USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume II > Part 14
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Middletown has two banks. The Citizens' National was established in 1859 as a state bank, but in 1865 became a
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National Bank with a capital of $80,000. It now (1906) has a surplus of $16,000, and undivided profits, $25,000. Joseph Biggs is president, and John S. Crouch, cashier. The Peo- ples' National Bank, established in 1883, has a capital of $80,000, and a surplus of $20,000, besides undivided profits, $8,000. George M. D. Hart is president, and George D. Kelley, cashier. The Union Lodge, No. 5, A. F. and A. M., the oldest lodge in Delaware, was instituted at Cantwell's Bridge (Odessa) in 1765. In 1816 it was reorganized, and its place of meeting changed to Middletown some time after- wards. They now (1906) number sixty-four members. This is the fifth oldest lodge of Masons in the United States, and has been successively under the jurisdiction of Scotland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Its present officers are Dr. Charles A. Ritchie, Master ; Dr. G. B. Pearson, Senior Warden ; W. F. Shallcross, Junior Warden ; Joseph L. Gibson, Treas- urer ; Alfred G. Cox, Secretary.
The Good Samaritan Lodge No. 9, I. O. of O. F., was insti- tuted August 14, 1846, and is now highly prosperous, with sixty-five members. H. S. Beasten is N. G. ; H. H. Hillyard, V. G. ; J. F. Deakyne, F. S. ; F. Pennington, Treasurer ; J. J. Northrup, R. S., and Rev. A. E. Clay, Chaplain. Washington Camp No. 9 of the Patriotic Sons of America was organized December 9, 1902, with twenty-five charter members. The order is both beneficial and fraternal, and provides an insur- ance of $500 payable upon the death of any member. For greater security this is placed in two funeral death benefit insurance companies in sums of $250 each. They are increas- ing in numbers, and have (1906) forty members. Seneca Tribe No. 44, I. O. of R. M., was organized March 2, 1902, with twenty-five charter members, and is prospering, their present membership being sixty-five.
The Middletown Council No. 2, Junior Order United Amer- ican Mechanics, was organized October 1, 1891, with twenty- five charter members. This order numbers 5,000 in Delaware. The Middletown Council at present (1906) numbers seventy-
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five. Their officers are W. T. Pierce, Councilor ; M. Banning, Past Councilor ; D. W. Stevens, Vice Councilor; Elwood Denny, Secretary, and E. S. Jones, Treasurer. The order is highly prosperous, and has, by an assessment yearly of $1.60 upon each member, accumulated a funeral benefit fund of $4,000. The Welcome Conclave No. 256, Improved Order of Heptasophs, was organized in the autumn of 1894 with forty charter members. Their officers are J. Ginn, Archon ; J. G. Bragdon, Secretary, and J. C. Parker, Treasurer. They num- ber sixty members. The Alpha Tent No. 1, Knights of Mac- cabees, was organized in 1901 with seventeen members, which is their present number. Union Lodge No. 6 of the Ancient Order of United Workmen was organized in Middletown in 1895, and has forty-seven members. S. E. Lewis is Master Workman; H. L. Neff, Overseer ; A. G. Cox, Financier, and J. H. Emerson, Recorder. The Middletown Mutual Loan Association, organized in 1873, has had a very successful and useful career. Up to March, 1906, it has matured twenty-two series of stock out of a total of thirty-four series issued, each share of stock having a maturing value of $200. It has proven a blessed home-builder for persons of small means, and has been honestly and economically managed. John F. Mc- Whorter is president; A. G. Cox, secretary and treasurer. Some of Middletown's best citizens have officered this associa- tion. The Town Hall, a three-storied brick building 68x70 feet, was built in 1868 at a cost of $36,000, and is arranged for stores on the ground floor, a town hall on the second, and lodge rooms on the third.
Middletown has two newspapers. The older and better journal is the " Transcript," founded in 1868 by the Vandever Brothers, and edited for a number of years by W. Scott Way, the well known humorist. Thomas S. Fouracre now owns and publishes the paper, which is a handsome, newsy local paper with a circulation of 1,100 copies, and while mainly devoted to the promotion of home interests, is Republican in politics. The "New Era" was established in 1885, and is
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owned and published by Freeman & Webber, having about the same circulation as the "Transcript." Its politics is Demo- cratic.
