Sunday, September 26, 2010

Delaware Boy Makes Hall of Fame

Saturday, September 25th, 2010 is now another treasured day of mine. I was a guest at the 11th Honors Banquet of the Delaware Aviation Hall of Fame to see the induction of Theodore C Freeman, late Lewes 'boy' made good in the world of flying. He was also one of the very first Air Force Astronauts. He died in the line of duty, 31 October 1964 at Ellington Air Force Base, Houston, Texas. His daughter, Faith Huntington and a Freeman relative, Bruce Freeman, received his honors.

The program was exceptional, a reception, with music of The Delaware Army National Guard, Stardust Knights, start jumped the event, allowed many friends to get together to remember their past and to find some new friends to remember from now on. The banquet program was flawless, with the Piped Processional of VIP's, the Posting of The Colors by a Color Guard of a local High School AFROTC Group, Pledge of Allegiance, National Anthem and Invocation.

Delaware Air National Guard, Ret. Col., James Kohler was Master of Ceremonies.

You can say the meal was DANG good.

You can find more about this ceremony and the inductee's at http://www.dahf.org/. Go there, it is real easy and most interesting.

One of the airmen's achievements of the past was at story of 'Delaplane', made of spruce pine and 'wires', which flew at Wawaset Park in Wilmington in 1910, 100 years ago.

A very impressive yougn man, not yet 20 years of age, George T. Antonjou was given the Youth Achievement Award of the Delaware Aviation Hall of Fame. His intentions are to go far in aviation and a lot of the attendees feel he will do just that.

The Class of 2010 are;
Donald M. Clark who was present to receive his award. Donald was a WWII C-47 Pilot and after the return home was a crop duster in his own business. He is now a docent at the Dover Air Force Museum. Stop by a visit him some time. He will have a story to tell that you will enjoy.

Edward Czarnecki, WWII Air Force Ace, deceased. A family friend was his ceremony 'Wing Man' and received the award.
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Ted Freeman, yes, our Lewes Boy Made Good, The Astronaut, deceased in the line of duty, had almost three dinner tables of well wishers there. Several of his deceased widows family from New England attended. His award was received by his daughter, Faith, who I believe still lives in Texas. A Freeman relation, Bruce Freeman of Melfa, Virginia, was at Faith's side. A group from Lewes to attend were Hazel Brittingham, Charles Henry Howard, Sussie Hudson, myself, who were the guest of Joseph Rowland Hudson.

Stan Lawruk, received his own award. He was a WWII B-17 Flight Engineer, was a POW in Germany, lives in New Castle county, Delaware.

Daniel Rusk, Jr, 80 some year of age, also received his award, was a Navy Pilot and made more than one hundred landings on the USS Hornet, came home to be a salesman for several aircraft manufacturers.


Alfred Walker, Jr., WWII, B-17, B-24, B-29 pilot with 32 Combat Missions over Japan, total of 540 Combat hours. He is deceased and I think his sister received his award.

After a few short remarks from the President of the DAHF, the Colors were Retired by a well drilled AFROTC Cadet Color Guard.

As I said at the beginning, this was a day to remember.

Chapter V / History of Seaford by R. B. Hazzard

Chapter V gives a statement of the business, dwellings, etc., in the early period of 1800, basically 1800 to 1855 in Seaford.

In 1830 there were in the village of Seaford, between the county road to the north and the river, about fifty houses. Fourteen of them were, in general terms, two story homes. People had not yet learned it took but a few more dollars to build two story houses rather that the single floor home. The rest were single story with shed type attachments and some of our best citizens lived in this class. Some of these sheds still stand in the old part of town.

There were about eight stores in the village, all but one in single story buildings. One on the corner of Front and Water Streets which we feel was the first merchant establishment in Seaford. Joshia Horsey occupied one on the corner of Market and Water Streets, Wrights store was near the corner of North and Water on the north side and opposite was the William Nicholes store. Where the Jacob Hill house is now, was a store of George Hazzard and directly opposite was the store of William and David Conwell.

