BROADKILL HUNDRED BY DICK CLARK :: ABSTRACT

BROADKILL HUNDRED

Hundred was the earliest settled in Sussex and was the most sparsely populated.

It had been divided twice, 1833 and 1861 when it lost the western half to Georgetown Hundred.

Milton was Broadkill's only major town.

The hundred gets its name from the river that flows through it's center, once an important

river. It had a ship building industry, grist mills, saw mills and such.

At one time, early 1800's, the name was spelled Broadkiln, and in 1975 Milton people had

the county council formally change the name back to Broadkill.

Broadkill, is a dutch word for 'broad river”,

The first landowner of the hundred was wily Hermanus Wiltbank who also had a strong hold

on affairs of Lewes or as it was then, Zwaanenael, who came with the second wave of Dutch settlers.

Soon after William Penn came into play in the Three Lowar Counties and both had made peace with each other, Wiltbank died but his family remained active in local affairs.

Another early landowner was William Clark, a Penn follower and his lieutenant, who

received a 500 acre tract between the Coolspring branch and Beaver Dam branch of the Broadkill

River. This was known as “Penns Worminghurst” that later passed to one Preserved Coggeshall.

Clark had also sold land to Thomas Fisher, the son of John Fisher, who came with Penn to the colony,

ancestors of Major Thomas Fisher of Lewes , an Revolutionary War figure.

Others families of early Broadkill were Hazzards, Paynters, Reeds, Dodds, Bryans,

Ponders and Clowes, all instermental in the development of Broadkill Hundred and Sussex County.

Prior to the 1900's the Broadkill River had become less the river it once was, and is now just a peaceful recreational body of water.

James Grey, in 1686, owned the land where Milton was built , which he named “Milford” , a

1000 acre tract that after a series of conveyances , the Milton portion on the south side of the

river came to George Conwell and that on the north side came to William Perry, another Revolutionary figure. Both Cornwell and Perry laid out lots and sold them so soon a village appeared.

This village took several names early on, Osborne Landing, Conwell Landing, Upper Landing,

and Head of Broadkill. In 1807 an act of General Assembly named the town Milton, it is said, to honor, the blind poet John Milton.

Milton in , 1806 had four stores and seven granaries, the granaries supporting a water borne

grain shipping business. Also in the early 1800's there was a large quantity of finished lumber

shipped from the small port. Milton was incorporated in 1865 and flourshed until the end of the sailing ship age, in the 1880's.

One of Broadkills house of worship was established before the town of Milton was by ¾

of a century. St. John The Baptist was built at Long Bridge Branch in the Broadkill Forest in 1728.

Quaakers and Presbyterians were active at the edge of the hundred at Coolspring. Goshen Methodist

came to Milton in 1820. Broadkill gave the state of Delaware five governors and one to Wyoming Territory.

TOWNS OF BROADKILL

Milton became a town of small garment factories, button cutting shops, a brick yard and later several canning houses.

Harbeson came about in 1869 when the railroad built a station for the Georgetown to Lewes

railroad line. The village was named for the man who owned the land the village was built upon, Harbeson Hickman. This same year there became a post office and within twenty years a school

house, blacksmith shop, two stores and maybe ten homes. Shipping of the lumber from the mills in

the nearby forest area became a big opearation at Harbeson. There was briefly a horse race track and

annualfair at Harbeson. The Delmarva poultry industry kept the town alive later on.

Drawbridge was named such, as it was the location of a draw bridge over the Broadkll River for the main road south to Lewes from the north. Paynters were the family of Drawbridge, even once named Paynters Drawbridge. It had a post office, a merchant and one of the first ship yards.

Overbrook was a neighborhood, not even a villeage, but it had a railroad stateion on the 1900's

Queen Anns RR, postoffice at the general store, even a small school . It was well know to the fox

hunters of the days.

Broadkill Beach was a summer resort, if you could handle the mosquitos of the great salt marshes.

Source: History of Sussex County by Dick Clark, July 1976: