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The Meeteer House For the first few posts here, we've stayed on the eastern side of MCH, but the hundred actually stretches all the way west to White Clay Creek on the eastern edge of Newark. So as not to slight the western portion of MCH, we'll now take a drive down Kirkwood Highway. While traveling west on Kirkwood Hwy, just before Possum Park Road, there sits on the right a shining white, 2 1/2 story Federal-style home. While the house currently serves as the Yasik Funeral Home, its history goes back much, much further. And while you wouldn't think to connect them now, this classy 5-bay, wood-frame house has direct ties to an significant, and recently lost, piece of Newark-area history. In the 1780's, a Quaker from Chester County named Thomas Meeteer moved to Delaware and established a paper mill along the banks of White Clay Creek. Known as the Milford Paper Mill, it was one of the largest operations in MCH, employing over 50 workers by 1820. When Thomas died in 181

Abram Chandler House In the last post, we took a look at the 3-story, fieldstone house that turned out to have been built within the shell of the 1815 Harlan grist mill. In this post, we'll turn our eyes to the other house in the complex, the Abram Chandler House. The dwelling is a 2 1/2 story brick structure, with five bays, a centered door, and three dormers. There is also a full-sized ell built onto the rear of the house. According to the 1987 DelDot report , Abram Chandler purchased the mill and property from the Harlan family in 1852, then conveyed the property the same year to Samuel Chandler, probably his son or brother. Samuel then sold the property back to Abram in 1863. It's unclear whether Samuel operated the mill during that 11 year period, or whether Abram did. It's quite likely, though, that sometime not long after 1863 Abram was looking for a larger, newer home. He built it, right next to his mill. The DelDot report goes no further than stating that the house

For my money, one of the most enjoyable aspects of studying local history is when you experience a "So that's what that is" moment. It might be a place name or street name suddenly making sense, or connecting a historical name with a place, or vice versa. It also can be finally learning the identity of something you've seen many times, but never knew the story behind. I had this experience a few days ago. I've lived almost my entire life very near the Milltown area, and even went to school there for four years (Go Rams!). Countless times have I driven (or run) by the two old houses at the southeast corner of Limestone Road and Milltown Road, but not until recently did I know their true history. Eventually I'll cover both structures that comprise the Harlan-Chandler Mill Complex, but for now, I'd like to focus on the building on the left -- the 3-story fieldstone house. In a later post, we'll look at the brick house. Although this beautiful structure i

When I started this blog last year, I had an idea in my head as to what I wanted it to be. Partially due to external factors, but also partially due to that original vision, I was not able to keep up on this site very well (OK, not at all). My original (and still current) idea for this blog was for it to be a clearinghouse of sorts for all things relating to the history of Mill Creek Hundred. To the best of my knowledge, there is precious little on the web right now about our local history. I want to change this. However, I've found that the first thing I've had to change was my way of going about it. My plan was to put out occasional posts (maybe one a week) detailing the background and history of a MCH site or structure. They would be long, comprehensive posts containing as much information as my grubby little hands could get a hold of. The Mermaid Tavern post is an example of what I set out to do. I think it's a good post, but it took far too long to do, and I ended up g

Happy Midsummer (or just after Midsummer). Today was close to the longest day of the year, and I spent close to five ours of it absorbed in San Francisco Opera's fabulous production of Die Walküre . Not precisely a midsummer opera, though it does include some glorious music about spring. A couple of years ago, I gave a Midsummer Night’s Dream party (what’s more fun than a party with a Shakespearean theme?). Rushing around doing party prep, I was listening to Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music (one of my favorite musicals), and I found myself thinking about the allure of stories set on midsummer nights. Shakespeare created a brilliant template with A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Under a midsummer moon, lovers find and lose each other, friends become enemies and back again, lines are blurred between classes and between fairies and mortals. Until recently, I didn’t realize how much one of my favorite plays and movies, The Philadelphia Story , owes to A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Th

I was recently talking with a group of fellow historical writers and was pretty much flabbergasted to find that I was the only one who finds the seemingly endless supply of anachronistic sleepwear bothersome. One writer was willing to go to the mattresses in defense of the red silk nighty. She said that even though she knows it’s “wrong”, it says “sexy” to a modern reader in a way that nothing else can. I find the entire concept depressing. The idea that accurate history is somehow not sexy enough, that it must be embellished and modernized in order to appeal to readers, verges on the insulting. I find it especially distressing that people would choose such specifically egregious errors to latch on to (it’s as though they’re throwing up their hands ecstatically and saying Sophia Coppola was right, what readers really want is a modern girl in a Halloween costume and high tops; stop jamming history down their throats!). To me, it seems ridiculous to even bother writing “historical ficti

My first encounter with prejudice occurred when I was in high school and a girls’ organization I belonged to blackballed an applicant - not because she was Japanese, but because she was Catholic! I attended an ethnically-mixed California public high school; the student body was a combination of Japanese (some Chinese), Mexican, and Caucasian kids, all of us Americans. What prejudice was I aware of? (1) Jealousy of the Asian kids because they tended to get superlative grades; (2) In-fighting among the Caucasian kids over status and who wore Lanz dresses and circle skirts; and (3) Envy of the manly Mexican “pachukos,” whose jeans hung around their hip bones and whose t-shirts sported cigarette packs rolled up in one sleeve. Which brings me to the subject of my current work in progress: Chinese immigration in the 19th century and the extreme reaction of the indigenous (which included a large number of Mexicans) population. Yes, the Chinese “looked” different ; but so did the dark-skinn

