Bayram Cigerli Blog

Bigger İnfo Center and Archive
  • Herşey Dahil Sadece 350 Tl'ye Web Site Sahibi Ol

    Hızlı ve kolay bir şekilde sende web site sahibi olmak istiyorsan tek yapman gereken sitenin aşağısında bulunan iletişim formu üzerinden gerekli bilgileri girmen. Hepsi bu kadar.

  • Web Siteye Reklam Ver

    Sende web sitemize reklam vermek veya ilan vermek istiyorsan. Tek yapman gereken sitenin en altında bulunan yere iletişim bilgilerini girmen yeterli olacaktır. Ekip arkadaşlarımız siziznle iletişime gececektir.

  • Web Sitemizin Yazarı Editörü OL

    Sende kalemine güveniyorsan web sitemizde bir şeyler paylaşmak yazmak istiyorsan siteinin en aşağısında bulunan iletişim formunu kullanarak bizimle iletişime gecebilirisni

Ashland Mill -- Part 2

In the previous post, we began looking at the history of the Ashland Mill, located on the east (north?) or Christiana Hundred side of Red Clay Creek along Barley Mill Road. We saw how the original mill was constructed about 1715 by John Gregg, and remained in the family until 1797. During that time, two houses were built that still stand -- the circa 1720 stone house behind the mill site and the 1737 brick house across Creek Road on a slight rise.

The mill and both houses passed into the Philips family for the next half century or so, before being sold sometime in the early 1850's. It's probably at this point that the 1737 brick William Gregg House was separated from the mill property and the stone house. On the 1868 map, the two are shown under different ownership. We'll leave William's beautiful house now, and focus our attention on the mill property and a "newer" tract just to the west, in Mill Creek Hundred. This is because in 1862, the old Gregg Mill at Ashland was purchased by another longtime local resident, Jehu D. Sharpless.

Jehu Dixon Sharpless (1824-1902) was born in Mill Creek Hundred in 1824, the son of Amos and Martha (Dixon) Sharpless. Martha was the daughter of Jehu Dixon, builder of the nearby Samuel P. Dixon House, in which Martha was raised. (Samuel was Martha's brother.) Her great-grandfather, John Dixon, built the Dixon-Wilson House on Valley Road in Hockessin. On Jehu's father's side, the family's history in America goes back even further. John Sharpless, an English Quaker, emigrated to America with William Penn in the 1680's. The first Sharpless to reside in Delaware was Jehu's grandfather, Caleb.

Caleb Sharpless (1750-1821) was born in Pennsylvania, but in 1772 moved south into Christiana Hundred (as Runk tells us). Caleb and his wife Ruhamah were both active members of the Society of Friends, and were both buried at the Hockessin Friends Cemetery after their deaths, in 1821 and 1824, respectively. Their sixth child (of nine) was Amos Sharpless (1785-1875), who like the others was born on the Christiana Hundred farm (which may have been on Ashland-Clinton School Road). At some point, Amos acquired a tract of land on the west side of Red Clay Creek, in Mill Creek Hundred. He can be seen on the 1849 map across the creek from the then Philips Mill, on land that is now part of the Ashland Nature Center.

1849 map, showing Amos Sharpless near the
Philips Mill at Ashland

Amos and Martha Sharpless had nine children together -- first three girls, then six boys. Their fourth child (and eldest son) was Jehu, future owner of the Ashland Mill. Runk states that Jehu attended "the public schools of Christiana Hundred at Ebenezer School", which was located on what's now Snuff Mill Road. This would seem to imply that they still lived in CH at least through the mid-to-late 1830's, perhaps on a portion of Caleb's original tract. This idea is further reinforced by the fact that the frame house located at the Ashland Nature Center -- Amos' on the 1849 map and Jehu's on the later ones -- has a date of 1840 listed by the county. If correct, then soon after Amos built his new home, Jehu left it.

At the age of eighteen, Jehu moved to Chester County to apprentice as a miller with Marshall Yeatman, at his grist mill on White Clay Creek north of Newark. It can be seen on the 1849 map as well. (There is also a "Sharpless' Tannery" shown very nearby, so Jehu may have had family there.) He stayed there for 15 years, then in 1857 moved to Fairville, Chester County (along Kennett Pike just north of the state line) where he opened a small store.

