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| The Walker-Maclary House |
But it's the second part that's often the tricky and more frustrating one -- trying to determine exactly when a particular house was built, and therefore, by whom. I've taught myself a little over the years, but I am definitely not an architectural historian. Unless there's some sort of contemporaneous report of construction or a reliable date stone, we're often left to detective work and guess work. That usually entails judging the style of the house for a likely era, and seeing who owned it then to determine who might have built the house. In this case, though, we're fortunate enough to have a story passed down about part of a home, albeit a second-hand story. (Ironically, the house was only one story.)
The property I'm referring to is located at 4925 Old Capitol Trail, in the middle of Penndrew Manor, near Old St. James Church. I usually don't use street addresses, but in this case the house has already been referred to by the address in a previous post. However, after researching the history of the property, I've chosen to call it the Walker-Maclary House for reasons that should soon be apparent. And it's from information obtained relating to the previous post that we get the story about part of the house. This is also an example of how a property doesn't have to date back to the 1700's to have an interesting history.
As many of you know, my usual first stop in investigating something like this would be to check out the 19th Century maps. In this case, though, they're somewhat less than helpful. The 1849 map shows a dot about where the house is now, but it's not labeled and I don't think it's the current house. The other three maps all show it as "Walker Est.", which seemed odd for two reasons. First, farms usually aren't in the "Estate" um, state, for more than a couple years if probate proceedings are required. This one was shown that way, seemingly, for 25 years (1868, 1881, and 1893). Something must have been weird about this farm.
The second thing that confused me was the name Walker. Now, there were several different Walker clans in Mill Creek Hundred, and I've even written a few posts about them. However, I could not find anyone in those families who lived anywhere this far down in the hundred. After a little stumbling around and a bit of working backwards from the oldest owner I did know, I finally found what I was looking for. What made it difficult was that although there were Walkers in MCH, the one who purchased this property does not seem to have been from any of those families.
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| My best estimation of the farm purchased by Elizabeth Walker in 1860 |
In 1860, about two years before she died, a Wilmington widow named Elizabeth Walker bought 48 acres from John Foote. Foote resided in the stone house near the corner of Old Capitol Trail and St. James Church Road. Trying to trace Foote's ownership of this land has been itself trying, and for now I'll shamelessly punt this issue to a future date, except to say that the unlabeled house on the 1849 map could have been an older house dating to the previous century, early in Foote's father's tenure. But back to Elizabeth Walker, in her will she gave most of her estate to her daughters Louisa and Anna. However, the farm she bought from John Foote was to be leased to son Quinby Walker for $150 per year for the remainder of his lifetime.
He seems to have resided there for nearly two decades, but by 1878, Quinby Walker may have been suffering from some sort of mental illness. That year, in addition to whatever the incident was referred to in the clipping below from the following year, several transactions took place between the siblings (Louisa was still single, but Anna had since married Dr. George W. Boughman). It gets a bit confusing, but it appears that first, Quinby "sold" and renounced his right to lease the full 48 acre farm. Then, the sisters parceled off and sold outright to Quinby a 28 acre portion on the western end of the property. Two years later, in March 1880, Quinby sold the 28 acre portion back to his sisters and purchased 66 acres in Baltimore Hundred, Sussex County. The 1880 Census later that year shows Quinby, his wife Margarette, and their 11 children all living just south of Indian River Bay, somewhere near Blackwater and Millville, close to what's now Route 26. And despite his wife's earlier potestations, Quinby is listed on the Census as "Insane".
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| From a Wilmington paper, October 8, 1879 |
Louisa Walker died in 1892, and in what looks like a move to pay off Louisa's debts, the 28 acre farm was sold at auction to Hugh Browne, who immediately sold it back to Anna for the exact same price. George and Anna Boughman died within a year of each other in 1895/6, and in 1897 their son George D. Boughman sold two tracts to Jacob C. Maclary. One tract was the 28 acres already mentioned, the other about 27 acres which must have represented the remainder of the property (there must have been about another 7 acres acquired by the family at some point). Maclary would remain on the property for quite some time, although for exactly how long was another (brief) mystery which we'll solve in a moment.
