USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume II > Part 26
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Various tracts of land in this Hundred were patented and surveyed at an early date. There is abundant irrigation to the land by many small streams, and a number of well-built roads makes travel through the Hundred convenient. At one time the mouth of Cedar creek was so filled with sand as to greatly retard navigation. This for a long time was detri- mental to the shipping interests of the Hundred. An act was
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passed in 1793 for cutting a canal to obviate the difficulty. No action, however, was taken to carry out the provisions of the act until 1848, when preparations were made for digging a canal from a point in Cedar creek, called Lewis Ditch, to Mispillion creek. The Cedar Creek Navigation Company was incorporated in 1869 and by it the present channel was dug.
NANTICOKE HUNDRED.
This Hundred is situated in the northwestern part of Sussex County, and derives its name from the Nanticoke river, which has its source here. Kent County, Cedar Creek and George- town Hundreds form its northern, Cedar Creek, Georgetown and Dagsboro Hundreds its eastern, Broad Creek Hundred its southern, and the Nanticoke river its western boundaries. The territory embraced in this Hundred was for a long period in dispute, grants of land therein having been made by both Lord Baltimore and William Penn. The early records of the Hundred show that previous to 1705 there were but few set- tlers in this territory.
The first grant of land was made in 1695 by Lord Balti- more, and fully three-quarters of the area of the present terri- tory was settled by old families from Virginia and Maryland by patents granted by Lord Baltimore. This Hundred was about on the dividing line of the disputed boundaries between Delaware and Maryland, hence grants of land were made in- discriminately by both proprietors, Penn and Lord Baltimore, and in several cases grants from both were given for the same land. When the line between the States was definitely estab- lished in 1775 the old settlers found it desirable to have war- rants of resurvey granted by the Penns, which led to the taking up by them of many large tracts of vacant land, which at that period comprised one-half of the Hundred.
The soil in the northern part is clay sub-soil, while the general character of the soil in the Hundred is a sandy loam. The Nanticoke river and its tributaries afford good and abundant irrigation. Much of the land in this Hundred is
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well adapted to the cultivation of fruits, which is carried on quite extensively and profitably. In the carly history of the Hundred there were a number of large farms, many of which were not sufficiently cultivated ou account of their large size. The division of these lands into smaller tracts in later years has produced results for the better, and the farming interests have been rendered less onerous and more profitable.
The early records contain the names of several prominent families who settled in the Hundred, among whom are the Polks, Laytons, Adamses, Nutters, Ricords, Richards and Jacobs, the descendants of whom were numerous, and in many cases descendants are still living and in possession of the lands formerly occupied by their ancestors.
The Polk family became a large and important one. Its branches have extended to various parts of the United States. Charles Polk, a grandson of the first settler in Delaware, was twice Governor of Delaware, and for many years a member of the General Assembly. He was a leading and influential citizen for a generation. His latter years were spent in Kent County. Trusten Polk, of the same family, became Governor of Missouri, and was also in the United States Senate from that State. James K. Polk, the eleventh President of the United States, was closely connected with the Delaware line of Polks, as was Leonidas Polk, one of the bishops of the Pro- testant Episcopal Church, and Major-General in the Con- federate service during the Civil War.
The Laytons have also figured prominently in State affairs. Caleb S. Layton served as Secretary of State under Governors Polk and Hazzard, and was an associate justice of the Superior Court for Sussex County for a period of over twenty years. His son, Daniel J. Layton, is now the oldest member of the Sussex County Bar, and his grandson, Caleb R. Layton, has been a leading figure in Republican politics in Sussex County for the past ten years, serving as Secretary of State under Governor John Hunn. The Laytons have been noted as a family of the strictest integrity, as well as representing the other homelier virtues that go to make up the best citizenship. ,
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In the lower part of the Hundred dwelt for a lifetime Miles Messick, the representative in the third generation of the family of Messick in Delaware. He served as a Democrat in the General Assembly, and was during his entire life an earnest advocate of temperance principles. He possessed fully the respect of his neighbors. His son, Samuel Harrington Messick, a graduate of Delaware College, and an intelligent and successful farmer and fruit-grower, is the President of the State Board of Agriculture that was organized under an act of the General Assembly passed in 1899.
