USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume II > Part 24
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The Hundred is well watered, and the streams on the north and south furnish ample means of transportation for the pro- ducts of the Hundred. In 1638 a boat-load of colonists for the new country landed at Paradise, or Clark's Point, with a view to settling in Milford Hundred. The new colonists were Swedes, Finns and Livonians. They made no permanent settlement, and after a short stay proceeded farther up the Delaware, and landed some time later on "The Rocks," on the present site of Wilmington, where the first permanent set- tlement was made in Delaware.
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Ralph Fretwell and Francis Gamble, of the island of Bar- badoes, in 1685, interested several merchants in trade with the new colonists in the organization of a land and exploitation company, known as the " Barbadoes Company." Among the tracts of land purchased by this company in Milford Hundred were " Long Acre," one thousand acres; "Longfon," six hun- dred acres; " Plains of Jericho," twelve hundred acres; and " Edmond's Berry," one thousand acres. Francis Gamble, of this company, also bought " Longfield," a tract of one thou- sand acres, on the north side of Mispillion creek, patented April 2, 1686, and " Improvement," a tract of six hundred acres, July 9, 1686. These tracts, for the most part, were conveyed to the Pennsylvania Land Company, a company similar to the Barbadoes Company, which was formed in Lon- don shortly after William Penn's arrival in America. This company continued in operation until 1780, when the Revo- lutionary War put an end to its transactions in lands in Del- aware and the other colonies. Most of these tracts were also old surveys, and were warranted and surveyed to the original purchasers between 1680 and 1685, the Pennsylvania Land Company taking long-term leases and mortgages on the tracts. These mortgages and leases were offered for sale in Philadel- phia in 1762 and 1765.
"Saw Mill Range," west of the Longfield tract, came to be the most important of the tracts of the Hundred, owing to the fact that the town of Milford is located on a portion of this tract. Among other tracts of importance, in the early settle- ment of the Hundred, might be mentioned "Gooseberry," granted to Peter Groenendike, under warrant of December 21, 1680; "Springfield," "Middletown," "Mount Pleasant," "Increase," " Fairfield " and " Arundel," all of which were warranted before June, 1681. One Henry Bowman, on March 20, 1680, received a warrant for seventeen hundred and fifty acres of land along the north side of Mispillion creek. This tract was known as "Saw Mill Range," and passed from Henry to his son, John Bowman, May 5, 1730. John sold it
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seven years later to Jacob Warrington, whose son-in-law, Joseph Oliver, purchased it from him in 1773.
About that time the Rev. Sydenham Thorne, a Protestant Episcopal clergyman, moved from the eastern shore of Virginia to a tract of three hundred acres, on the west side of Tanner's Branch, and adjoining the Oliver tract. To this clergyman is due the credit of suggesting the building of a town on the Oliver lands. These two gentlemen entered into a compact by which a mill was to be erected by Oliver, a dam built by Thorne; and Oliver was to have his tract surveyed into lots for a town site. Each kept his part of the contract, and in 1787 Thorne built Tumbling Run dam, a mill was erected at Oliver's Landing, and James Johnson, an old schoolmaster, laid out the Saw Mill Range into building lots, and the town of Milford was thus begun. The town probably got its name from the fact that all merchants and farmers coming to the mill from Sussex County, were required to ford the stream at the landing.
In 1791, by act of the General Assembly, Oliver was given permission to erect a draw-bridge at the landing, but as this permission carried with it the power to charge tolls, the resi- dents of both counties petitioned for a repeal of the act, and before the bridge could be built, the General Assembly acted favorably upon the petition, and provided for its erection and joint ownership by Kent and Sussex counties, free from the toll feature.
Joseph Oliver's mansion was the first house built in North (or old) Milford, and its site was Front street, near the present Central Hotel. In pursuance of a special act of the General Assembly, James Johnson began to survey and lay out the town proper of Milford May 28, 1817. Gallaudet Oliver's was the second dwelling erected, its site being on North and Second streets. Prior to 1800 Thomas Collins built his home in the town, and his sons, who were excellent brick-masons, helped to build almost every brick building in the town and surrounding country. Another old building was the " red
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house " on the northwest corner of Second and Church streets, which was spoken of as early as 1813 as one of the landmarks of the town. Among other early settlers in Milford were Henry and Thomas May, descendants of Cornelius May, one of the first Europeans to sail up the Delaware. Cape May and May's Landing, New Jersey, take their names from this in- trepid adventurer, forefather of Milford's early settlers.
