The Alrich-Wooleyhan farm

The Wooleyhans' West Wind farm

For this story, we're again going to travel outside the confines of Mill Creek Hundred, this time southward into White Clay Creek Hundred. But New Castle County being what it is, by the time we get near the end we will have a direct link to one of the oldest families in Mill Creek Hundred. Like several of our recent outings, this too was initiated by a simple question from a reader about a property that had been in her family. There was some brief confusion at first, but I quickly came to understand that the farm in question had been located on Old Baltimore Pike, southwest of the historic Village of Christiana. The farm is gone now, replaced by the development of Norwegian Woods (isn't it good?).

The property was owned by her family in the mid-20th Century, but she was interested to find out about the earlier owners. This ended up being one of those situations that got more confusing the deeper I dove, until it suddenly all became clear. One thing that made this a little easier was that we don't have to delve back into the deep depths of history here. The 133 acre property that would become the farm was not a separate tract until 1860. Before that, it was part of a much larger tract, which most recently had been purchased by Henry L. Smalley in 1848. Smalley died just a few years later, and after a couple intermediate transactions, his widow Tabitha sold 133 acres to William E. Heisler. This is the part that confused me at first, and which serves as a good example of why it's sometimes good to keep digging, even if on the surface it seems pointless.

There originally had been some confusion with what is known as the Heisler Tenancy Site, which was an African-American-occupied, 19th Century farmstead. This site, however was located on the north side of Christiana. It was owned for a time by William Heisler, but when I first researched him, all I could find was that he owned what's now known as Blue Hen Farm, north of Newark. I figured he was a wealthy Newark-area farmer who just happened to buy and sell a few properties in the Christiana area. I was about to move on from him, but decided to dig a bit more.

When I did, I realized (as so often seems to be the case) that there was a deeper connection. Heisler did live in Newark later in life, but as a younger man resided in Christiana. There the widower William met his second wife, Mary Budd Smalley -- daughter of Henry Smalley. (Smalley also owned a nearby mill, for which he built a dam, giving rise to the name of today's Smalley's Dam Road.) So it was his mother-in-law from which he purchased the 133 acres just a few years after his marriage to Mary. Since Heisler owned several properties, I can't say for sure whether or not they lived on this new farm on what was then known as the Christiana and Elkton Turnpike.

What I am comfortable saying (for several reasons) is that Heisler built the first house and barn here, whether for his own family or as a tenant farm. First, there's no evidence that it was anything more than just 133 of many more acres prior to 1860. When he sold it just nine years later, he did so for twice what he paid in 1860 -- which, unless property values rose drastically, implies improvements, like a new house. Finally, the 1869 sale to Edward B. Hance describes the property as, "All that certain plantation and tract of land situate in White Clay Creek Hundred...". To the best of my knowledge, the use of the term "plantation" implies that there is a working farm there, with structures. The 1860 deed to Heisler makes no such claim.

Whatever it was that William Heisler did here, he did in fact sell the farm in 1869 to Hance, who only lasted five years. In 1874, Hance's property was seized and sold by Sheriff Robert L. Armstrong, and purchased by the Star Loan Association. They in turn sold it four years later to Samuel P. Alrich. Alrich, born in 1843 to John and Sarah Alrich, grew up on a nearby farm, along today's Ogletown-Stanton Road (Rt 4). This is the same farm later purchased by William and Frederick Taylor (my wife's great-great uncles), and now the site of Christiana Hospital.

Notice of the Sheriff's sale for Edward Hance's farm, 1874

A year earlier, in 1877, Samuel had married Martha J Kemp. The two moved into the farm, and made it their home for more than 35 years. From what I can tell, the Alrichs' time here was happy, prosperous, and relatively uneventful -- with one exception. This exception also circles back to the original inquiry made about the farm. You see, I was told that several members of her family (including herself) had reported seeing ghosts there over the years, and she was curious to learn about anyone who might have died on the property. There were a few people who passed on the farm (including Martha Alrich in 1914), but that's true about any home of the time. There was, however, one tragic (if not altogether uncommon) event that occurred at the farm, in late 1884.