In the northern part of the county a few miles from the village of St. Johnstown, lived for many years Albert Curry, a large land-owner and successful agriculturist. He was a brother of Daniel Curry, a leading and wealthy merchant of Milford. In 1882 Albert Curry was the candidate of the Re- publican party for Governor and made a handsome poll, but was not elected. The old Curry homestead so long occupied by him is now in the possession of his son, Thomas Curry, a man of affairs who for many years has been a leading factor in Republican politics. A man of genial and kindly disposi- tion, Thomas Curry is deservedly popular, not only in this Hundred but throughout the county.
Josiah Marvel was an almost life-long resident of this Hun- dred having been born there in 1825. A man of industrious habits, he was able to accumulate a modest fortune, and show- ing a live interest in all that tended to benefit the community. he exerted a strong influence, and was recognized for years as a leader in the Democratic party of the county. He served one term as sheriff of the county and also as county treasurer, and was a delegate to almost every county and State conven- tion of his party for fifty years. He and his estimable wife, Harriet Ann Pepper, to whom he was married in 1850, raised a family of ten children. Their oldest son, David T. Marvel, served as Secretary of State under Governor Robert J. Rey- nolds, and was, by the latter, appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court of Kent County, in 1893, to succeed John W.
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Houston. He served most acceptably on the bench until 1897. Josiah Marvel, another son, is a prosperous member of the New Castle County Bar, having been admitted in 1894. He is associated with his brother, and they have been conspicu- ously successful in the organization of corporations under the Incorporation Act of 1898, to which, with kindred lines of legal practice, their time is fully given.
There are no towns of importance in the Hundred. St. Johnstown which is shown on all the ancient maps of the county is a very old settlement and antedates the Revolution. It was on the old stage line leading southwesterly through the county, and at one time supported the usual country tavern and several stores. It was an important center for a large scattered inland population, both in business and social life, as is shown by the establishment of a school there prior to 1776, and the founding of an Episcopal Church at the close of the Revolution, which remained in use until the beginning of the nineteenth century. It continued as the main town or village of the Hundred until the building of the Delaware railroad and the establishment of a railroad station at Green- wood, a little more than a mile away, when "its occupation gone," the place became depopulated and has now but two houses and a church.
Coverdale's Cross Roads, near the center of the Hundred, is another little hamlet that has lost its early significance. This place has had several names, the first of which was Bethel Cross Roads, afterwards changed to Passwater's, and subsequently to Coverdale's. When voting places for the various Hundreds were established in 1811, this village was designated as the voting place for Nanticoke Hundred. Knowles Cross Roads is a small settlement in the southeastern corner of the Hundred, but it has also lost its early business activity.
Prior to the Revolution there was much demand for a species of iron ore, known as " bog ore," and it was found in considerable quantities near the headwaters of the Nanticoke.
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So promising was the development of this ore, that prior to 1763 several parties bought large tracts of land in this Hun- dred, and by the co-operation of outside capital formed a com- pany and began the development of the bog-ore industry. The first company, organized in 1764, was known as " The Deep Creek Iron Works." It established what was known as the Deep Creek Furnace and the Nanticoke Forge, located on Deep creek, a tributary of the Nanticoke river, about four miles from the latter, and built a stone wharf on the Nanti- coke, from which the products of the concern were shipped by water. Jonathan Vaughan, William Douglass and four others were the promoters of the enterprise. For ten years it proved a successful venture, and in dimensions it far ex- ceeded any active industrial interest in Sussex County at that time. The breaking-out of the Revolutionary War put an unfortunate quietus on the enterprise, as the business of the colony was seriously interrupted, and the large body of men employed was considerably demoralized by quitting work and joining the army.
