LYDIA ANN B CANNON MUSEUM

LYDIA ANN B. CANNON MUSEUM

MILTON, DELAWARE

NOVEMBER 1971

The vacant clapboard church at the Broadkill River Bridge on Union Street , a 19^th

century witness of this old shipbuilders town, is now under restoration and soon to become

the Milton Historical Society Museum.

The 109 member society which was incorporated last December was given the old Grace

Methodist Church by Mrs Lydia Ann B. Cannon who as a child went to Sunday School

there.

Histories of shipbuilding and Milton families are to be the themes of the museum, scheduled

to open in the spring of 1972.

John s. Berry, retired from Delmarva Power and Light Company in 1969, is the building

chairman says the museum group hope to obtain, restore and preserve historical items

and memorabilia of the Milton and Broadkill area.

Mrs Cannon is a native of Milton, daughter of a town pioneer, postmaster, a graduate of

Milton High School and Jefferson Medical hospital School of Nursing. She was the

superintendent of nursing education at Milford Memorial Hospital many years.

The church building has been through the ringer, so to speak. Some year ago the Methodist

'split' and became two churches, Goshen and Grace, each building new churches and the

town of Milton purchased the one of our subject. It was once sold to Foley Enterprises

of Gerald Foley and was the home of an manufacturer of electronic items. Mrs Cannon

purchased the building when Mr. Foley died in 1969 and his company dissolved.

Being vacant since then only one stained glass windows has been broken, and the society

intends to restore interior and exterior, the main project is the flooring. The church bell is to

be restored and mounted.

Milton is full of history, records of 250 wooden ships made of Easternshore white oak

built in Milton, and other enterprises as leather tanning, brick factories, and fruit and

processing there of.

Milton is also home to five governors, a Nanticoke Indian village, became Milton in 1807

being named for the poet John Milton.

Milton was incorporated as a town in 1865.

Source: Wilmington News Journal Tuesday November 23, 1971

Abstract: 04/01/2018 by Harrison Howeth