USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume II > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
is
505
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
the place was noted as a cattle mart. In 1886 the Delaware railroad placed a station a short distance east of Hare's Corner, giving it that name, but it is now called Farnhurst. The State Hospital for the Insane is located here as is the County Almshouse. In 1889 the Assembly by an Act authorized the purchase by the State for $75,000 from the "Trustees of the Poor of New Castle county of certain buildings erected by them for an Insane Asylum, together with ten acres of adjacent land, and its conveyance to The State Board of Trustees of the Delaware State Hospital at Farnhurst." The Act provides for its control by this Board, and for an annual appropriation for its support.
In 1861 Randolph Peters established the "Great Northern and Southern Garden and Nursery " in the Hundred two miles south of Wilmington, comprising some two hundred and forty- four acres chiefly set in nursery plants, fruit trees, especially the peach, and at his death in 1885 the enterprise had become a large business, but after a few years' continuance of its affairs by a manager for the estate, it was abandoned, as the old Lander's nurseries had been previously. Bear Station on the Frenchtown railroad, about twelve miles from Wilmington is surrounded by a rich farming country to which that railway affords needed transportation facilities. The little station was built in 1882. The old Bear Tavern on the Dr. Couper estate was in this vicinity, and one hundred years ago, before the building in 1831 of the railroad was an inn of some im- portance. The old building was torn down in 1845. The little village of Red Lion lies a mile and a half south of Bear Station, has a postoffice, and is a country trading center with a church, a store, some shops and a dozen residences, taking its name from the old Red Lion Inn, kept near the place in colonial times, on Pigeon run, close to the old Presbyterian Church. The church is said to have been burned. Another inn, built of brick and wood with a sign of a lion rampant, was opened in the present village some time after the Revolu- tion, and kept by a French Huguenot lady named Elisse
t
٠٢٠٠
ضاء
5:
506
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
Roussic. The old sign is still preserved by the Silver family, who about the year 1800 came into possession of the property by marriage. This famous public resort was rebuilt in 1823, but was closed as an inn about 1837, its business having been diverted by the railroad. William Silver built a store there in 1823, and later used the old inn for merchandizing and as a residence, as have also his four sons and a grandson. In 1848 Richard Groves opened a store there, and William Silver built shops where during the Mexican War government shoes were made by James McNamee.
Near Red Lion, on Pigeon run, is an old mill site, aban- doned over eighty years ago ; traces of the race are yet visible ; the mill was built by John Eliot about 1767. William and Robert Polk owned it later. A few hundred yards below was a saw mill a century and a quarter since, at the point which was then the head of navigation where sloops sometimes loaded. With the deforestation of the country and the drain- ing of the lands, Pigeon run has dwindled to a petty stream- let. About 1848 Dr. Robert Sutherland, a Scotchman, located at Red Lion, and eked out a sparse practice of medicine with school teaching, in which last vocation he was not less suc- cessful than original in his methods. The fine grove of trees that form a leafy, sheltering cordon around the school house there was of his planting. He ended his signally useful life near the scene of his labors in September, 1886. The first school house in this neighborhood was near the Indian mound on the Silver farm ; in 1835 the village school was built, and used until the present attractive building was erected in 1885.
John Lewden, and his son after him, kept a tan-yard oppo- site the Christiana bridge about the time of the Revolution. A few stores and a tavern or so were for a while kept in and near the Lewden mansion in 1812 and 1836, the fox-hunters resorting to mine-host Solomon Maxwells. ... Now they are all gone, and the village of Christiana does all the business. At the northern end of the Hundred were various manufactories, now within the limits of the City of Wilmington. The
:
1 :
20 1018. 019)
507
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
Garesche powder mill, near there, exploded June 30, 1822, and killed seven men, and was never rebuilt, A number of the early historic churches of the Hundred have either dis- appeared or been incorporated with others of their faith in Wilmington. The Craine Hook church, the mother of " Old Swedes," ceased to exist in the seventeenth century, and later the Presbyterian chapel, on Pigeon run, founded about 1730, and the Baptist church at Bethel. The Pigeon Run church was burned, but its old graveyard, wherein lie members of some of the leading families, is still kept. The Bethel was a chapel of the ancient Welsh Tract Baptist church, nine miles to the west, and was built in 1788, but given up in 1871 and recently removed. In 1819 the Lebanon M. E. church, a brick building 30 x 40 feet, was built and used till 1853, when the larger two-story Red Lion edifice replaced it, and was itself further improved in 1886 and is now in a thriving con- dition, with 103 members. The Union American Methodist church (colored), near Christiana bridge, was built in 1819, and later a good brick structure 30 x 40 feet, with galleries on three sides, took the place of the frame church and draws large assemblages of people, many from without the Hundred.