The town of Milford as now existing, lies on both sides of Mispillion creek, and in two different counties and Hundreds, North Milford, being the old town, and lying in Milford Hun- dred, Kent County, and South Milford, in Cedar Creek Hun- dred, Sussex County. South Milford was laid out by James Johnson several years after North Milford, and was resurveyed by Thomas J. Davis. "The oldest house in South Milford was built by Levin Crapper in 1763. He was the original pro- prietor of South Milford and its surrounding lands, and was noted for years as the wealthiest man in Sussex County ; his lands numbering many thousand acres, and his fortune being estimated at thirty-seven thousand pounds, Pennsylvania cur- rency. He built the large mansion-house which occupies the conspicuous triangle in the town at the intersection of South Walnut and Depot streets, and which was afterwards occupied by Lowder Layton, Governor Daniel Rogers, and Governor Peter F. Causey, and which is now the handsome and hos- pitable home of Joseph E. Holland./
In 1807 the town was first incorporated. Other and subse- quent incorporation acts were passed in 1867 and 1887. Mil- ford has been the scene of the early life of many of Delaware's most prominent men, and the town has contributed four of the galaxy of distinguished Governors of the State, to wit : Peter F. Causey, Daniel Rogers, William Burton, and William T. Watson.
The early settlers in Milford Hundred were deeply rooted and grounded in religious beliefs, and early in the history of the settlements we find mention of places of worship and of the donation of tracts of land for the purpose of erecting meet-
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ing houses. Strange as it may seem, the sect earliest main- taining thriving religious services is now extinct throughout the Hundred. In the minutes of Duck Creek Meeting on the nineteenth of May, 1707, we find mention of Joseph Booth and Mark Manlove, appearing as representatives of "Mush- million " (Mispillion), and of the assent of the quarterly meet- ing to the holding of weekly meetings at the house of Matthew Manlove, at Mushmillion creek. On the twentieth of Novem- ber, 1710, the place of meeting was changed from Manlove's to the house of Reynear Williams. The records are incom- plete as to the erection of a meeting house in the vicinity of Milford prior to 1790. The meetings may have been held in the homes of the prominent Friends along Mispillion creek, or a temporary edifice may have been erected upon land leased for the purpose. However, on the thirteenth of November, 1790, John Dickinson sold to the trustees of Murderkill Meet- ing, five acres of land, near Milford, for the erection of a meet- ing house and school house. The building then erected, was used for more than half a century, but has disappeared, and the worshipers have long since passed to dust. It was situ- ated on Tanner's Branch, on the northwest side of Milford, in or near the burying-ground of which traces can be seen to-day.
A difference of opinion prevails as to the date when Baptist meetings were first held in Milford Hundred. In the minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, report is made of preaching services of that denomination having been held during the year 1760, three miles east of the present site of Milford, in what was then known as the Old School Baptist Meeting-house. Scharf, however, gives 1781 as the date of the first Baptist meeting in the Hundred, and May 10, 1783, as the date of the organization of the first Baptist meeting in Milford Hundred. Eighteen families formed the congrega- tion, and the church was incorporated in 1796. The follow- ing year a building was erected on the road from Dover to Milford, which, with the cemetery surrounding it, was used until thirty years ago. It was undoubtedly the old Baptist
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meeting-house of Milford Neck remodeled and repaired. In October, 1873, the First Baptist Church of Milford was organ- ized, and two years later a handsome church edifice was erected. At that time members of the Milford Neck congre- gation joined with the Milford Baptists, and gave up services in the old building. The old building was used for many years as a school house.
Famous in the records of the Presbyterian Church in Dela- ware is the Three Runs Meeting-house, where the Dissenters first'met. It was located on the Old King's Highway from Dover to Lewes, on the south side of the Mispillion, and a quarter of a mile from Milford. In 1762 the Lewes Presby- tery met in this church, and in 1764 the Rev. Mr. Huston was ordained and installed there as pastor of the Presbyterian congregations of Murderkill and Three Runs. The house of worship was abandoned between 1820 and 1825.
