees which cast a velvety, deep shade in the brightest noonday,
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and strange flowering plants whose names one does not even know. Of the trees in this garden, some are of a variety known as "Kentucky Coffee Bean," for just what reason it is difficult to discover, the fruits of which, very much like almond kernels in appearance, become hard and lustrous and take a beautiful polish when carried around in the pocket. Needless to say, every small boy in Dover cherishes a Kentucky coffee bean worn to an intense degree of brilliancy.
In the house is much old furniture brought from England. On the second floor one will find fireplaces with quaint blue Dutch tiles, which were brought from Holland, for the Loockermans are of Knickerbocker ancestry.
Francis Vincent in his History of Delaware writes:
Of all the Delaware Knickerbocker families, none that we know of has so complete a chain of descent as the offspring of the celebrated Govert Loockermans, the sturdy leader of the citizens of New Amsterdam, and colleague of Augustine Herman. From him the Lockermans of Dover are descended.
Govert Loockermans came to New Amsterdam with Vouter Van Twiller, the director general, or governor, of New Nether- lands, in the vessel St. Martin or Hope, commanded by Juriaen Blanck, in the month of April, 1633, from Holland in the service of the West India Company. At the time of his arrival he was aged seventeen years. He married Maria Jansen (a daughter of Roelf Jansen and his wife Annetje or Annetke Jans, who, after the death of her husband, married the Reverend Everardus Bogardus) and was by that marriage brother-in-law of Oloff Stevenson Van Courtlandt, whose son founded the Van Court- landt Manor, in the state of New York; also of Jacob
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Couwenhoven. He filled some of the highest civil and military offices in New Amsterdam. He was despatched with Jan Davitz in May, 1664, across the Green Mountains by Stuyvesant to arrange peace with the Mohawk Indians. At Warrington, he concluded a treaty with them. About the same period he com- manded a small armed vessel. He drove the English from a fort they had erected up the Hudson River; also at the head of an armed force he surrounded and utterly extirpated a tribe of hostile Indians on Staten Island, who had greatly annoyed the settlers in New Amsterdam. It is said that the memory of this indiscriminate slaughter of this tribe of Indians, although approved by the popular sentiment of the day, occasioned him much inquietude of conscience after his retirement from active life in his last hours. He was despatched at one period at the head of an armed force to expel the Swedes and English who had encroached on territory claimed by the Dutch on the Delaware River, near the present city of Philadelphia. . . .
After a career of honoured usefulness, Govert Loockermans died in 1670, reputed the richest individual in North America. He was worth 520,000 Dutch guilders, an immense sum when the period in which he lived is considered. His public influence and position after his decease devolved on his son-in-law, Jacob Leisler, who became, by a civil revolution, the first governor of the colony of New Amsterdam.
He left five children: Maritjie, who married Bal- thazer Bayard; Arietta, who married Samuel Verplank ; Jacobus, who married Hellegonda De Kay; Judith, who married Gerardus Stuyvesant, grandson of the last Dutch Governor, Peter Stuyvesant; Joannes, or Jannetje, who married the surgeon, Hans Kiersted.
Jacob Loockermans, second son of Joannes, or Jannetje, was born in the city of New Amsterdam,
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1650, and studied medicine. He became a planter and, being involved in political troubles, removed about 1681 to the vicinity of Easton, Maryland, with his wife, who was Helena Ketin. He died August 17, 1730, leaving a son, Nicholas, born November 10, 1697, who married Sally Emerson, daughter of Vincent Emerson of The Grange, near Dover. Thither this son removed and made his home, and here he died, March 6, 1769, aged seventy-one years. Other descendants of Jacob Loockermans remained in Maryland, where the family spelling of the name has become "Lockerman," and where the family has at various times been of promi- nence.
Vincent Loockermans, only child of the above- named Nicholas, was born in 1722, and in 1742 pur- chased a lot on the north side of King Street, Dover, where he built the Loockerman House, which has never been out of the hands of his descendants. He was twice married. By his first wife, Susannah, he had one child, his namesake. By his second marriage (to Elizabeth Pryor, daughter of John Pryor, merchant, of Dover, in February, 1774) he had two children, Elizabeth and Nicholas Loockerman. The family spelling of the name in Delaware is without the final " s."
Nicholas Loockerman, second son of Vincent and Elizabeth, was born November 27, 1783, and died March 20, 1850. He sat in the legislature, and was never married.
