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| The old stone...something |
Whether you're a kid or a grown-up, there's no denying the excitement of being out in the woods and finding some old ruins. To know that sometime...a long time ago...someone built and lived in or worked in a beautiful, dignified building, of which you now see only the remains. It might have been their home, or their barn, or maybe a mill. If it's smaller it could have been an outbuilding, a springhouse, or a root cellar. Often, if you know what you're looking for, you can make a pretty good guess at what it was before it fell into the state of disrepair in which you find it now.
Sometimes, though, for one reason or another, identifying the former function of the stones, concrete or timbers you see can be tricky. There might not be enough left standing to tell for sure what it was. Or maybe its location just doesn't seem to make sense, or perhaps you've heard stories about it that don't really fit with what you're looking at. What can make this even more frustrating is when the said ruins are actually on or next to your own property. Such is the case with the stone building seen here, tucked between houses just a few yards from the northern edge of Mill Creek Hundred.
This beautiful and mysterious little stone structure sits along what is now a private driveway, but which once was part of a now-abandoned stretch of Doe Run Road. It lies just past where the road first branched west above Little Baltimore Road, as seen in the diagram below. It sits on the east side of the road on what was for many years the farm owned by the Walker family.
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| Diagram of the roads as existed in the late 19th Century |
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| Same area, 1937 |
The structure was brought to my attention by Lisa Sinclair, who lives nearby. When she moved in a few years back, she was told that it was a toll booth, which explains the little sign seen in front of it. And while I can't say with absolute assuredness that this was not the case, it doesn't seem to be likely. Yes, as you can see in the 1937 aerial shot above, Doe Run Road did formerly extend north of Little Baltimore Road and up towards Kennett Square. However, it was never a major road and as far as I know, never a toll road. Turnpikes were pretty highly regulated for the time, well documented, and the small toll booths were usually frame structures. Except for the fact that it's on the side of a road, nothing about this building says to me that it was a toll booth.
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| And it never took EZPass, either |
Another theory about its possible use has to do with something else visible in the 1937 aerial, seen snaking its way from the upper right to the middle left -- the Wilmington & Western Railroad. The railroad had two facilities just above William Hicks Walker's farm, on the Pennsylvania side. To the west of the Broad Run trestle (running across the white area in the photo) was the Broad Run Station. To the east, on the southwest corner of the tracks and Broad Run Road, was the Eden Station (seen below). It was not really a full station, but was instead a "whistle stop", shed station. The train would only stop if there were passengers present or if they notified the conductor that they wanted to disembark.
In fact, there are stories of the structure being used as a shelter for people waiting for the train. When they heard the whistle in Hockessin, they would start walking up to the tracks, presumably to the Eden station. I have no reason to think that's what it was originally built for (if you wanted a small waiting area, it would be much easier to build it out of wood), but it's certainly an interesting later use.
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| The Wilmington & Western's Eden Station |
But maybe more importantly for us now, the platform seen next to the station was used for local farmers to ship milk containers to Wilmington and to retrieve their empty ones. Another theory for the use of our mystery structure would have it functioning as a small milk house, probably for William Hicks Walker. Cans could have been placed there to be taken up the road to the train platform, and/or empty cans dropped off. My one problem with this theory is that the structure is pretty small for a milk house, and far from the barn.
A possible explanation is that it was originally a springhouse. There is a small stream that passes nearby, that perhaps once ran closer to where the structure is. Its location along the road could be nothing more than a coincidence -- the best location for a springhouse just happened to be close to the road. The structure is fairly small, and work is still ongoing on uncovering the floor. There are, however, several small shelves built into the corners, so
something was meant to go in there. The front is a bit odd, but there is evidence that there probably was a door at one point.
So...anyone have any thoughts about this? What could it have been built for and/or used for? Has anyone else come across a structure similar to this anywhere else? Any input might help to solve this stone mystery.
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| Front of the structure (small dog statue not original) |
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| The interior -- note small shelves in the corners |
Edit 11/22/19:
A potentially interesting new development has come to light -- another, very similar structure has been found relatively nearby. The structure seen below is located about 2 miles to the west, in Landenberg. Like the one on the Walker farm, the Landenberg structure is built of almost identical-looking stones, into a hillside, along a road. I'm not particularly familiar with that area, but I think it may be on the east side of White Clay Creek, near Landenberg Road. As you can see, its construction looks very much like the Walker one, down to the recessed wall above the doorway. We still don't know what this one's purpose was, but if nothing else it proves that the Walker structure was not a one-off building. It was definitely built for a specific purpose, from a plan.
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| Another structure, this one in Landenberg |
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