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I think it's been a while since we've been in the Hockessin area, so I thought we'd take a quick look at one of Mill Creek Hundred's historic houses hiding in Hockessin (also, it seems to be Alliteration Day). Sitting on the north side of Valley Road, about half way between Limestone Road and Lancaster Pike, is the Dixon-Wilson House, one of the oldest in the area. Sometimes, I think, people tend to think of Hockessin as a bit of a newer area, relatively speaking. There is some truth to this, since Hockessin as an organized town didn't really take off until later in the 19th Century, well behind such earlier centers as Stanton, Marshallton, Milltown, or Brackenville. It got its economic steam from the kaolin mining industry, and has even been likened to a western boom town in the late 1800's. However, the roots of settlement in the area go back much further, back to the beginnings of English occupation of what would be Mill Creek Hundred. One of the original fam...

Prompted by the recent comment on the Fell Spice Mill post  by a descendant of several workers at the mill, blog reader and occasional information-provider Donna Peters decided to do a little electronic digging, and she came up with a few things that I thought were rather interesting. I don't think I have too much to say about them, but I'll share them with everyone here. The first, and to me, the most interesting, is the bottle shown on the right. It is a full, unopened bottle of "Borneo Ginger" from CJ Fell and Bros. I've seen empty Fell's bottles online a few times, but I had never seen a full one before. I'm not sure if there's any way to be certain that the contents of this bottle were ground at the mill at Faulkland, but I assume that that's the likely scenario. If so, there's even a chance that they were processed by Leonard, George, or James Woodward, the ancestors of the commenter. For what it's worth, according to "The Grocer...

So sorry to have missed Leslie's last post about writing sex. I've been away from the web for the most part, trying to get get a little ahead on my writing while prepare to head east, first to stop briefly at the Romance Writers of America National Conference in NY and then -- big smile -- to head down to Baltimore for my son's wedding. But when I'm not being a proud, ecstatic Jewish mother of the groom and a kvelling recent grandma (there's a complicated contemporary story here, of course), I'm happy and proud to be called a "master ( or mistress) of the powerfully erotic sex scene." Thanks, Leslie, and thanks too, since I missed the discussion, for giving me the topic for this post, which is a more extensive take on how I do it. First and foremost by spending an inordinate amount of time and effort on it. Not so much searching for the right words for particular acts or body parts (though that's tricky, particularly in a historical setting), b...

As some of you may have noticed, a new page went up on the Mill Creek Hundred History Blog yesterday (I think that's what they call a "soft opening".) It's something that I've been wanting to do (or at least start) for quite a while now -- cemetery pictures. Here's what I wrote as a quick intro on the page: One of the greatest resources we have for researching history and genealogy, or just for feeling a tangible link to the past, is cemeteries. Here in Mill Creek Hundred, we're fortunate to have several cemeteries that contain burials dating back to the 1700's, and which hold the final resting places of a large portion of the hundred's 18th and 19th Century residents. This page contains links to photos of many of their headstones. This is by no means a comprehensive catalog, and will be a work in progress for quite some time. If you have any corrections or additions to this collection, feel free to chime in on the Forum or email me directly. I...

So I have finally reached the point in the manuscript of my novel-in-progress where the heroine and her about-to-be-lover are going to consummate their star-crossed romance. It's 300 pages into the narrative (much else is going on, as it is based on historical events) and as I search for all the right words I also began to second-guess myself. Have the characters earned this? Have I shown them earning it in their previous scenes? And what about the words themselves? Am I being overly lyrical? Too overtly graphic for a historical setting? Are my sentences reading mawkish or maudlin? Am I feeling what my characters are feeling? Some of the hoydens are masters (mistresses?) of the powerfully erotic sex scene (I'm talking to you, Pam and Isobel). Do you (and the other hoydens, and our visiting authors) ever struggle with the words, or do you find writing sex scenes one of the easier aspects of crafting your novels? From a craft standpoint, do you have any rules you apply to your sc...