The tanneries of George and Jacob Hazzard were on the creek.

On the corner of Market and High streets, in the Soloman Prettyman house, now the hotel, Asbury Prettyman and Rhodes Hazzard sold goods. Down Market street, near the bridge, northwest corner of Water, was a single story store used for several years by different merchants, on the northwest corner of Market and High streets was the William Horsey store for a long time, then at the northeast corner of High and Pine was Levin Cannons place. Some of these merchants were also engaged in the boating business, buying wood and corn for shipping.

The farm land in lower Sussex was distressingly poor, and but little more corn was raised than was needed for local consumption. Corn from fifteen to twenty miles around the Marshyhope and Georgetown area was hauled to Seaford and sold to these merchants. There was little to no wheat grown for shipment, hardly half enough for home use. Only the wealthy used tads of it, keeping a little of it for company and use on the Sabbath. It was a rarity.

Housekeepers and cooks knew how to make corn pone and Joniki Cake which were palatable and nourishing

Fashion was the same old tyrant then as it is now. Fine goods for the ladies could be found in the stores but the women often went visiting and to church in a plain calico dress. Ladies and children of men of moderate means were not ashamed to be seen in plain habiliments . A young man would buy, if able, a courting and marriage suit and put it in the hands of a good tailor for fitting. More often they wore the blue fustian which wives and mothers made for them .

Monday, September 13, 2010

How to Make Coal Burn

Delaware State Reporter




Description: Winter Is On Its Way - Learn How To Burn Coal.

Date: December 3 1858

Newspaper published in: Dover, Delaware

Source: newspaper archivese/Column: Farm and Home Section:

How To Burn Coal:

Nine out of ten who attempt to burn coal in a stove waste about as much coal as is necessary to be consumed for all the heat desirable.

Observe the following simple rules, suggested by a contemporary, and few who adopt the burning of coal will return to wood fires.

First to make a coal fire: Clean the stove out thoroughly. Put in a double handful of shavings or light kindling wood. Fill the earthen cavity (if there be one) near full of chunks of dry wood, say four or six inches in length. On top of the wood put a dozen or so lumps of egg coal, coal that is 2 or 3 inches in diameter. After this burns about ten minutes, add twenty some more lumps of coal. Now, after all the wood has burned out, fill the cavity half or two thirds full of coal. This fire will be a good one, all the coal becomes fully ignited.

Never fill a stove more than half or two thirds full of coal even in the coldest weather.

When the fire is low, never shake the grate or disturb the ashes but add ten or fifteen lumps of coal and set the draught open. When these coals are heated through and somewhat ignited, add an amount necessary for a new fire but do not disturb the ashes yet. Let the draught be open half and hour, now, shake the out ashes. The coal will be thoroughly ignited and keep the stove at high heat from six to twelve hours, according to the coldness of the weather. In very cold weather add fifteen to twenty lumps of coal every hour.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

CHAPTER IV / HISTORY OF SEAFORD

A Record of the Progress of Christianity in Seaford:
Most of the early settlers of Seaford were friends, if not members, of the Methodist Protestant Church. As the records show there were no other church organization there until about thirty years had passed. Seaford citizens were earnest and enthusiastic in their religious devotions, uniform and constant in their religious life. They were socially religious, would exhort, pray, sing and shout in the church and talk religion in there homes with children and neighbors, and there were but few of those families in which the voices of praise and prayer were not heard morning and evening. They had comparatively little preaching by their pastors but kept the church open and kept up its services.
I can now remember the thrilling pathos and power that the exhortations and prayers of Henry Little, Levin Cannon, William Hazzard, Jacob Hazzard and Rhoads Hazzard voiced. They has their revival meetings and gathered into the church the unconverted of their own families and others.
The Sabbath Day School began as early as I can remember, they had question books and libraries where biographies of good men and women.
Church Circuits were large, making a preachers visit once every four weeks. An example is the Dorchester circuit, they gave to Salem and Vienna one Sabbath, Tuesday and Wednesday to Hurley's Neck and Griffith's Neck. Thursday they were at McKendree and next Sabbath were in the East New Market area. The next week took up old Bethesda, Friendship and Federalsburg, next came the Fork District and then Bethel and Seaford area which has fifteen stations to call upon.
Then there were the Camp Meetings, places of great religious gatherings. These meetings lasted but four days, beginning on Friday evening and closing on Wednesday,
services were held morning until midnight or after. Many were converted and the churches were revived and encouraged
One must mention the old Ennal's Camp Ground, for it was the center of the Dorchester circuit, a very notable and popular place for a meeting. The tents numbered in the hundreds and horse wagons filled the adjoining grounds as hundred of people gathered there.
There was a camp meeting held every year somewhere near Seaford. Locations were Mrs. Rust woods, Chapel Branch, Little's woods near Wesley Church. Ross's woods became very popular with the Seaford M. P. Church congregation.
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Monday, September 6, 2010

