LOOKING AROUND DELAWARE
FARMINGTON
Farmington, first known as
Flatiron, is a town in Misspillion Hundred that came about in 1855
with the railroad. It stood in the neighborhood of centuries old
historic tracts where the early settlers established homesteads as
early as 1680. In 1780 the Methodist held the first annual
conference in the United States here.
In this vicinity as built a
church of the Methodist Protestants after the split from the
Methodist Episcopal church.
Right after the railroad
station of Flatiron was set on the Delaware Railway, streets were
laid out, and within three years they had a post office with
postmaster Shadrack D. Taylor and the name was changed to Farminton.
Canneries and evaporating
plants helped the town to boom. One of the canneries had a seasons
capacity of over 100,000 baskets of peaches put into cans and the
evaporation plants averaged 1800 baskets a season.
J. B. Simmons' saw mill
produced 7000 board feet of lumber each day in 1877.
These industries gave work
to several hundred men.
It was in 1780 when John
Wesley met at the homestead of Thomas White, a judge of Kent
County Court of Common Pleas, for the first Unites State Methodist
Conference. On this property was built Whites Chapel in 1780 which
held the first day school and Sunday school in Misspillion Hundred.
Bethel Methodist Protestant Church, one of the first of this
denomination in America was built in here 1871.
A Presbyterian Church of
Farmington was erected in 1840 on the W. H. Powell farm and later
moved into the town.
In 1863 a select school was
established by Rev. J. M. Williams, president of Wesley College of
Wilmington. In 1937 there were two buildings of this school still
occupied by The Irish American Hall and The German American Hall, at
Sixth & French Streets.
The Farmington Methodist
Episcopal Church, known as Salem Church, was built a mile out of
town in 1818 and opened a day school there. It was replaced in town
in 1873.
Wilmington Morning News,
Thursday, January 9, 1936 Looking Around Delaware
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