In 1849 but two members of the Three Runs Church were to be found in Milford, and after a year's effort on the part of the Rev. G. W. Kennedy, evangelist for the Presbytery of Wilmington, a church was organized at Milford with seven members. A church building and parsonage were erected in 1850. Among the prominent members connected with this enterprise were Governor and Mrs. William Tharp, Dr. James P. Lofland, Colonel Peter F. Causey (afterwards governor) John Hazzard, Robert King, Robert C. Hall, Rufus K. Bay- num, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. V. Coulter, Mrs. Edward P. Morris, and Mrs. Purnell Lofland. Dr. William Marshall, John B. Smith, and William A. Humes have been honored members of the congregation in more recent years.
The organization of the parish of Christ Protestant Episco- pal Church, Milford, can be traced to the efforts of the Rev. Sydenham Thorne, said by many to have been the most in- fluential man in the county of Kent. Three miles west of the preser.t town of Milford, at a point known as Church Hill, a small wooden chapel was erected soon after the Rev. Thomas Crawford, missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the
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Gospel in Foreign Parts, began holding services there about 1704 or 1705. This chapel was called "Christ Church Mis- pillion " in the missionary's reports, but locally called "The Savannah Church " because of Savannah Swamp, near which it was built.
In attendance at "The Savannah Church" was Joseph Oliver, friend of Thorne, and owner of the tract called Saw Mill Range. Thorne and Oliver were companions in every good movement for the benefit of Milford Hundred, and when the town of Milford was laid out on Oliver's land, Thorne sug- gested the donation of ground for an Episcopal Church and cemetery. Two lots were given by Oliver, and the foundation of Christ Church, Milford, was laid in 1791. Thorne died February 13, 1793, and the building was not completed, as originally intended, until 1835. The building was completed sufficiently to permit of services being held in it, and the list of rectors who have served this parish is an honorable one, among whom were the Rev. Sydenham Thorne, the Revs. Wm. Price, Henry R. Judah, Joseph Spencer, Daniel Higbee, Corry Chambers, John Reynolds, John Linn MeKim, and John Layton McKim. Sydenham Thorne was buried in the family burial lot on the ground where the old Thorne mansion stands, and his death was lamented by a large following in Kent County.
At the home of Reynear Williams, three miles east of Mil- ford, at Angleford Landing, the first services of what after- wards became the Methodist Episcopal Church of Milford were held in 1777. For almost ten years the services were held in the homes of followers of Methodism before a move- ment was started to build a house of worship. In 1787 an effort was made to erect a meeting-house in Milford. Joseph Oliver deeded a lot to trustees of the church for the " use and express purpose of building a preaching house or church thereon for the only proper use and benefit of the religious society of people called Methodists." By 1789 the church had been built, and Bishop Asbury conducted a stirring re-
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vival in it in October of that year. That year all the churches or chapels within a wide extent of territory were attached to it, and the membership reported was 879 whites and 236 col- ored. In 1840 the former building was abandoned, and a second church erected across the street from the original structure. This latter edifice was replaced by the present church building, located south of the creek, in 1871.
The African M. E. Church of Milford was organized in 1867, and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church was formed from the membership of the white churches of the Milford circuit at the close of the Civil War. Other churches worthy of mention in Milford Hundred are Law's M. E. Chapel, built on land donated for the purpose, April 7, 1802, by Marcy Smithers, a resident in the southwestern part of the Hundred. This building remained in use until 1856, when it was torn down to be replaced by the present chapel. The Houston M. E. Church, erected in 1885, is located in the village of Houston, in the western part of Milford Hundred. In the northeastern part of the Hundred meetings were held in Sar- dis, later Wesley Chapel. This building was remodeled in 1840 and again in 1874.
Milford Hundred has few villages or towns. Houston, in the western part, is located on the "Hunting Quarter " tract granted to Luke Watson, January 21, 1681. The village was named in 1854, in honor of Judge John W. Houston. It is used largely as a shipping-point of the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia railroad. Aside from Houston, a few settle- ments at various early landings on the Mispillion, constituted the urban life of the Hundred, outside of Milford. Fork Landing, on Murderkill Creek, was one of these. Wharves were located there, and much shipping done between 1800 and 1830, but with the advent of the railroad and the growth of Milford, the wharves were abandoned and the settlement scattered.