Several other enterprises of the same nature were started later. The Gravelly Delight Forge, at the mouth of Gravelly branch, was operated from 1808 to about 1820 by John and Shadrach Elliott. The Collins Forge, named for its owner and operator, Captain John Collins, was also on Gravelly branch. It ceased as an iron forge about 1804, but is now continued as a grist-mill. The Deep Creek Furnace tract came in 1810 into the possession of Jesse Green, and for many years was controlled by him and his family. Jesse Green was a prominent man; many times a member of the General Assembly, Brigadier-General of the State militia in the war of 1812, and a man of much influence in western Sussex. Sev- eral of his descendants are still living in Sussex County and some in Baltimore. The iron industry in Sussex covered a period of about forty years, from 1764 to 1804, but the dis- covery of iron of richer quality and in larger quantities in other sections of the United States made the mining of bog
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ore unprofitable. A map of Delaware published in 1807 shows Lightfoot's Furnace and Douglass' Furnace as located close to the village of Concord at that time. Nanticoke Hun- dred has had its fair quota of grist and saw-mills. Some of them have survived, but many, through the diminution of the streams and the substitution of steam in the towns, have long since ceased to turn their wheels.
The first church in the Hundred was the Gravelly Branch Baptist Church, established July 30, 1785, near Coverdale's Cross Roads. The first movement towards the establishment of this church was under the leadership of Rev. Elijah Baker and Rev. Philip Hughes, two earnest Baptist evangclists who came to Delaware about 1780, the first meeting being held in the house of John Willis. The church started with a mem- bership of twenty-three, and in six years had increased to sixty-nine. It had an existence of only thirty years, and all vestige of it has now disappeared.
The first Methodist church grew out of a series of meetings held at the house of William Laws near St. Johnstown, under the inspiring preaching of Francis Asbury, in 1779. A church building was erected at St. Johnstown about 1786, and a church of the Methodist denomination has been main- tained at that place through all the intervening years. The present structure is a large and commodious one, and the membership is strong and prosperous. Following close after the church at St. Johnstown came the establishment of Union Methodist Church in the northeastern part of the Hundred. Cokesbury Methodist Church, near the center of the Hundred, on Deep creek, and Asbury Methodist Church, in the extreme southeastern section, were organized soon afterwards. Chap- lain's Chapel took the place of an earlier Methodist church called Onins.
NORTHWEST FORK HUNDRED.
This Hundred lies in the northwestern part of Sussex County. Originally it formed a part of Maryland, and com-
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prised all the section west of the northwest fork of the Nanti- coke river. It derives its name from the northwest fork of said river, which is now known as Marshy Hope creek. It was formerly the largest Hundred in the county, and re- mained so until 1869, when by an act of the Legislature, Seaford Hundred was formed out of it. The boundaries of the Hundred are marked by Kent County on the north, Nanticoke Hundred on the east, Seaford Hundred on the south, and the State of Maryland on the west.
The largest and best body of farming land in the county lies in this Hundred. The soil being of a sandy loam and stiff clay is well adapted to the raising of wheat and corn, and the growing of fruits, large crops of which are produced. Being without any navigable streams, as the Nanticoke river and Marshy Hope creek, on account of their shallowness, did not afford sufficient means of irrigation and facilities for mill purposes, the farmers for many years were without any con- venient means for the transportation of their products; but the Delaware railroad reaching Bridgeville in 1858, and pass- ing through the eastern part of the Hundred, overcame the disadvantages under which the people were laboring, and since that time the Hundred has developed rapidly.
The early settlements in this Hundred were, until 1776, made under Maryland patents. The first land granted in the Hundred was to John Nutter in 1682, near the head of what was known as Clearbrook branch. This land did not, how- ever, remain long in the possession of the Nutter family, as by a subsequent survey, it was found to be the property of one Daniel Polk. On this site Mr. Polk erected a handsome mansion, still standing. Among the early settlers about this time were Roger Adams, who took up large tracts of land, the Polks, who settled in this locality, the Rosses, the Laytons, the Rusts, and the Richards.