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CHARACTERISTIC BITS OF THE LOOCKERMAN HOUSE
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Elizabeth Loockerman, only daughter of Vincent and Elizabeth, born December 23, 1779, married Thomas Bradford, LL. D., of Philadelphia, counsellor- at-law, May 8, 1805, and died in Philadelphia, April 12, 1842, leaving as her survivors her husband and five children: Vincent, Elizabeth, Benjamin Rush, William, and Thomas Budd. She was buried with her brother in her husband's family vault in the burial ground of the Second Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, which vault has since been transferred to Laurel Hill Ceme- tery, Philadelphia.
Vincent, son of Elizabeth and Thomas Bradford, was a lawyer, but later became a railroad man in Phila- delphia. Elizabeth, daughter of Elizabeth and Thomas Bradford, married Rev. William T. Dwight, D.D., of Portland, Maine (a son of Timothy Dwight, D.D., President of Yale College), and had four children.
Thomas Budd Bradford, son of Elizabeth and Thomas Bradford, became a minister of the gospel and resided at the ancestral home in Dover. He married, as his second wife, Lucy H. Porter, daughter of Dr. Robert R. Porter, of Wilmington, Delaware, and de- parted this life in Dover, March 25, 1871. His daughter, Lucinda H. Bradford, married Mr. Huston Culbreth, of Dover, of distinguished Delaware family, and with her husband is the present occupant of this old home.
The tombstones of Nicholas Loockerman, the pro-
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genitor of the family in Delaware, of Susannah his wife, of Vincent their son, and of Vincent the younger, are in the Episcopal churchyard at Dover. The in- scription on the stone of Nicholas Loockerman, disre- garding dates and figures, is as follows: “ An affection- ate husband, indulgent parent, faithful friend, kind master and a generous neighbour, he was in communion with the Church of England and to his death continued a member of that society."
That on the stone of Vincent, the elder, is: " An affectionate husband, kind parent, faithful friend, kind master and generous neighbour, he was in communion with the Church of England and to his death continued a member of that society."
That of Vincent, the younger: " In public life, his usefulness, in private life, his amiable cordiality in friendship, secured respect and esteem, as a tender and affectionate husband, an indulgent parent, a humane master and a kind neighbour. His memory will be endeared and perpetuated."
Susannah, the faithful wife of Nicholas, is sum- marized as follows: "She adorned the several im- portant characters of a good wife, kind and affectionate mother, kind mistress, faithful friend, a good neigh- bour, and fervent Christian and died in communion with the Church of England."
Concerning The Grange, the home of Nicholas Loockerman, first of his family in Delaware, and the
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life lived there, John Thomas Scharf, in his volumin- ous History of Delaware, has this to say:
The tract long known as the Nathanial Drew Lands was originally warranted to Simon Irons, August 6, 1686, as the Grange, and is described as lying on St. Jones' Creek, joining the northwest part of Berry's Range, containing six hundred acres. This land was sold to Benjamin Shurmer, who trans- ferred it to Andrew Caldwell, who, March 12, 1723, conveyed it to Nicholas Loockerman, who made this his first purchase of land in Kent County. He built a large brick house, forty by fifty feet, two stories high, with an attic. The doors and windows were capped with stone, the cornice was elaborate, the hallway was large and ran through the centre of the house, and the interior was divided into ample and convenient rooms, while the slaves' quarters were a short distance away. Here Mr. Loocker- man lived in the easy style of the old-time Southern gentlemen, and here he died and is buried. He built a dam and saw-mill at the head of St. Jones' Creek, northeast of the house, which is mentioned in the same year, 1723 ..
Nicholas Loockerman married Susan (or Susannah) Emmer- son in 1721, and in 1722, Vincent Loockerman was born. Mrs. Loockerman soon after died, and Nicholas married Esther, daughter of Benjamin Shurmer. The Loockerman burial ground is to the rear of the old mansion-house, surrounded by an iron fence and well shaded.
The old homestead of Nicholas Loockerman is still in preservation, though the landed estate has been divided, and is now known as the Covell place.
READ HOUSE NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE READ-COUPER-SMITH
HE disastrous fire of 1824, which swept New Castle and almost wiped the little city out of exist- ence, destroyed among other beautiful colonial reminders the historic Read mansion which stood on the Strand near Har- mony Street. The edifice which stands on its site, how- ever, was built shortly after this unhappy year by George Read, grandson of George Read, the signer, and is so typically Georgian in aspect and so gracious in mass and outline that it may serve to recall some of the charm of its forerunner, as well as to continue the name of the family so long associated with this spot of ground.