Among the worthy old settlers in St. George's Hundred none has left a name more redolent, through the passing years, of honor and benevolence, than Nehemiah B. Burris, who for many years owned one of the old Outten Davis farms about one and a quarter miles from Middletown. Mr. Burris was born June 8, 1816, and in 1846 married Miss Mary J. Crawford. He was a very successful farmer, and amassed a comfortable fortune. He was well known the whole country round, not less for his integrity than for his benevolence, and being a leading member and official in the M. E. church at Middletown, his hospitable roof was for many years another " Perry Hall" for the ministers of that denomination. But alas ! because he had " a hand open as day to melting charity," misfortune overtook him in his later years, and he left his farm and removed to Middletown, where he died January 23, 1898, widely and deeply lamented by all classes, and leaving to his family and the community the blessed heritage of a noble, kindly life.
Martin B. Burris, his son, is a member of the Delaware Bar, at present engaged in the successful practice of his profession at Middletown. Mr. Burris was a member of the Constitu- tional Convention of 1897, and rendered valuable services in the convention. He and Mr. John Biggs, late Attorney- General, and a well known Democrat, were chiefly instru- mental in effecting that harmonious non-partisan unity of action which resulted so happily for the commonwealth in the production of its present impartial and patriotic state charter, the best Delaware has ever had. Though for over thirty years most actively engaged in promoting the interests of the Republican party in his county and State, he modestly refused all offices until 1900, when he received the unsought compli- ment of a nomination for Governor by the Republican State Convention, and would no doubt have been elected, as was the
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convention's second nominee, John Hunn, had he not mag- nanimously declined that honor in the hope thereby to pro- mote a greater party harmony. He was thereupon elected State Treasurer for two terms, from 1901 to 1905.
Mr. Burris is a great-grandson of Captain John Corse, who, while holding the rank of ensign, was wounded at the battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776, where he served under Major MacDonough in the brigade of the gallant Haslet, who met an untimely fate a few months later on the field of Princeton. While examining some old legal records at Dover Mr. Burris discovered in a heap of ancient papers and manu- scripts in one of the upper rooms in the Court House, some documents relating to the military career of his ancestor, Captain Corse. On October 15, 1884, he married Miss Sylvia Allen Wright, the youngest daughter of John W. Wright, who for over thirty years was engaged in the marble business at Odessa and Middletown, and was a well known and highly respected citizen, who through his honest industry won a handsome competence. For a number of years prior to his admission to the Bar, Mr. Burris was extensively engaged in surveying, making among other important surveys, that of the Sassafras route for a then projected canal, and which is now one of the two routes under consideration by the United States Commission appointed to determine the one most suitable for the government ship canal uniting the waters of the Delaware and the Chesapeake.
Mr. Burris has been the architect of his own fortune. While his elder brother went to college he remained on the farm with his father till he was past twenty-one, and when disaster befell the family, he became their support. He and Hon. Frank Lloyd, recently elevated to the bench in New Jersey, after a very honorable course as District Attorney for Camden county, were brought up country boys together on adjoining farms near Middletown; and though neither ever saw the inside of a college, they both have by their own in- dustry, integrity and brains, accomplished highly honorable
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careers. Like his father before him, Mr. Burris' integrity has ever been past all question, and he has always had, not only the respect, but the friendship of his political opponents, many of whom are among his best clients as a lawyer. He occupies his father's official station in the M. E. Church, towards whose maintenance he is a very liberal contributor.
The late Governor John P. Cochran lived in St. George's Hundred about a mile from Middletown, and Governor Ben- jamin T. Biggs, who also was for a number of years member of Congress from this State, lived in the town. Their lives and careers are more fully noted elsewhere. Dr. G. B. Pearson, a practitioner of the old school, and Dr. Charles A. Ritchie, of the new, have the largest practices in Middletown. Drs. Lewis, Clarke and Vaughan have more recently located in the town.