Details of the Alrich barn fire, December 12, 1884

As told in the article above, on the evening of December 12, 1884, Samuel Alrich's barn caught fire, destroying all of the hay, oats, wheat, and corn stored inside. This sort of fire was an all-too-common event it seems. Considering that the barns were made of dry wood, filled with very combustible material, and lit with open flames (and later with poor, faulty wiring), I'm quite frankly more amazed by the ones that didn't burn down. In this case, the livestock was rescued, but sadly an African-American farmhand named Garrison Wright was not. He perished in the fire, in a gruesome way that 19th Century newspapers were not shy in describing. Could he be the ghost observed decades later?

I thought I'd take a quick attempt to see if I could find any more information about Mr. Wright, not really expecting to find much. I got excited at first, because I quickly found a Garrison Wright who served in Company D, 22nd Regiment, US Colored Infantry in the Civil War. The census entries for him are a bit confusing, but it seems that this Garrison Wright died in 1882 -- so he's not our guy. I found one other census entry for what appears to be a different Garrison Wright -- age 35 in 1870, with wife Pricilla. I feel like he's the right one (no pun intended, or noticed probably), but I can find nothing else on him, even a death certificate when I know the exact date he died. Sadly, I feel like that's not particularly unusual for a Black man in the 1800's.

As noted, Alrich lived a pretty quiet existence, except maybe for the time when he was robbed by masked bandits on his way home from market in Wilmington in May 1907. One thief grabbed his horse while the other climbed on the wagon wheel. Samuel reached for his pocket book, but thinking he was grabbing a weapon one of the bandits shot at him, point-blank. Thankfully, the bullet went wide and Alrich was OK, except for being shaken up and losing the $25 he made that day. The other interesting point is that it occurred "in a lonely part of the road near Hare's Corner." If nothing else, it shows that he likely traveled along what's now routes 273 and 13 to get to the King Street market in Wilmington (instead of maybe going up through Stanton and Newport).

The widower Alrich (now living in Wilmington) sold his farm in 1922 to William and Bertha Lee. By 1928 the Lees had apparently fallen behind on their mortgage, and the farm was seized and sold at auction to Luella Blackiston and Mary Brown. Who were they, you ask? Luella and Mary were Samuel Alrich's sisters. They were the beneficiaries of Samuel's estate (he had no children), and they either were limiting their losses or didn't want to see the property go just yet. They did finally sell it three years later to Frederick Davis.

Buckingham-Wooleyhan engagement
announcement, 1925

Davis was a prominent Wilmington real estate man, who specialized in dividing up old houses into apartments and office space. After a few (probably procedural) transactions within the Davis family, it was sold in 1939 to Roger and Brita Wooleyhan. Roger Wooleyhan was originally from Chesapeake City, MD, and was in the shipping business. Remember way back at the beginning of this when I said there was a direct link to MCH? (You could be forgiven for not remembering -- some of your children might have graduated since you started this post....go check on your kids for gosh sakes.) Mrs. Wooleyhan was the former Brita Sarah Buckingham, daughter of Richard Gilpin Buckingham, Jr. of Corner Ketch. There have been Buckinghams in that area for about 300 years now. Brita was a teacher, University of Delaware graduate, and quite an athlete. She excelled in track and field in college and even set a high jump record while there.

The house in which the Wooleyhans lived (called "West Wind" by Brita) near Christiana was not the same one occupied by the Heislers, Hances, and Alrichs. That home was probably torn down in the 1930's, and a new one built upon its foundation. A 1987 form from the Delaware Bureau of Archaeology and Historic Preservation states that the new house was built in 1937 by the current owner (then Wooleyhan) and the farm's outbuildings in 1939. Since the Wooleyhans didn't purchase the farm until 1939, it leaves several possibilities. One is that the house was actually built in '39 as well. Or the Wooleyhans may have been tenants living on the property before 1939, and did build it. Or finally, Davis, having tried to sell the old farm for several years, tore down the old house and built the new one, perhaps in collaboration with Roger Wooleyhan.

Front of the Wooleyhan Farm, 1987

Rear of the Wooleyhan House, 1987

Whatever the case, Roger and Brita lived in their new home for the remainder of their lives, raising five children on their White Clay Creek Hundred farm. After the passing of Brita in 1989 and of Roger in 1991, the farm (now very much in the middle of suburbia) was sold to developers. The Wooleyhans' farm came down, just as the older one before them had. It stands only in memories now, dearly held by the people who lived there.