Finally, five years later in 1862, Jehu D. Sharpless returned to the Red Clay Valley and purchased the Ashland Mill from George Spencer. Along with his younger brother Amos, he formed the company of A & J.D. Sharpless. That firm would profitably run the mill for over thirty years. When the Wilmington & Western Railroad was built in 1872, a station was placed near the mill at Ashland, and Jehu was named as its first postmaster, a post which he held for 25 years. He had previously acted as postmaster during his stint in Fairville.

On the 1868 map, Jehu is shown as residing in the house currently on the Nature Center grounds. On the 1881 and 1893 maps, that house, the mill, and several other nearby properties are all labeled as "A&J.D. Sharpless". Jehu probably continued to live in the house his father built, while the other houses may have been rentals or used by workers from the mill. Or mills, technically, as there appear to have been separate grist and saw mills at that time.

While the "J.D. Sharpless" in the milling firm's name is obviously Jehu Dixon, initially (no pun intended) I thought the "A" referred to his father, Amos. However, for one thing Amos died in 1875, years before his name would have still been included on the 1881 and 1893 maps. Secondly, after stating that the millers had retired, Runk says, "Amos Sharpless now resides in Kennett Township, Chester County, Pa...". That means that Jehu's partner in the mill was his younger brother Amos, who was born in 1832.

A. & J.D. Sharpless properties in 1881

The brothers operated the mill for over thirty years, doing a major upgrade to the equipment in 1882, adding new rollers, among other things. However, in 1895, the 71 year old Jehu and the 63 year old Amos retired from milling, selling the mill property to George W. Pusey. This didn't mean, though, that the mill had left the family.

George W. Pusey (1868-1943) was the son of Jesse and Hannah (Yeatman) Pusey. Hannah's father was Marshall Yeatman, from whom Jehu Sharpless learned the miller's trade. George grew up in London Grove, PA, then (like Jehu) spent time learning milling at the Yeatman mill. After three years there, George became a partner at the Clifton Mills in 1890. He and partner Israel Durham enlarged the mill there, and had considerable success. Five years later, George went out on his own and purchased the Ashland mill from the Sharpless brothers.

A year earlier, in 1894, George Pusey took something else from the Sharpless family -- a wife. He married Sarah Florence Sharpless, daughter of Samuel Sharpless. Samuel was the brother of Amos and Jehu, and lived on a farm nearby along what's now called Sharpless Road. Under Pusey's management, the Ashland Mill produced flour under such brand names as Pride of Delaware FFFF, Ashland, Morning Star, and Fairy Queen. In 1897, George also took over the postmaster's duties at the Ashland P.O. from his new Uncle Jehu.

According to what appears to have been an obituary announcement included in his Find-A-Grave entry, Pusey at some point added a gasoline engine to supplement the waterwheel. Unfortunately for him, George purchased the mill right about the time when smaller local grist mills such as this were firmly locked in an inevitable decline, unable to match the output of larger regional and national mills, primarily in the midwest. The aforementioned announcement states that the mill closed "a few weeks after Mr. Pusey died", implying that he continued to operate it until his death in January 1943. If so, it would have been one of the few mills in the area still operating by that time.

Demolished mill in 1954, with c.1720 stone
Gregg House behind

Interior of the Ashland Mill while being razed in 1954

It seems that after Pusey's passing, the old mill stood idle for another decade. Hagley Museum has photos of the structure being demolished (seen above), dated 1954. Although it had been updated and upgraded several times, John  Gregg's millseat on the Red Clay remained active for nearly 230 years -- most of that span under the ownership of but three families. The mill race, presumably the same one cut by Gregg about the same time George I was being crowned in England, is still quite evident today, cutting across Barley Mill Road just north of the Ashland Covered Bridge. And though it technically sat in Christiana Hundred, the Ashland Mill was also an important part of Mill Creek Hundred history.

The Story of a Door

This is one of those posts that I have been meaning to write for about a year and just haven't gotten around to. Last week I was looking back on what was happening last year on the blog and noticed I posted about my upstairs bedroom. (Before and After)So to celebrate the one year anniversary of it being finished I am going to share with you the hardest diy project we did upstairs. The Door. I am so proud of that door, every nail in the frame was put pounded in by my hand (several times!). Have you ever hung a door? Let me tell you, it is not easy.