THE TOWN OF NEW CASTLE.
Not until about fifty years after the discovery by Hendrick Hudson in 1609 of the Delaware river was a town built on its banks. Small military posts, with the few houses which for traffic or protection clustered about them, had from time to time been built prior to September 25, 1655, when Fort Chris- tina, then quite a settlement, was taken by the Dutch and nearly destroyed. In 1651 the Dutch Governor Stuyvesant, acting for the West India Company, bought from the Indians the land between Minquas creek (Christiana) and Bomties Hoeck (Bombay Hook). The records show that the Indian chief Big Turtle signed the deed with his official signature of a turtle rudely outlined. Four miles below the mouth of the Minquas was a point of land reaching into the Delaware
508
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
known as Sand Hoeck and commanding a good view up and down the river; here Stuyvesant built Fort Casimir, which though long since washed away, is thought to have stood be- tween Harmony and Chestnut streets below Front in the present town of New Castle. The erection of a Dutch fort so near the Swedish stronghold at Christina brought the rivalry between the two nationalities to a crisis, and the bloodless conquest by the Dutch in 1665 of the Swedish fort and pos- sessions resulted.
November 29, 1655, Jean Paul Jacquett, an agent of the West India Company, was appointed Vice Director on the Delaware, with full military and civic powers, becoming thereby the founder and first ruler of New Castle. Taking the oath of office in December he named a council of four to govern the town. Among their first official acts was the hear- ing of several Indian sachems who asked that prices for their peltry, etc., be raised, and presents given their chief, which was granted, £152, about $800, though then equivalent to $5000 now, was subscribed for that purpose by some fourteen of the leading citizens.
November 8, 1656, the whole community came together at the fort, and elected two inspectors of tobacco and two over- seers and surveyors of fences ; it having been decreed that all fields should be enclosed. January 10, 1657, the people again met at the fort to regulate trade with the Indians, and fix penalties for violation of prices, viz. "For a merchantable beaver two strings of wampum ; for a good bear or elk skin, worth a beaver, two strings of wampum each, otters accord- ingly. For a deer skin 120 wampum, foxes, catamounts, racoons and others in proportion." This relic of Delaware's earliest sumptuary law furnishes an interesting picture of what the fauna in the surrounding woods was like, and among other things discloses the interesting fact that in those days a deer skin was worth sixty times as much as a beaver's; and that such brave game as the cougar, and the bear infested the vast woods, which then densely covered the peninsula.
1.1 . . . ".
.9
..
509
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
And that these early folks had to fight the same spirit of greed which actuates the modern "trust " combinations, is shown by an entry like this ; "Some people don't hesitate to ruin the trade by running up the price of deer skins by more than one- third of their value, to the great and excessive disavantage of the poor community here !" Expulsion from the river was the penalty for the third offence.
In 1656-7 lots in New Castle, generally 56 to 63x300 feet, and parcels of land in the vicinity of various sizes from one acre up to eighty, were granted to some twenty-seven persons, mainly Dutchmen. December 16, 1656, the Directors of the West India Company transferred to the burgomaster of Amsterdam the title to this Indian purchase, and on April 12, 1657, Governor Stuyvesant wrote the authorities at Fort Casimir that the new colony should be called " New Amstel," and that Jacob Alrichs be the Amsterdam representative. In 1657 Vice-Director Jacquett was charged with driving a number of settlers off their lands, and was arrested and removed by orders of Stuyvesant who appointed three others in his place. For all that, under Jacquett's rule the little Fort Casimir settlement had grown to some importance as a shipping point for the Delaware river. Streets had been laid out and many houses built, besides wharves and storehouses. Tobacco was the chief product and its manufacture the leading industry ; it was also largely used as currency. There were houses to dry and pack the weed, and inspectors to see to its curing, weighing, etc.