Bridgeville is the oldest town in western Sussex. Its orig- inal name was Bridge Branch, derived from an ancient bridge which crossed a branch of the Nanticoke as early as 1730. Its
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name was changed to Bridgeville in 1810. About this time the growth of the town began, and for a few years it was a . great center of business activity. From 1816 to 1858 the town showed no marked improvement in business. In 1858 the Delaware railroad was constructed through the place, which gave an impetus to the village. In recent years a material prosperity has marked its history, and its inhabitants are noted for their thrift, industry and activity.
Greenwood, one of the leading business places in the Hun- dred, is the outgrowth of St. Johnstown and was named by Simeon Pennewill, who in 1858 owned all the land upon which the town now stands. A spirit of public enterprise has developed rapidly in late years, in this growing village, and many of the descendants of its early settlers are still living and are prosperous. The advent of the Queen Anne's railroad in 1895 proved an inspiration, and following the building of that road many new houses were built and the town took on a new lease of life.
The industries of the Hundred consist of fruit factories and a few grist and saw mills. The nursery business has been carried on successfully for several years and both Bridgeville and Greenwood have been central and leading shipping points for small fruits and peaches for the past fifteen years.
No church existed in the Hundred, as at present constitu- ted, until 1805, when a Methodist Episcopal church was erected at Bridgeville. This building was used for worship until 1871, when a larger structure was erected which served for nearly twenty-five years when the present attractive and commodious church building was erected. Outside of Bridge- ville, this Hundred had no churches until 1843 when Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church was built on the public road, running from Horsey's Cross Roads to Marshy Hope Bridge, at a point where it is intercepted by the Bridgeville road. This building was destroyed by fire in 1885, and in the same year a new church edifice was erected on the same site.
Previous to the passage of the free-school law of the State in
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1829, there were but two schools in the Hundred, and these were supported by subscription and kept open but three months in the year. In 1829 the Hundred was divided into districts and afterwards re-divided, school buildings were erected and schools established. Time has wrought many notable changes in the educational advantages of the Hundred. Bridgeville can now boast one of the best schools in the State. The busi- ness interests and industries are in the hands of live and pro- gressive men. Factories of various kinds are operated on a large scale and give evidence of general thrift and prosperity. Many of the farms in this section have by skilled tillage been advanced from an inferior condition to the front rank of hand- some and productive estates. The development of the land in this Hundred, and the profitable results of fruit-growing, are due to the enterprising and intelligent spirit shown by the land-owners in the vicinity of Bridgeville, who by dint of un- tiring energy and modern methods have worked wonders in the past fifteen years.
This Hundred was the home of Governor Cannon, one of Delaware's successful men who resided at Bridgeville for many years, and whose honored sons, Henry P. Cannon and Philip L. Cannon, have conducted for many years at that place an extensive and successful canning factory. Many of the de- scendants of the early settlers are still living and are indus- trious and practical agriculturists and business men, and are very fully respected, alike for their works and character. At an early period Northwest Fork was a large slave-holding Hundred, the records showing that in 1796 there were two hundred and ninety slaves, in 1816 that number had increased to five hundred, but at the close of the Civil War in 1865, there were very few slaves remaining.
SEAFORD HUNDRED.
This Hundred was formed out of Northwest Fork Hundred by an Act of the Legislature of 1869, which provided that Northwest Fork should be divided into two Hundreds, and
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that all the territory in the lower election district should con- stitute, and receive the name of, Seaford Hundred. The Hun- dred being claimed as a part of Maryland for a long time after its settlement, there were no warrants or surveys granted by the Penns. In 1775, as a result of the decision and confirma- tion of title, re-surveys were made, and lands that had been granted on Maryland patents were patented by the Pennsyl- vania authorities.
