Josiah G. Hulett's House -- Found

Josiah Hulett's old house, 1939
Over the summer, I did a post about Josiah G. Hulett which included information about a house that he and his family resided in for about ten or fifteen years. Thanks to Josiah's great-granddaughter, Jeanne Jackson Dell’Acqua, we knew a little about the house, but not everything. Jeanne was fairly sure that the house stood somewhere near (or most likely, on) the Hercules property off of Lancaster Pike and Hercules Road, but we didn't know for sure exactly what its location was. Now, we do. It was exactly where I thought it was -- I just couldn't find any proof until now.

The picture above is a close-up of an aerial photo taken in 1939 by the Dallin Aerial Survey Company, many of whose pictures can be found on the Hagley Museum website. Luckily for us, probably due to its connection with the DuPont Company, the site includes several pictures of the Hercules property dating to the late 1930's. Luckily, again, the pictures are of a fairly high resolution, which allows you to zoom in pretty tight. To refresh your memory, the picture below was the one of the house provided by Jeanne, and taken about 1920.


Here is one other close-up of a 1939 aerial shot.


The left one of the 1920 pictures is the front of the house, which faced towards the barn, and towards Lancaster Pike. The righthand picture is of the far side of the house (from the perspective of the aerials). To the left of the front view, you can see the side porch. If you want to explore the aerial pictures yourself, you can find them here and here.

And just to give a bit of perspective as to where the house actually sat, below is a modern aerial shot showing Lancaster Pike, Hercules Road, and the golf course. The blue outline indicates the former site of the house. The barn still stands (as far as I know) just above it.


In my mind, these pictures are pretty definitive in placing the Josiah G. Hulett House (or the R. Smithurst or John Peoples House, as it appears on the 1868 and the 1881 and 1893 maps) in the middle of what was the Hercules, and then for a time, the Delaware National, golf course. Since the house is still shown with the name John Peoples during and after the Huletts' living there, it seems likely that they rented the house from Peoples. This also fits, as Josiah's only surviving son was named Byron Carlton Peoples Hulett. All in all, and considering that this style of house doesn't seem too common in this area, I'm confident that the house shown in the aerial photos is the same as the one in the 1920 photos. It just took the luck of stumbling across the pictures to prove it.

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