March 1, 1657, a colony of one hundred and sixty-seven persons, organized under the direction of Jacob Alrichs, set sail from Amsterdam in four ships, the " Prins Maurits " con- veying the larger number with Alrichs himself. May first he set up his government at New Amstel, and appointed Andreas Hudde secretary and surveyor. The colonists were sent out under the auspices of the City of Amsterdam, which agreed to transport them to Delaware ; lay out a town there with streets, lots, market-place, etc., and provide a schoolmaster, and give
510
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
them provisions, clothing and seeds for one year. A form of government was arranged consisting of three burgomasters chosen by the people, seven schepens to be selected by the Director, and a Common Council of twenty-one persons also chosen by the people. A schout, or sheriff, was to be ap- pointed. Each farmer was to have as many morgens of the lands about the town as he could improve and graze, forfeiture following a failure to do this. All cargoes were to be con- signed to Amsterdam, which city was to store and sell the goods and remit the proceeds, less two per cent. The colonists might cut their timber and firewood from ungranted forests, and freely hunt and fish in the woods and waters.
Alrichs reported to Stuyvesant in May 1657, that they needed horses and oxen, and that "as for cows, there are but two that give milk and little at that !" Pigs were few and wild. The ship, " De Waegh " and the galliot " New Amstel " began plying between Amsterdam and the colony, bringing merchandise and carrying tobacco back. The New Amstel also brought boards and bricks from Fort Orange (Albany) New York to build the fort and chimneys for the houses. Seventy head of cattle were received from Virginia and thirty cows bought by Alrichs, in the autumn of 1657; and the colony greatly needed provisions for themselves and forage for their cattle. They had "no mill to grind corn or other grains." They spent the winter of 1657-8 in building a store- house, a guard house and a dwelling for the commissary, Gerrit Von Sweeringer, and another story to the fort for him to live in. In the spring the farm tracts were distributed by lot to settle disputes. Bricks from Fort Orange were in con- stant demand, and in the spring of 1657 Cornelis Herperts De Jager made a brick-yard near the town, employing four men.
In the spring of 1650 Alrichs reported to Stuyvesant that the colony was retarded by the failure of the harvests and by deaths, that the settlers had little time left to plant after haul- ing materials, building their houses, etc., and appealed to the Amsterdam Directors for help, which was granted. Gover-
1
:
-
·
..
٠
.1
511
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
nor Stuyvesant wrote a very " blue" letter in September of that year to those same directors about " the deplorable state of things on the South river, many colonists running away," etc., etc., but did not allude to the panic caused by certain agents of the Maryland colony of Lord Baltmore claiming the Delaware region. Alrichs' " too great preciseness " was blamed for the loss of the colonists. Upon his death he was succeeded by Alexander De Hinijossa, who called a new council. Dif- ferences soon arose between him and the people and with Wil- liam Beekman, the West India Commissary at Fort Altona, Hinijossa was charged with selling the colony's property, cer- tain mill-stones, a brass kettle, etc., to some Englishman for a thousand pounds of tobacco, five citizens testifying against him. He was recalled to Holland in 1663, but soon returned, and kept his office till the English conquest the next year.
New Amstel now became the seat of government under the English, and Sir Robert Carr was put in command, presently to be succeeded by Col. Richard Nichols. The houses and lands of the principal Dutch officials were conferred upon the English officers, and the courts were organized after instruc- tions for the settlement of the government on the Delaware river, dated April 21, 1668, in which five magistrates with the schout, or sheriff, were to hear and decide all cases. This early legislature, under the English, concerned the protection of the river traffic ; regulation of the distillation and sale of liquors, measuring corn and inspecting it, together with beef and pork, as to quality, etc.
There was but the single Tinicum road in the whole region, and a strong movement was made at a special court held May 13, 1675, by Governor Andros, to establish ferries and build roads and bridges. A town dyke for New Castle was in June of that year ordered built by every man giving two days' labor thereon ; but there being already a private though poorly kept dyke, much opposition was made, on the plea that it was improving private property. Rioting occurred, led by the notorious " priester " Tabricius, who, for his share in it, was
12
512
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
fined and deposed from his clerical office. The dykes, which seem to have been really meant for the public good, were finally built and after ten years kept in repair at private cost. In 1676 all vessels going up and down the river were obliged to load and discharge at New Castle, and for nearly two years between 1671 and 1673 no vessel was allowed to traffic above the town !