Milford Hundred abounded in white oak timber, and the earliest industries were those pertaining to tanning and
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lumber products. Grist mills there were in abundance, almost every stream having relics of a once prosperous mill, run by water-power. "Saw Mill Range," the tract on which the town of Milford is located, got its name from the mill which the conveyance of the land required should be built to perfect the title to the owner. The first dam built in Milford Hundred, of which we have record, was that erected by the Rev. Sydenham Thorne, across Mispillion creek, from the Oliver lands to his own in 1787. The old Red Mill as it is called, was built there by Thorne in the following year.
Husk factories, woolen mills, quercitron mills, foundries, engine shops, and tanneries, sprang up along the Mispillion after Milford was laid out into town lots. The making of pottery and baskets were industries that employed many hands. Fruit-drying factories, almost two-score in number, have existed in Milford. Agricultural implements and car- riages are manufactured there, and the white oak timber afforded excellent material for the construction of coastwise trading vessels. Among the merchants of note of the Hun- · dred are Charles Barker, J. B. Counselman, Zachariah John- son, J. L. Smith, E. C. Peck, Samuel W. Darby, George S. Grier, Allen Tolbert, James H. Denning, Nathan Davis, Peter F. Causey, Nathan Adams, Molton Richards, Samuel Rat- cliffe, Walter Sipple, Lowder Layton, Daniel Godwin, Trustin P. McColley, Isaac Lofland, Curtis Watson, and Joseph Bennett.
George William Marshall, born at Georgetown, Delaware, August 31, 1854, the son of Dr. William Marshall and Hester Angelina Marshall, nee McColley, received his primary edu- cation at the Milford Classical Academy, in the town of Mil- ford, Delaware, whither his family had moved in 1866. He was graduated from Delaware College in 1874, with the degree " A. B.," and in 1876 received from that institution the degree " A. M." Dr. Marshall studied medicine at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and was graduated by it with the degree "M. D." in 1876, after which he entered into the practice of his profession at Milford, where he has ever since resided and
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continued in active practice. He holds prominent place as a physician, and was for a time President of the State Medical Society, has served as delegate from Delaware to the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association, is a member of his county and State medical societies, of the American Medical Association and of the American Academy of Medicine, and has for many years been surgeon of the Delaware division of the Pennsylvania railroad. He was Grand Master of Masons for Delaware for two terms, and Colonel of the First Regiment, National Guards of Delaware, for some time. He has always been much interested in the educational institutions of the State, and has served as trustee of Delaware College twenty- four years, trustee of the State College for Colored Students fifteen years, and member of the Board of Education of the public schools of Milford twenty-eight years.
He is Vice-President of the Delaware Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, member of the Historical Society of Delaware, and, by appointment of the Governor, a member of the State Division of Public Records, and of several other State commissions dealing with matters of public and historical interest.
Dr. Marshall early took an active part in his State's political affairs. He organized and for four years was President of the State League of Republican Clubs, to which position he was re-elected last year. For twenty-five years he has been a mem- ber of the Kent County Republican Committee, and for seven- teen years its Chairman and member ex-officio of the State Committee. He has also served as delegate or alternate to National Conventions of his party.
He was elected in 1900 to the office of Insurance Commis- sioner of the State of Delaware for four years, renominated and re-elected in 1904 for another term, and has served during the last four years as ex-officio Banking Commissioner of the State.
During his term of office the supervision of his department has been extended to cover the affairs and operations of fra- ternal beneficiary associations, building and loan associations,
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savings banks, trust companies and State banks, as well as in- surance companies.
He has successfully established and exercised the enlarged supervision and power of the combined Insurance and Bank- ing Department.
Dr. Marshall was wedded to Mary Louise Donnell, daughter of the late Andrew Donnell, of Newark, Delaware, April 25, 1878.
They have had four children, Andrew Donnell Marshall, aged 29, now practicing law at Dover and Milford, William Marshall, Jr., M. D., aged 27, now practicing medicine at Mil- ford, George Chester Marshall, aged 25, now in business at Milford as an insurance and real-estate broker, and Samuel M. D. Marshall, aged 23, a junior at the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.
SUSSEX COUNTY.