Before-see how much room the door takes up?
When I bought the house, the upstairs bedroom door opened out into the landing. A bit odd, but that was the way it was. One of the first things I realized was the landing would have so much more room and more functionality if the the door opened the other way, into the bedroom. So it went on the list.
Before- door swinging into landing
After months of work and sweat, we ran out of things that could move forward downstairs, so decided to switch tracks and see what needed to be done upstairs. The Door stopped us in our tracks. It needed to be switched around before we could paint, other then that there wasn't much else to do. But since my brother was more importantly occupied with wiring and plumbing it didn't look like it was going to get done very soon. So I took a deep breath, convinced Mandy we could do this and gave it a try!
Since the door needed to swing in and to the left instead of swinging out and to the right, we thought it shouldn't be too bad as all we needed to do was take out the door frame switch it back to front and put it in again. Sounds simple enough.
Before- the trim didn't come off very tidy. A little patching needed.
I don't even remember how many times we took that darn door out and in! We would get so frustrated and tired we would have to leave and come back another day. A few times we thought we had it, but then realized there was a huge gap at the top, or it didn't close completely or it wouldn't stay open. We ended up working on it several weekends and pounding those nails in and taking them out many many times!
No more holes!
Finally, we got it just about right, the door opened and closed right, the gap was balanced between bottom and top and wonder of wonders when we nailed the nails in, they didn't throw anything off! We gave up on it being level, because the door was most likely made on site for the doorway, we don't think it was too level to start with. Add that with a bit of sagging and we are happy it is at lest working!
Looking from the doorway into the closet.
 A bit of plastering and a lot of paint, and no one would ever know we went through all that frustration.
 After all is said and done, I think I would have still switched the door (I love how much bigger it makes the Book Nook!), but I definitely would have thought a lot harder before tackling it myself!
Sometime after we put the door in and when we actually moved in the door shifted again. It now doesn't quite latch all the way, which I was quite certain it did when we finished. It must of been the cold winter. But whose complaining?!? Certainly not me!

A Long Weekend Recap with Friends and Family

Tomorrow I go back to work after 5 wonderful days off. I took time off for my birthday. I was feeling a bit more tired than usual from long hours and different events going off at work. I spent half of the time back home visiting with friends and family, then the other half back at home. 

I stayed at my grandparent's Wednesday and Thursday night. I normally sleep like a baby there, but not this time. I tossed and turned all night so I slept in a bit late on Friday morning. It was raining hard and it was very gloomy. I felt fatigued all day. I pushed myself to go to my old work and former gym; The Rush (it was recently purchased by Gold's Gym; bittersweet). I managed to get in a quick workout then drove to Reidsville to visit my mom. She had just arrived home from receiving her first MS infusion treatment. It has been many months since she had one because of her insurance changes. The medication is $6,000 a MONTH and we could not afford it. However, a nonprofit organization has been working with her and she can now receive them. Her health has really been declining lately so she needed the treatments more than ever. 

When I arrived at my brother's house to see her, we both cried a few tears of joy. I then decided we need to go to lunch to celebrate. We went to a place called "The Heffinger". The town I grew up in, Reidsville, is a tiny, southern, farm town with basically nothing at all to do. I was so pleased to see a place like "The Heffinger" had opened. It is a very fun restaurant/bar/pub. They have trivia on Wednesday's, Karaoke on Friday's, and a special room for live bands. Reidsville definitely needs something like that so I hope the bar can make it and last. Our lunch food was delicious and we had a "Sex on the Beach" as mama's celebratory drink. If the menu had a little more variety to it, our experience would have been perfect.
After lunch, mama's pain and fatigue from her treatment was starting to set in, so we went back to my brother's for the remainder of the gloomy afternoon so mom could rest. I redesigned my blog a bit (do you like my new header?) and caught up on emails, then took a shower and got ready. Once my brother arrived home from work I spent time with him. 