Ex-Governor John Hunn was born in St. George's Hundred on a farm about a mile from Middletown. In the antebellum days, when slavery was a recognized institution throughout the South and in Delaware, Governor Hunn's father was the leading figure in this State in charge of the "Undergound Railroad," a systematic plan to help runaway slaves evade recapture and thus secure their freedom. Another Friend, John Alston, who owned a farm adjoining the town of Mid- dletown, now occupied by his son, J. Cowgill Alston, was also identified with the movement. The Governor tells the follow- ing interesting incident relative to its history. When his old father was on his death-bed he called his son to him and exacted from him a promise to burn a history of the " Under- ground Railroad" which he had prepared, and which minutely detailed every fact and circumstance of that memorable secret chapter in Delaware's history. The son promised to do so ; but as he was turning away, something in his face caused his father to recall him. "Son, thee meant to copy that diary before thee destroyed it, is it not so?" The son admitted he had intended to make a copy, whereupon his father made him promise to burn the record uncopied, which was done.
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This valuable and doubtless intensely interesting recital was fully prepared for publication ; but as the senior Hunn said, the issue was closed, and inasmuch as some of the actors in the affair were yet alive, and might be compromised thereby, he thought it best to cover the whole episode with oblivion by burning what was probably the only full and authentic ac- count of this stirring drama of Delaware's "Underground Railroad."
One of the leading Catholic citizens of St. George's Hundred was Dr. James V. Crawford, who until his death was president of the Peoples' National Bank at Middletown. He was born and educated in Baltimore, but when a young man of twenty- two came to Delaware, where he became a large property owner, and identified with the professional and financial inter- ests of this State. His ancestral derivation is interesting on both sides. His paternal ancestor, James Crawford, came to the Delaware colony with Sir Robert Carr as a volunteer in the expedition to expel the Dutch from the colony in 1664. The expedition having been successful, James Crawford re- mained in the colony ; and as a reward for his military ser- vices, received a house and several tracts of land. Later in 1675 and 1682, he got title to 800 acres of land from Governor Nichols and from Governor Edmund Andros, which tracts he improved, and at his death transmitted to his heirs. Most of his descendants lived in New Castle County, and also became owners of realty. Rev. John Crawford and Theodore F. Crawford, formerly of Wilmington, are descendants of James Crawford. Dr. Crawford's maternal grandfather, F. A. Duchemin, was a French emigre to St. Domingo, where he acquired a large fortune in the shipping business, but lost much of it in the insurrection in 1791, when he barely es- caped with his life. This Duchemin afterwards married one of the fair Accadian exiles, who fleeing from British brutality, had taken refuge in Baltimore. Dr. Crawford's mother was one of the children born of this union. After practicing his profession for a number of years, the doctor lived in retire-
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ment with his sisters near Middletown, having never married. HIe was a courtly gentleman of the old school, and highly esteemed in the community.
Another citizen of prominence was the late Elwood R. Norney. His grandfather, General Andrew Norney, was a friend of General Knox and General St. Clair, both of whom owned farms near his own. Mr. Norney's mother was de- scended from the old Pastorius family, among the earliest settlers in Philadelphia and Germantown. In 1859 he gave up his business in Philadelphia, and on account of his wife's health, removed to St. George's Hundred, where he bought a farm on the Delaware. He was chosen a member of the As- sembly in 1886, and there rendered especially valuable ser- vices in reducing to a harmonious system the many oyster laws of the State. In 1887 Governor Biggs appointed him State Fish Commissioner, and he held that position for a number of years.
Tradition says William Penn, while enroute to Philadelphia, landed near Port Penn to get a supply of water, and that the village name is thence derived. Peter Alrichs was the orig- inal owner of the village site, which was plotted into lots be- fore 1795. It was a grain market in 1822, and a port of entry as well. It had then five taverns and guests to fill them all, too, though the village had but 150 inhabitants. Until about the year 1868, there was a United States Custom House at Port Penn, and previous to the building of the Delaware Breakwater landing, this was the best port on the river and bay. The Miss Stewart hip-roofed house in the village is quite old, for it has a fire-back in an open hearth bearing the date 1728. The old Dr. Stewart house was struck by a British cannon ball in 1812, as was also the W. H. Muller residence, so at any rate tradition declares. Count Pulaski built and lived in the house occupied by James M. Webb.