On November 9th, 1682, the first public weekly market, from 10 A. M. to 4 P. M., was ordered by the Court. The public square in New Castle occupies the spot; facing it stood the fort, etc., on the present site of the Immanuel P. E. Church. In 1729 a second market was established for Wednesdays and Saturdays; and the very thing the Chicago meat-packers, the oleo-margarine " butter " manufacturers, etc., protest against doing, viz. to brand their wares as to quality and weight, our fathers sternly exacted of those early bakers, whose every loaf must bear the maker's name or mark and be of a given weight or be forfeit ! A ferry from the town of Salem, N. J., was established in 1726 by Wessel Alrichs. An odd commentary upon the securing of property in those days is furnished by the item that in the spring of 1748, the Court at New Castle, believing the records in danger from the French and Spanish privateers cruising about in the bay, asked that John Mackey, the prothonotary, be ordered to remove them to a safe place at Christiana Bridge.
New Castle was first erected into " a corporation by the name of a Balywick, governed by a Bayley and six assistants," finally chosen by the people, May 17, 1672; it thus received something of the right of self-government "under ye English Lawes, both in ye Town and all Plantations upon Delaware River." Captain John Carr was chosen Bailiff and Sheriff, and William Tom his assistant. But the Courts controlled its affairs once more, after the Dutch occupancy in 1673-4, until Jnne 3, 1797, when an Act established its precise boundaries and five Commissioners, Dr. Archibald Alexander, John Crow, John Bird, Nicholas Van Dyke and George Read, were
13
THE ORIGINAL IMMANUEL CHURCH. BUILT AT NEW CASTLE, A. D. 1700.
513
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
named to carry the Act into effect, holding their first meeting July 14, 1799. A map of the town was made and filed in the recorder's office there. On an assessed valuation of town property to the amount of $107,105.00, made June 12, 1798, a levy of $800.00 was made; from the records it appears that eighty-four citizens and estates each owned more than four hundred dollars' worth of property, and that ten of these were "Esquires," one a " Dr.," one a "Rev." and one a negro. New Castle was incorporated as a city under an Act of the Assembly of February 25, 1875, and at the first election there- under, in April, 1875, Thomas Giffin was chosen mayor, Samuel Eckles, president of the council and George A. Max- well, clerk. Since then some improvements have been made in the grading of the streets, better policing of the city, etc.
The Union Fire Company, a volunteer association of twenty- nine members, was organized in March, 1796, and a fund of $468 subscribed to buy an engine, leather buckets, ladders, etc. They were incorporated January 23, 1804; the Levy Court at various times helped them financially, and in 1823 contributed towards the building of an engine house. In 1820 a rival company, the Penn, was formed. April 25, 1824, the most disastrous fire in the history of the town occurred, causing the loss of $100,000. Hon. Nicholas Van Dyke, a native of New Castle and then a member of Congress, appealed to Boston for aid, reminding them that his father, Nicholas Van Dyke, and George Read had collected and for- warded to the victims of the Boston Port Bill in 1774, the sum of $900. That city responded liberally, and with these and other funds, the greater number of the burned buildings were rebuilt. The engine "Good Will " was then bought, a powerful machine capable, with thirty men at the levers, of throwing a stream fifteen feet above the loftiest spire in town, and was used until 1885 when the "Humane," a modern steam fire-engine, with a hook-and-ladder outfit was bought. In 1SS7 a No. 4 Silsby steam-engine costing $3400 was pur- chased and placed in charge of engineer Jacob Sanders with a volunteer company to assist him.
514
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
The New Castle Gas Company was organized with a capital stock of $50,000, September 10, 1857. Mr. Thomas T. Tasker, Sr., president and W. H. Clark, secretary. Under the direc- tion of Mr. Tasker works were built, five miles of mains laid and gas introduced that same year. The New Castle Water Works Company was incorporated April 1, 1869, by Thomas T. Tasker, Sr., James G. Shaw, Andrew C. Gray, William C. Spruance and others, with a capital stock of $50,000 ; James G. Shaw was made president and William H. Clark secretary and treasurer. Water was brought from Nonesuch creek, three miles distant, and supplied by the company in the spring of 1873. A reservoir one and a half miles from town, eighty-seven feet high and holding one million and a quarter gallons, gives the necessary pressure. Five miles of water mains and forty-five plugs amply minister to the comfort and safety of the citizens.