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| Jacob and Margaret Maclary |
During their nearly half century on the farm near St. James Church, Jake and his wife, the former Margaret McNamee, were quite active in the community. Specifically, they were involved in the local school district and with the Methodist Church, as shown by the reports seen below of parties in 1909 and 1910. Their house seems to have been a social hub for the area. The lists of names are a Who's Who of the Stanton area at the time.
Parties, however, were not the only excitement on the Maclary farm. In May 1912, while attempting to blow up some stumps on his farm with dynamite, Jake Maclary was seriously injured and spent about a month in the hospital. Less than a year later, Margaret lost a finger in an accident involving a saw.
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| Maclary did make a full recovery, sight and all, in 1912 |
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| Mrs. Maclary's unfortunate incident, 1913 |
I originally knew of Maclary from a piece written by Penn Guenveur, son of the one-time owner of the Denny-Morrison farm and of this one. In it he states that his father bought Maclary's farm, and that Jake had lived there for 49 years. I found the deed whereby J. LaPenne Guenveur purchased the farm in 1946, so that checked out. However, Guenveur did not buy from Maclary, but instead from Edith and Isaac Jones. Also, I found that Maclary had actually sold the property back in 1932 to an Edith Jenkins and a Florence Lacey. What was going on? The answer turned out to be quite simple. Although I don't know why Jake sold the farm (and in 1934, his other property -- tractors, a car, livestock, and other equipment) to the women, I did figure out who they were. As you might have been able to guess, Edith Jenkins (later Jones) and Florence Lacey were Jake and Margaret's daughters. So although he put the property in their names, he continued to live there until the late 1940's.
It was probably the passing of Margaret Maclary in 1946 that prompted the sale of the farm out of the family. The next owners, and the final ones of the rural era, were a family that Jake Maclary already knew -- the Guenveurs, led by prominent Wilmington attorney J. LaPenne Guenveur. I won't go into much detail about the family here, as they were already covered in the second Denney-Morrison Farm post. Maclary had helped the Guenveurs farm their property when they lived at the Denney-Morrison Farm, and after the family moved into his former home he went into the flower business with LaPenne's wife Clare. In 1948, Jake purchased two lots in Roseville Park, along Kirkwood Highway, with his widowed daughter Edith. Sadly, in November 1951, the 88 year old Jacob Maclary was hit by a car while crossing the highway and was killed.
The Guenveurs remained in the Walker-Maclary House, finally finding their permanent "home in the country" (they had lived several places in the 15 years or so before moving in here). However, the suburbs were quickly encroaching upon The Country. LaPenne Guenveur ultimately sold most of what had been the farm to a developer, allowing for the creation of Penndrew Manor. LaPenne passed away in 1961, but the family stayed until selling to Dr. John Pyne, DDS, in 1977. On a personal note, I was friends with one of Dr. Pyne's sons growing up, and attended several birthday parties at the house. I will admit that the 10-year old me was less interested in the historical significance of the house, and more interested in cake and ice cream. The large yard was fun to run around in, though. The house is now in new hands, ones very interested in learning of and preserving its history.
And speaking of the historical significance, way back at the top of the post I mentioned a story about the origins of the house. It seems to have been built in several sections, with the two that make up the main house probably built by the Walkers. More interestingly, though, the Guenveurs were told by Jake Maclary that the "previous owners", which would have been the Walker family, had dragged the first section over from Stanton. This low-ceilinged section in the back of the house was said to have originally been a doctor's office in Stanton, built around 1780. If this is true, and even though it's not now in Stanton, it might well be the oldest remaining structure from the village. And even though this might fall into the category of "family lore", the Guenveurs knew Maclary, who bought directly from the Walker family, so there's a pretty direct link there. To me, that lends more credibility. But whether or not this home contains part of an 18th Century doctor's office, the Walker-Maclary house surely has an interesting history all its own.