Port Penn was of great importance as a grain-shipping center before the building of the Delaware railroad and the wharf of Joseph Cleaver, the principal grain merchant, and
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the road for a half mile back was often crowded with teams waiting to unload. The village lies in the northeast part of the Hundred, four miles below Delaware City, and has a steamboat line to Philadelphia in the summer by way of Augustine Pier. It has two churches, a Presbyterian and a Methodist, the former organized in 1837, and the latter in 1850. It also has a few stores, a post-office, and a population of about 300.
Next to Middletown, Odessa is the largest town in the Hun- dred. Because of the beauty of its location on the Appo- quinimink, and alas! because of its melancholy decay, it is aptly described in the words of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village : "
Odessa ! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and beauty cheered the laboring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed, Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn, And desolation saddens all thy green.
Its site was on land originally received by Alexander Hinijossa, the New Amstel Vice-Director from 1659 to 1663. He had scarcely settled at "Appoquinimin," on the large tract he had obtained after his official retirement, and where he meant to live and trade, when the English dispossessed his countrymen and confiscated his lands, bestowing them in 1676 upon Captain Edmund Cantwell, the first sheriff of New Castle County under William Penn, and also sheriff under Sir Edmund Andros. In 1731 his son Richard received per- mission to build a toll bridge over the Appoquinimink creek, and the place was then called "Cantwell's Bridge," a resting- place for travelers from the Delaware river to the Chesapeake. William Corbit bought land there, and started a tannery in 1765. The house of Daniel W. Corbit was built by Robert May & Co., of England, it and the adjacent one being built about 1772-3.
The late Charles Tatman came to Cantwell's Bridge in 1817,
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when there were but thirty houses on the south side of Main street. A Scotchman named Osborne owned nearly all the land north of that street, but went away and made no dis- position of his property, which was afterwards escheated to the State, and in 1821 plotted and laid out into streets and lots, and sales thereof made to various parties. By 1825 Cantwell's Bridge had become an important shipping-point, grain being brought thither for shipment from all the country within a radius of fifteen. miles. Six big granaries, holding 3,000 bushels, were used to store the grain for shipment. From 1820 to 1840, 400,000 bushels of grain were annually shipped by boats to Philadelphia. Charles Tatman and Manlove Hayes were merchants, and Ford Mansfield kept the tavern, and Daniel Corbit the tanyard.
During the Revolutionary War a lieutenant and squad of soldiers from General Washington's army visited the tannery to buy some leather from William Corbit, who then was run- ning the tan yard. He refused to sell, whereupon they searched for the leather, and finding it hid in the cellar of the present Daniel W. Corbit house, took it away, and left Conti- nental money, paper, as pay for it. These Revolutionary " shin plasters " are still exhibited by Daniel W. Corbit. They manufactured all kinds of leather until 1854, when the busi- ness was discontinued because of the scarcity of tan-bark. John Janvier was town undertaker, and was accustomed to transport the coffins of the more refined and well-to-do folk to the cemetery balanced on a queer two-wheeled cart, with wooden pins to hold the coffin. Ordinary poor people were drawn to their " long homes " in a common wagon.
During this big grain period, Charles Tatman, Crouch and Davis, and others, handled the traffic, whose carriage required six sloops making weekly trips to Philadelphia, three schooners to Boston, besides a large number of transient vessels. Agri- cultural fairs were held as early as 1830 at Cantwell's Bridge, and were largely attended by persons from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. In 1855 the town name was changed
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to Odessa after the Russian grain point of that name on the Black Sea.
A few old fogy wiseacres in the fifties, who declared that their shipping facilities were "good enough," drove the rail- road, seeking to pass through the village, off to Middletown, then much inferior in population and business. This sealed the fate of Odessa, for its decadence then began, and has con- tinued, till now it is in very sooth a "Deserted Village." One little 150-ton steamer, the Clio, making two weekly trips to Philadelphia, suffices for all her commerce, while her big granaries have totally disappeared from her rotting wharves. Smyrna and Milford were also guilty of this fatuity of oppos- ing progress. Odessa was incorporated in 1873. A few stores yet remain, and the firm of L. V. Aspril & Son, manufactur- ing and selling farming implements, employs eight men. For five weeks in the summer Hon. W. B. Baker runs a corn- canning factory employing 110 persons, and putting up 30,000 cases valued at $45,000.