In 1659 a horse mill for grinding grain was set up at New Amstel, and in 1681 Arnoldus De Lagrange built a wind mill for that purpose. Since 1872 William Lea and Sons owned the large flour mills built by Thomas T. Tasker, and after improving the plant in 1879, turned it into a roller mill in 1882. Again five years later the mill was enlarged to a capacity of 350 barrels per day, and twenty-five men were employed. They have been closed for a number of years. In 1863 Mr. James G. Shaw installed in the Triton Spinning Mills built by him in 1860-61, the most modern machinery and in association with James G. Knowles, engaged in the manufacture of cotton yarn until 1871, when the partnership being dissolved, he alone conducted the business after increas- ing its facilities to fourteen thousand spindles consuming yearly three thousand bales of cotton, and employing from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty men. This enterprise has also ceased to do business.
In 1833 the New Castle Manufacturing Company was incor- porated for the manufacture of cotton, woolen and metal goods, by Thomas Janvier, James Couper, Jr., James Rogers,
515
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
James Smith and Charles I. Du Pont. And in 1834 a foundry and shops for building locomotives for the New Castle and Frenchtown railroad were erected. The Morris-Tasker iron works, established at Philadelphia in 1821 by Henry G. Morris and Thomas T. Tasker, were transferred to New Castle in 1872. In 1876 the firm was incorporated under the name of the Delaware Iron Company, with S. P. M. Tasker, president, Charles Wheeler, vice-president, and G. Wister Brown, secretary and treasurer. This again was succeeded in 1886 by a stock company with $50,000 capital, using the same firm name, with M. C. McIlvain as president, J. Row- land, secretary, T. Wister Brown, treasurer and Lewis W. Shallcross, manager. This fine plant occupied thirty-five acres of ground on the Delaware within the town limits, and consisted of a rolling mill. capable of making daily one hun- dred tons of pipe iron ; a bending mill ; a welding mill ; and a finishing room, all housed in large brick buildings ; that of the finishing room alone covering about two acres, equipped with modern machinery run by powerful Corliss engines of six hundred horsepower. The company discontinued busi- ness at New Castle several years ago. Starting in 1873, James G. Knowles conducted a large woolen mill, which being burned in 1878 was at once rebuilt only to be again burned in 1884. Mr. Knowles courageously replaced the old, with a new and larger mill with four buildings containing new machinery for making cotton-worsted for the clothing trade for men's wear, and furnished also with every device and improvement known to science to promote the security and comfort of his two hundred employees. The business con- tinued with varying success until 1900 when it ceased alto- gether. Mr. Knowles died in 1906.
Those greedy conspiracies against manufacturers and con- sumers alike, the hateful modern "trusts," which seek to monopolize the whole world of trade and commerce in a few tyrannous hands, and which like a blight have settled upon hundreds of communities and manufacturing centers the
1
516
HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.
whole country over, have in recent years, sadly affected New Castle and her industries. And yet New Castle with her fine harbor, her excellent river facilities and nearness to the world's great markets and centers of trade, joined with the exceptional advantages of a municipality whose perpetual land endowment insures light taxation, may well claim that her destiny is not forever marred, but still alluringly points to a promising future.
Formerly, before the rise of the commercial power of Phila- delphia and Wilmington, and the growth of the railroad in- terests, New Castle, as a port of entry with her collectors, health officers, etc., and her shipping trade, was of considerable im- portance commercially. The harbor was improved in 1802 by the State, and the National Government also built the ice breakers. In April, 1775, a stage line was begun between the towns of Baltimore and Philadelphia, by Joseph Tatlow and Thomas Henderson. Mr. Tatlow also ran packet boats to Philadelphia, and until 1831, when the railroad superseded them, stages to Frenchtown. In 1822 John and Thomas Jan- vier ran a four-horse coach which left "Union Line Hotel " daily at 9 A. M. Their steamboat line to Philadelphia began in 1828, and the " Union Line" of the Janviers, boat, coach, and later railroad, was a famous enterprise seventy-five years ago. New Castle before 1837 was on the main line of travel between Philadelphia and Baltimore and the South, and not a few famous men of the day passed through the town. Thus, October 6, 1826, Lafayette, enroute to Baltimore, stopped there. President Jackson arrived June 8, 1833, on the steamboat Ohio, and was welcomed by "a vast concourse of people," salutes were fired by the revenue cutter, etc., etc. He passed through the city a month later on his return. About the same time the noted Indian Chief Black Hawk went through New Castle accompanied by Major Garland.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.