The soil is generally a rich sandy loam and is well adapted for the culture of fruit, which fact has led to the laying-out of large areas of land for that purpose. Originally extensive forest growths covered a considerable portion of the Hundred, but in recent years these have been cleared away and many good farms have been made and are cultivated. The streams, though small, serve a good purpose in those localities where mill sites have been established.
A settlement was made on the site of the present town of Seaford in 1720, and in 1799 Seaford was laid out, which is now a prosperous town situated on the Nanticoke river, near the head of navigation. This stream constitutes an important business outlet for the place, the shipments being grain and general farm products. Seaford is one of the most import- ant stations on the Delaware railroad, and is the terminus of the Dorchester branch, connecting with Cambridge, Maryland, thirty miles distant. The land being adapted to fruit raising, this town has become an important shipping point. Among its profitable interests is the oyster-packing business which possesses the advantages of an abundance of water, communi- cation by both boat and rail, and close proximity to the oyster-beds and markets. There are several large oyster packing houses in this town, all of which are doing a prosperous business, their products being widely and favorably known.
In the early history of the town the Nanticoke river was the means of communication with Norfolk and Baltimore. A line of steamers was established to Baltimore, and quite an exten- sive traffic was carried on. At an early period the river at
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Seaford was crossed by means of a ferry, which for many years was under the management of the "Martin" family. In 1854 a fine iron bridge was erected on the site of the old ferry and a short distance above the railroad bridge, which is also pro- vided with a draw-span to allow the passage of vessels. This town was for a long time noted for its vessel-building. Several sea-going vessels were built here, which gave employment to many and contributed to the prosperity of the town. Among those industries which have contributed to the development of the place may be mentioned the various fruit factories, phos- phate works and canning establishments, all of which are in successful operation and conducted on an extensive scale. While agriculture forms the chief pursuit of the people, many fruit farms have been opened in late years, the aggregate profits of which have been large.
Seaford was the home of Governor William H. Ross, who owned one of the finest estates in the State, and is now in the possession of his son, James J. Ross, who is known as a large orchardist and fruit-grower. This town was the birthplace of Edward L. Martin, who, although a lawyer by profession, devoted himself principally to agriculture and horticulture. He was recognized as a most successful peach-grower, having for several years made this industry a study, both thoretically and practically. Mr. Martin was elected to Congress in 1878, and re-elected in 1880. He was a member of several National and State Democratic Conventions, and maintained an active interest in politics until his death. His religious affiliation was with the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which he was a vestryman for many years, and on several occasions was a delegate to the Diocesan Convention. His brother, Dr. Hugh Martin, was a prominent physician of Seaford, a member of both branches of the General Assembly of Delaware at differ- ent times, and was an active supporter of the cause of edu- cation.
For many years the Kinder, Noble and Davis families formed the chief part of the population in the northwestern
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part of the Hundred. Many changes of owvership of land have taken place since the settlement in the Hundred by the early residents, but their descendants are quite numerous, many of them still living in the Hundred, engaged in in- dustrial pursuits.
Middleford is a small hamlet in this Hundred, whose lands were taken up on warrants issued in 1764, and as early as 1770 grist and saw mills were in active operation at this place, which for a long time was the seat of an extensive milling business. The building of the railroad, and the village being remote from the main lines of travel, caused a cessation in business, and but half a dozen or more houses, now showing signs of decay, remain standing.
The village of Woodland was formerly called Cannon's Ferry, and is situated in this Hundred, six miles below Sea- ford, on the Nanticoke river. Half a century ago it was one of the most widely known points in the southern part of the State. For more than a hundred years a ferry across the river at this point has been maintained, the right to operate said ferry having been first granted in 1793, and subsequently renewed until now it is the property of the county. At one time a large scope of country north and south was tributary to this place as the center of its trading and shipping interests. A large business in merchandizing was carried on here for several years. In recent years the more active railroad towns have materially interfered with the business of this village, and it is to-day but a shadow of its former self.
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