CHAPTER IV / HISTORY OF SEAFORD

Seaford's First Schools:
The early settlers of Seaford were careful and wise in beginning their schools with first class teachers. At that time there was some statute provision for primary schools but they were little more that an apology practically. As early as I can remember Seaford had a first class academy in moral and scientific culture. The old academy building stood on the lot adjoining the M. E. Church Cemetery. Pipkin Miner, was for most of his life, the teacher. He was a Presbyterian and inculcated morality and religion in his school. His talks to the class at the closing half hour are yet remembered some seventy years later. Schools at that time utilized switches and I think some of his cedar ones, which were toughened by the fire in the stove, were more impressive upon some of his scholars than were his lectures. He generally had, as pupils and boarders, a number of young men from the country, among them I remember Daniel Kinder and Loxley Jacobs, both life long friends of mine.

Seaford's Early Churches:
The first church built in the lower part of Sussex County near Seaford was Protestant Episcopal and built about one hundred yards from Chapel Branch on the north side of the road as you travel west from the branch. That church must have been built in Colonial times as no one living remembers its ruins.
The first Methodist Episcopal Church built in the neighborhood of Seaford was near the same branch along the same road but on the east side of the branch. There is a deed,per county record, from John Cannon and Jeremiah Rust Jackson for one acre at Chapel Branch to trustees for the M. E. Church, John Handy, Thomas Prettyman, Jeremiah Brown, Augustus Brown, Nathan Cannon, J. Rust Cannon and William Davis, the date being 8 august 1804. William Davis was for a long time local preacher at Bethel and lived his life out near there. This chapel being built a few years after Seaford was plotted it must have been selected for the village and surrounding country and was used for both school and church purposes. The church building was moved to Seaford around 1830 and set upon the Hooper Graveyard and used by the town citizens until the first M.E. Churtch was built, now called the 'Old Church'.

Another county record gives this data. A deed from James Conwell for a lot to Bochem Meeting House in Seaford to the following trustees, Henry Little, Aaron Swiggert, Robert Hopkins, Whitefield Hughes, George Hazzard, Levin Cannon and Freeman Rose. , dated 9 April 1818. This building stood, with some repairs until 1859 when a new building was erected, of which Rhodes Hazzard, Ralph Prettyman, James Darby and High Brown were trustees.

Members and friends of the Protestant Episcopal Church had religious services in Seaford as long as I remember and their first board of trustees for St. Luke's Church met in Seaford, February 20th 1837. They were William Neal, Hugh Martin, Charles Wright, Elijah Cannon and Curtis Ross.

There are no records with trustee names and deed dates, of the Methodist Protestant Church, the reason being the church division was anything but sweet. Old Sister Wallace gave me the following facts. Dr. Morgan came to her, saying he did not know where they would get a lot on which to put a church. She told him to go see Mollie Wright, Jacob Wright's widow, her mother, who was a daughter of John Hooper's, to see if she will consent to put the chapel on the Hooper Graveyard. He did so and permission was granted. The Chapel Branch Church had gone into disuse and Issac and Jacob Cannon, among the most wealthy men in the lower part of the state, had a claim upon it. Morgan made satisfactory arrangement with them and it was moved to the Hooper Graveyard.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

CHAPTER IV / HISTORY OF SEAFORD

Physicians Who Settled In Seaford In Its Early History.