Of the three counties of Delaware, Sussex is the most south- erly. Its boundaries are, Kent County on the north ; Mary- land on the south ; Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and Maryland on the west. The territory which this county now occupies was known in its early history as the Hoornkill, or Horekill, and extended from Bombay Hook to Cape Henlopen. This name came, in all probability, from Hoorn, a little city in Holland, the birthplace of De Vries the director-general of the first expedition which landed on Dela- ware soil, on the present site of Lewes, in 1631. The name was afterwards corrupted into Whorekill or Horekill, but the most reliable authorities now substantially agree that the cor- rect name was Hoorn Kill, and that it was first applied to the creek (now Lewes creek) on which the earliest settlement was made, and the name was afterwards applied to all the region lying south of Bombay Hook.
Until the establishment of the Mason and Dixon Line in 1775 (the boundary between Delaware and Maryland having been in dispute, and unsettled, in all the intervening years
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from the earliest settlements), the southerly boundary line of Delaware was uncertain and undefined. It is claimed that Lord Baltimore, as Proprietor of Maryland, exercised owner- ship over all that part of the territory embraced in Sussex County, as at present constituted, lying south and west of a line drawn from the present town of Farmington in a south- easterly direction to the mouth of Rehoboth Bay. Many of the land records at Annapolis and data obtained from old church records tend to prove that prior to the Revolution, what is now southwestern Sussex, was part of Worcester County, Maryland. The part of the county lying northeast of the line, above described, was for a time called " Old Sussex," and the remaining portion was known as " New Sussex."
Some effort was made about the year 1786 to make a new county in the State by taking part of Sussex and part of Kent and giving the parts thus taken a new county seat. The move- ment met with some favor, but did not succeed. The first mention of the term Hundred was in 1690 when on April 9th of that year, the Provincial Council instructed the magistrates and grand juries of the counties to divide them into Hun- dreds. The term Hundred is supposed to be derived from a suggestion made by William Penn, that the land be divided between ten families in accordance with an old English custom, assuming that each family was ten in number, making one hundred. This is generally believed to be the origin of the term Hundred, as applied to the subdivisions of the counties of this State. The Hundreds of Sussex County are thirteen in number with the following names: Cedar Creek, Nanticoke, Northwest Fork, Seaford, Broadkiln, Lewes and Rehoboth, Indian River, Baltimore, Dagsborough, Georgetown, Broad Creek, Little Creek and Gumborough.
The records show that Lewes was the first county seat of Sussex, not by reason of any official action, but rather by general consent. This is probably due to the fact that it was formally made the place for the transaction of county affairs from its establishment as a trading-post in 1658, until the
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winty seat was moved to Georgetown. For a long period the Dutch commanders held their military courts in a fort which had been built at the Hoorn Kill (now Lewes), and this prac- :ice was subsequently followed by the English in 1664. Lewes remained the seat of county government until 1793. There is no certainty as to the exact time when Sussex County obtained its first court house. The project of building a court house was discussed for years, and while courts were held at public houses and village taverns for a long period of time, there is nothing to show that a court house was built in Sussex County until sometime between 1740 and 1750. The records establish the fact that a court house consisting of a frame structure, adequate to the needs of the county at that time, was built between the above-mentioned dates at Lewes, and that a jail was also erected about the same time.
In 1786 a spirited agitation arose in Sussex County for a change of the county seat. It was claimed that Lewes, being at the extreme eastern side of the county, was not convenient for a majority of the people. Petitions were presented to the Legislature of 1791 to that effect, and an act was passed Janu- ary 29, 1791, authorizing George Mitchell, Robert Houston, William Moore, John Collins, Nathaniel Young, William Peery, Rhodes Shankland, Woodman Stockley, Daniel Polk and Thomas Batson, to act as commissioners, and authority given to them to purchase in fee not exceeding one hundred acres of land near the center of the county for the purpose of building thereon a court house and jail. The purchase was made and the place called Georgetown, in honor of George Mitchell, in which place a court house and jail were com- pleted in 1792. By an act of the General Assembly of 1793, the whipping-post and pillory were removed from Lewes to Georgetown. In 1835 there was a general demand through- out the county for a more commodious court house. This demand meeting general public favor, a brick structure, two stories high, with the public offices on the first floor, and the court room above, was erected. This building was completed
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