The Watkins Packing Company have been engaged for twenty years in canning corn and tomatoes, their yearly pack being about 30,000 cases. They employ about one hundred persons during the season, and fifteen for several months longer making the cans. The company furnish the growers genuine, high-grade sweet corn for planting. They also own and operate the iron steamer " Clio," of 150 tons burthen, and fitted to carry passengers. They do a yearly freight business of over $10,000. Odessa also has a creamery. The New Castle County National Bank was incorporated in 1853 as a State bank, with Charles Tatman president and B. F. Chatham cashier. In 1865 it became a National bank, with $75,000 capital. John C. Corbit is president and J. L. Gibson cashier. It has been very successful, and has a surplus of $25,000 and $10,500 undivided profits. The Odessa Loan Association was incorporated in 1885. It has issued twenty-two series of stock and matured eleven, each share with a maturing value of $200. It has been well managed. Its officers are Daniel W.
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Corbit, president ; L. V. Aspril, Jr., secretary, and F. B. Wat- kins, treasurer.
A local fire insurance company, known as the "Farmers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company," was organized in 1849, and has been a great blessing to the locality and to the country around, furnishing through its wise and economical manage- ment a very cheap insurance to its members, because, being a mutual company, all profits inure to the insured, and thus reduce the cost of their insurance. Charles Tatman, an early merchant and the first president of the bank, is a fine illustra- tion of a self-made man, who attained length of days and great success through industry and probity, rising by his own efforts from a poor store clerk to be the foremost citizen in his town and the possessor of a goodly fortune. As illustrating the hardships of those primitive times, Mr. Tatman tells of attending a school at five years of age in a cabin without floor, windows or chimney, and with only a log fire at one end of the room that scarcely served to thaw out the frozen, water- soaked dirt floor, from which the children kept their feet by bits of wood, etc. After clerking four years for his brother- in-law, William Polk, he formed a partnership with Manlove Hayes and kept store a few years. He next went into the business of buying and shipping grain on his sole account, owning his own vessels, etc. At fifty-one years of age he retired from active business a rich man, and for more than forty years thereafter lived in modest style in his home place at Odessa. He died October 21, 1887, in his ninety-sixth year, " full of years and honors," having lived under every presi- dent of the Republic from Washington to Cleveland. He was an enthusiastic Unionist during the Civil War and a Repub- lican in politics. To the very last this venerable man per- formed his duties as president of the bank. In person he was six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds. He was born in Sussex county, where his family have been active members of the Methodist Church. He was also a member and official for many years of that church in Odessa.
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The Friends built the first school house in Odessa at an early day, and used it until 1817, when it became a dwelling- house. After the burning, in 1843, of the public school building the present two-story brick academy was built, and has ever since given superior educational facilities to the vil- lage. The Corbit Library, so named in honor of its founder, James Corbit, M. D., was incorporated in 1857 for the use and benefit of School District No. 61, in which Odessa was situated. Dr. Corbit left $950 for its benefit, and other members of that family have since endowed it. Dr. William B. Corbit, of Washington, D. C., a savant as well as a physician, as his well-thumbed classics betoken, bequeathed $10,000, payable upon the death of his wife, which occurred in 1904, to the Library. Since then the Library has been enlarged and re- fitted, and stocked with 4,000 well-selected volumes. The Doctor also left the Library his own private library of classical and scientific works, of which he was a most assiduous user. The benefits of this fine benefaction, the Corbit Library, has wisely been extended to include a wider range of beneficiaries.
The Col. John W. Andrews Post No. 14, G. A. R., was in- stituted in 1886, and has a present membership of twenty- four. Their Post room contains the flags of the Red Lion Mounted Guards, the first company organized in Delaware in the Revolutionary War, the gift of Captain Charles Corbit ; also the flag of the ship Constitution, commanded in 1812 by Commodore Hull. Appoquinimink Tribe No. 24, I. O. of R. M., was instituted in 1887, and now (1906) numbers seventy-two members. The P. O. S. of America, No. 11, was organized February 5, 1903, and now has fifty-four members. The Heptasophs, Conclave No. 267, was organized in 1893, and has thirty-one members. A Council of the Degree of Pocahontas was instituted March 21, 1902, and now numbers forty ladies, Mrs. E. C. F. Webb being their Chief.
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