After the death of Dr. Cottingham, I think Dr. John Gibbon was the next physician there. He was an Irishman and upon coming to this country, landed at Lewistown. I think at first he engaged in teaching and was also a Justice of the Peace, but as early as I can remember was successful practitioner. When he came to this country he was not married and soon married a Miss Cannon, either a sister or daughter of Elijah Cannon, and had four children, Washington and Frank who both died young, the a daughter, Caroline, who may be still living in Washington, D.C. A younger daughter died young. His home was on the corner of Front and East streets, and known as the Stewart property as the daughter Carline married James Stewart and became sole heir.

The next physician was probably William Morgan who moved from Milton to Cannon Ferry, thence to Seaford in 1825. He lived and practiced medicine on East Street in the house know now as the Hosea Dawson property. He went to Seaford as a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church but went at the 1827 division of the Methodist to the Methodist Protestant Church and was a leading spirit of that church and his efforts responsible for the first M.P. church at Seaford. Mrs. Hosa Dawson was his only child.

In 1838 two doctors went to Seaford and practiced together, Dr. Goldsburough and Dr. Flint. Dr. Goldsburough, old and infirm, still lives in Greensboro, Caroline County Maryland. Dr. flint married Miss Rhoda Jacobs and returned to Cambridge, thence to Missouri where he died a year or so ago, a very old man.

In 1846, Dr. Joseph P. H. Shipley went to Seaford and soon was known to be a very skillful physician and built up a large practice. He married first Miss Ann Wright who lived but a few years after. She left a son, who also became a promising physician but sad to say, became a victim to intoxicants and his sun set in a cloud.
For a second wife Dr. Joseph Shipley married Jane Hopkins, whose son is now a successful physician in Seaford. After those, were, Doctors fisher, Hains, Johns and Roop.

History of Seaford -1799-1856 by Robert Boyce Hazzard /Chapter 3 Continnued

NOTICE READERS: The last post, August 30, 2010, sort of ends the third decade of the century in which this history was written. Today's post will continue with some names of fourth decade citizens that Robert Boyce Hazzard mentions.

There went to Seaford toward the close of the third and during the fourth decade, those who contributed largely by their moral and financial force to the continued prosperity of the town.

William Rogers moved here to a farm of Caleb Ross about 1838, subsequently bought it and raised a large honorable family, and lived to a very old age.

Jesse and Hugh Brown, farmers, well respected,both lived to an old age. Had honorable children who contributed to the interest of the town and county.

The Robinsons, William and Jesse, natives of Hurlock, Maryland area, went to Seaford when young men.

Now to mention some of those who lived near and adjoining Seaford.

Mrs. Rust, widow of one of the first merchants at Jackson's Wharf, owned and lived upon the farm now known as the Colonel Martin Farm, extending from what is now the railroad to Chapel Branch. She was an active and successful farmer in the mid 1830'sand raise four children, John, Catesby, Luther and Sarah Ann. After her death the family broke up and I never knew where John and Luther settled, but Sarah Ann married the Rev. Mr. Wright, preacher of the Methodist Protestant Church, who had a daughter marry to William Massey, a Greensboro man of considerable wealth. Catesby remained in the county, became well known and died but a few years ago, an old man.

The Dulaney family, consisting of the mother, two brothers, William and Levin, a sister, lived above Seaford at what is now called Dulaney's Mill.

Planner Williams, owner of a small farm below Seaford, had a nice home on the river shore, raised a respectable family, Alfred and Frank, who are now old men.


Hudson Cannon lived on the Pea Liquor farm, had three sons, Londer, Peter, and Henry, and two daughters. One, Kitty, became the wife of Cornelius Prettyman and is the mother of Rev Cornelius Prettyman and Rev Thomas Prettyman.

This Ends Chapter III of the book, "History of Seaford".