Here it is summertime and the days cry out to be enjoyed outside with picnics, barbeques, or an al fresco dinner with family and friends. Books tell about wonderful moments like these. Frankly, my favorite part of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is Lizzie’s vacation with her aunt and uncle when she discovers D’Arcy’s beautiful home and what kind of man he truly is. Isn’t it always easier to fall in love with somebody during fabulous weather? Authors pull bits and pieces from their own history to build their stories. Sometimes it’s big themes – like Hemingway’s autobiographical FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS – but more often, it’s the little bits of personal interest or family history that enrich a book. I’m talking about summer and food. But this post was actually inspired by the BBC’s broadcast of Jane Austen’s iPod . She must have adored music to spend so much time copying it out – and then working it into her novels. That casts a richer light on the ball scene in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, for example

I'm having much too much guilty, craftsy fun these days, as I put the finishing touches on my contribution to Brenda Novak's recently completed auction for diabetes research. It's Pam Rosenthal's Sense and Sensuality Gift Basket , a gleaning of the sweet and sexy scents and flavors evoked by certain moments in my romance novels. Moments like... ~ when Joseph, hero of The Bookseller's Daughter , wakes up in Marie-Laure's bed under bunches of herbs hung from the eaves to dry: He sniffed: rosemary and lavender. And something else, spicy as cinnamon, tart as lemon. A woman. The sheets of her bed smelled like her. (Which tiny excerpt is affixed -- with curly ribbon, naturellement -- to a little packet of chocolates, infused with rosemary and lavender, lemon and cinnamon. ~ Or when Phoebe, heroine of Almost a Gentleman , remembers what it was like the first time she kissed David, Earl of Linseley: ...sweet as toffee, heady as tobacco, dark as earth... (The curly

A recent Facebook exchange about character development with our own Tracy Grant inspired me to share our musings with you. The subject began with Talleyrand and quickly morphed into a brief discussion of the painting titled "Madame Grand" that hangs in the European collection of New York City's Metropolitan Museum. Painted in 1783 by one of the era's few female portraitists, Elisabeth Vigée LeBrun. Catherine Noelle Worlee was born in India in 1762 to a French official stationed in Pondicherry. And it was in India in 1778 where the (barely) sixteen-year-old Catherine wed George Francis Grand, a British civil servant who could boast of Huguenot (French Protestant) roots. Catherine was evidently quite the hoyden (I found a reference to her numerous "amorous adventures") both in London and Calcutta, leading me to suspect that she was perhaps the distaff version of an 18th-century rake. In fact, her affair with Sir Philip Francis, the deputy to India's Govern

Much that she played from was manuscript, copied out by herself – and so neatly and correctly, that it was as easy to read as print. Jane Austen's Ipod is the title of a radio program on Austen and her music that's currently available on the BBC site (but not for long, probably only until the end of the week, so get there soon!). Several more volumes of Austen's music have been donated by a descendant (who remembers seeing the volumes on the family piano) in addition to the eight already owned by the Jane Austen Museum , Chawton Cottage, Hampshire, where the BBC discussion was recorded, creaky floors and all, with scholars Deirdre La Faye and Samantha Carrasco, and the music interpreted by jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert and a very skilled clarinettist. The piano in the recording is the one in the Museum, which may or may not have been Austen's, a Clementi dating from the first decade of the nineteenth century. We know from her letters that she paid 30 gns for her piano

Kris Kennedy The Irish Warrior Inhibited, accountant-minded Senna de Valery comes to Ireland to finalize a deal that will save her faltering wool business. What she gets instead is a cunning English lord with dangerous ulterior motives. Forced to rely on her wits, not her ledgers, Senna frees an Irish warrior chained in the prisons, and together they flee across the war-torn land of medieval Ireland. But Finian O’Melaghlin is much more than a charming, roguish warrior. He is councilor to his king, on a grave mission to recover military secrets, and has a dangerous agenda of his own. Neither is prepared for the powerful forces arrayed against them … Neither can resist the fiery passion igniting between them … Neither can imagine the sacrifices they will face, nor the choices they will be forced to make … King and outlaws, weapons and war: Can love indeed triumph over all? The Irish Warrior was the 2008 Golden Heart® winner for Best Historical Romance, and is set in 12

Pam had a great post last year about period clothing in the wonderful movie Milk and the fascinating television show Mad Men and in historical fiction. As I blogged about around the same time, one of the things I loved about Milk was its wonderfully vivid recreation, in settings and costumes, of San Francisco in the 70. At times I felt I was watching scenes from my childhood. I recently caught up on seasons one and two of Mad Men and then was riveted to season three (and am now eagerly awaiting season four). It's a fascinating, layered show, that brings to life New York in the early 1960s. It's the era when my parents were dating and first married. I have pictures of them in similar clothes to those in the show, my dad in suits and ties and gleaming white shirts, my mom in fitted dresses and suits that required a girdle and a structured bra. By the time I remember them, in the 70s, my dad's version of formal was a turtleneck under a sports coat, and my mom usual

Margaret Mallory has had a very busy and rewarding year so far: her newest release , Knight of Passion , received 4 1/2 stars and a "Top Pick" from Romantic Times. She's also a 2010 RITA finalist for the middle book in the All The King's Men trilogy, Knight of Pleasure (which is also a Booksellers' Best Award finalist.) We've very pleased to chat with her today about her newest release. Margaret is also going to be giving away a copy of the book that kicks off this trilogy, Knight of Desire , to one lucky reader (KoD is was a Best 1st Book Finalist in both the 2010 Readers' Crown™ & Golden Quill Contests, so if you haven't yet read it, now is your chance!). HOW CAN THIS PASSIONATE KNIGHT… Renowned beauty Lady Linnet is torn between two desires: revenge on those who destroyed her family or marriage to her childhood sweetheart Sir James Rayburn. One fateful night, she makes a misguided choice: she sacrifices Jamie’s love for a chan