At 7, I went back to "The Heffinger" to meet one of my best friends Anna for dinner. I enjoyed it at lunch though I did not really eat, so I wanted to go back and get a good dinner, plus it's Anna's favorite restaurant. Unfortunately our experience did not go as planned. The restaurant was barely halfway full and it took us 45 minutes to receive our food. We both had small dinners order and by the time we received them, they were cold and did not taste good. We smiled for a picture, then bailed on our dinner.
Since our dinner was a bit of a bust, we drove to Eden (where Anna lives) to go get frozen yogurt. That is always an acceptable option to go for if your dinner isn't great! It definitely hit the spot. We were good to go after that.
I went to Anna's after to stay with her and her husband (and my good friend) Mike. She and I have had 15 years of sleepover's and they still continue. Since it was still raining, we decided to find a new show on Netflix to binge watch (our tradition). The two choices were "Scandal" or "Orange is The New Black". By popular vote on my Instagram, "Orange is the New Black" won. Ha! The opening scene had boobies everywhere so we instantly knew we were going to love the show. It really is great, too. I am on episode 4 of season 1 and I can't wait to see what keeps happening.
Friday night at Anna's was another rough night of sleep for me (see the pattern here) so I was up early Saturday and took off to my dad's. When I got to dad's, he and my step-mom informed that his cancer has now spread to his liver and lungs. They are small tumors, but nonetheless, that is not good. If you could please pray for him-- for strength and hope, I would really appreciate it. After spending a little time with my dad, but my step-mom and I left to spend the day together. We went to the eye-doctor for me and I am steadily getting as blind as a bat. I was given a new brand of contacts and my vision seems so much more crisp and clear now, which is great. After the eye doctor we went to Greensboro so Diane could pick up her new glasses and did a little shopping. We had the most delicious lunch at a placed called Tripp's then went back home so I could spend a little more time with dad. I left to go back to Charlotte around 4 and when I finally arrived home, I was exhausted. I had so much unpacking and cleaning to do, but could not make myself do any of it. I spent the evening on the couch.

I got a good night of sleep on Saturday, but was up a bit early on Sunday due to Marty getting sick. He had a bad hairball and threw up on the bed. In a momentary lapse of judgement on my part, I threw my comforter in the washing machine to try and clean it. You can only guess how that ended! It was not good and my comforter was ripped with pieces everywhere. I decided to take off to Anna's Linen's to see if I could find a new comforter, and luckily I did! I have to say, I always love shopping at Anna's Linen's. They make being a "diva on a budget" fun, fabulous, and affordable. I was able to get a 7-piece comforter set for $45. I absolutely love it!
After putting together my fabulous new bed set (along with my little helper), I went to the gym for cardio and an upper body weight ciruct, then came back, took a shower, and got ready for church. It was week number 3 of #DeathToSelfie and as usual, another amazing service. It was a good message about enjoying where you are now -- being content but never complacent. I need to learn to do that more. I focus so hard on what my life could be, all of the things I am working so hard for, and accomplishing my dreams, that I sometimes forget to appreciate NOW and living in the moment. This is something I am vowing to workout on after what I went through recently.

Once church was over, I met my girlfriend Alexis at "Tony Sacco's" for dinner. She treated me for my birthday, which made me feel super special. We each made our own personal pizza. Mine was delicious; I had it with spinach, mushrooms, and Gorgonzola cheese. We then had Tony Sacco's homemade fruit shortcake. It was different and one of the best desserts I have had in a long time!
After dinner I went to see the new Marvel movie, "Guardians of the Galaxy". Initially I was only going to see that movie due my loyalty and love for Marvel comics (huge nerd here, I openly admit it). But upon reading reviews and comments, people seemed to really, really enjoy the movie. It has a very high rating on Fandango as well. I was then excited to see it. I thought it was very good. It had some hilarious parts in it and the cast meshed well together. I really liked the message about the characters being "outcasts" or different. It was not my favorite and it does not compare at all to X-Men or Avengers, but it is definitely worth a watch.

Today has been a really mellow day as I prepare to go back to work tomorrow, which is going to be brutal. I slept late, went to the gym, grocery shopped, cleaned, and prepped food for the week. I am ready to be back on my grind 100% with clean eating and my training regimen. I have had an unusual couple of weeks with working overtime, lots off-site meetings/dinners, and then travelling for my birthday. But now I am back and do not have to go out of town again until the weekend after next, so it's time to focus and drop some fat-- 25 more pounds to go so I need to stay dedicated and push through!

Damsel in Distress


Yesterday, Mandy and I had an impromptu Fred Astaire movie marathon. He is one of my favorite actors! I love the movies he is in, he had such great comic flare. We were in the mood for a musical so we started with "Funny Face", also starring Audrey Hepburn. That really got us going, so when we noticed Netflix also had "Daddy Long Legs" with Leslie Caron off we went!