The Read mansion which was destroyed was, so con- temporary records tell us, one of the finest edifices of its day. It stood in the midst of spacious grounds and was surrounded by venerable trees, tulip, oak and chest- nut. In its gardens might be found rare shrubs, as well as the familiar box and other bushes of old England. It was built by John Read, the first of his name in America, and was the birthplace as well as the life-long home of the illustrious George Read, this gentleman's son, author of Delaware's first constitution and one of the two statesmen of America to sign all three of the
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great documents of the colonies-the address to King George III, of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States of America. During his occupancy the house was frequently the stopping-place of Washington and the other great figures in our drama of national freedom. He is a figure in the painting by Trumbull in the Capitol at Washington entitled, " The Signing of the Declara- tion," and was a member of the Dinner Club of Con- gress of 1775, whose other members were: Washington, Randolph, Lee, Harrison, of Virginia; Chase, of Mary- land; Rodney, of Delaware; and Alsop, of New York.
George Read, II, was born in this departed Read mansion, and so was George Read, III, who built the house now bearing the family name.
In 1844, George Read, IV, removed to Arkansas where he acquired and maintained one of the great cotton plantations of the south. He sold the present Read House to William Couper, a merchant prince of New Castle. William Couper's granddaughter, Miss Hetty Smith, is now the owner and occupant.
The Read House of to-day is large in size and will attract more than a passing glance to the beautiful Palladian window above the street door. This entrance is approached by a long flight of steps from the street and is remarkable for the exquisite serpentine carving which decorates the arch enclosing it. The garden at the right and in the rear of the house is finely maintained and is a charming retreat.
RIDGELY HOUSE DOVER, DELAWARE RIDGELY
HERE are colonial mansions greater in physical bulk than the Ridgely House at Dover, Dela- ware, but there is none that looms larger in the perspective of history, considering the enduring interest of the events in which it has been an actor; and there is none more fascinating in its surroundings or more individual and charming in itself.
A sketch of the lives of the men, women and their connections, whom this little old homestead has sheltered or given a focal point for, would be almost a complete outline of the history of the state of Delaware.
The heart of old Dover (as all know who have visited this charming peninsular city) is " the Green," a stretch of turf and trees, two city blocks long, and about half a block wide. It is cut across the middle by an old public road of Delaware, known as " the King's Highway," now one of Dover's chief streets. At the eastern end of " the Green " is the beautiful court-house, capitol of Kent County, one of the three divisions of the state. The other sides of the square are taken up by quaint, low, gossipy brick houses, like the pots in the Rubaiyat, which were built-most of them-in days when Dover
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was a very young city indeed. In the midst of this reverend gathering, secluded by the shade of the trees of "the Green," stands the Ridgely House.
It is fascinating, this ancient home of the Ridgelys- fascinating with a charm that grows.
The walls (of old-fashioned English brick) rise sheer from the pavement, and the heavy cornice only two short stories above you, projects far out over the pavement, forming a shelter from the heaviest rain- storms. The windows on the first floor are so close to the ground that it would be easy to step over the sills from the pavement to the interior of the house.
Perhaps the most striking view of the old home is to be obtained from the east, walking down from the Court- house steps, when the outline of the quaint old chimneys and the broad, sturdy roof, like a beetle's back, are disclosed.
The front door and portico (made over in recent years) have been modelled after the garden doorway of Tulip Hill, the old Galloway homestead at West River, Maryland.
There is but one wing, and this is at the western end of the house. It was used about eighty years ago by Dr. Henry Moore Ridgely as an office, and is entered from the street by a door opening directly on the pave- ment. Going into the house through the main doorway you find yourself in a square hall beautifully panelled in sturdy oak. At the left is a passage leading to the
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wing, next to which is a fireplace. Straight ahead runs a passage to the garden, and to the left of this, at the rear of the hall, are the stairs, a very crooked flight indeed, but quaintly and deliciously fashioned. To your right is the entrance to the parlour, a beautiful room with low ceiling and broad, narrow-paned windows.
Among the treasures in the parlour, the discerning old furniture lover will descry a genuine Clementi five- octave piano in splendid preservation. On the wall above it hangs a genuine Copley painting which will interest both antiquarian and art lover, its subject being the beautiful Mary Middleton Vining, mother of a dis- tinguished progeny. Unfortunately the picture has fallen into the restorer's hands, the way of this being as follows: About the middle of the last century the picture became dim and dusty and the family allowed a travelling Philadelphia painter to "restore " it, which he did with customary discouraging results. Yet still the painting retains sufficient of its pristine charm to show the hand of the master who created it. On an adjoining wall is another interesting painting-a Rembrandt Peale-never attacked by hands more impious than those of Father Time, which shows Mary Wynkoop Ridgely as a young girl. In this room, too, is a chair which be- longed to William Penn.
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