I realized that it's been a while since I've done a post highlighting one of the resources I regularly use in my own research for this site. I while back, I wrote a bit about Scharf's 1888 History of Delaware , but now I'd like to look at a slightly different work, from about the same time. The Biographical and Genealogical History of the State of Delaware was published in 1899 by J.M. Runk & Co. of Chambersburg, PA. Much like Scharf's work, Runk's can be an invaluable resource -- so long as you only take it for what it is. And thanks to Google, part of it is now free and online. Runk's is somewhat of an odd work, but useful in its oddness. It was published in two volumes, totalling around 1,400 pages. Volume 1 , which is the one currently available for free through Google Books, starts off with an almost 80 page general history of the state, most focusing on the early period of settlement and colonization. After that, it goes on for about another 100 pa...

Charlotte Bronte's, Jane Eyre is turned into yet another movie adapted from the 1847 novel---and for those of you who haven't seen it, oh, what a movie! I've always been a fan of Jane Eyre. She is such a strong, independent heroine who respects herself and has pride in who she is though she lacks wealth, beauty, or social status. The latest film adaptation of the novel is true (almost) to the original plotline and feels so authentic it would move even those who would not ordinarily be drawn into period pieces. The director, Cary Fukunaga, brilliantly cast Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre and Michael Fassbender as Rochester. What an amazing pair. Mia Wasikowska looks at home in her corset and plain, business-like clothes but at the same time, exudes passion and moral character---there is a bright light behind those soulful eyes, a light that is impossible to overlook. Fassbender is effortlessly sexy---the perfect Mr. Rochester. One of the first conversations they have in the draw...

 Thomas Rankin, Jr.'s Yellow Hall  Interestingly, there are at least two examples in Mill Creek Hundred of historic houses sitting today in the middle of golf courses. And since it seems like we haven't visited the western reaches of MCH for a while, I thought we'd take a look at one of these, a home sitting between the fairways of the Deerfield Golf Club (or Louviers, for you older DuPonters). The house in question was known as Yellow Hall, and I believe it is the only remaining historical link in the area to the Rankin family, once a highly-regarded clan in western MCH and northern White Clay Creek Hundred. But, due to emigration from the area and a phenomenon I have yet to see to this degree in any other local family, the Rankins more or less faded away by the early 20th Century (although I'm sure there are a few around linked to this part of the family). The first of his family to settle in our area was Joseph Rankin (1704-1764), a Scots-Irish emigre who came to t...

Malcolm nodded and turned his horse. Men and horses littered the ground, wounded, dying, dead. Bullets sang through the air, shells exploded, cannon rumbled. Beneath his coat, his shirt was plastered to his skin. The smell of blood and powder, the screams of men and horses, the sight of gaping wounds and blown off limbs had become monotonous reality. He steered his horse round two dead dragoons sprawled over the body of a horse with the lower part of its face shot off. That’s a quote from Imperial Scandal , which I’m currently in the midst of revising. Imperial Scandal begins in a world much like that of my recent book Vienna Waltz at a ball given by the British ambassador in Brussels with champagne and waltzes. But that glittering world teeters in the brink of war as the Allied army waits in Brussels for Napoleon to march from Paris. The glamorous world of the British ex-patriates in Brussels is shattered at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball with the confirmation that the ...

In my last post , I mentioned that Jackson C. Waite, a previous occupant of the Hugh Finlay Duplex, apparently disappeared after 1915. Thanks to the internet, it did not take any special training or rare talent for me to find out what happened to him. There wasn't enough space to share what I found out in that previous post, but I think it's worth a separate post. * * * * * The last time Waite appeared in the Detroit city directory was 1915, in which he is listed at 307 (now 2255) Wabash. When searching for his name on Ancestry.com, the first post-1915 document I came across was a voter registration list from Glendale, California in 1916. Because "Jackson C. Waite" is such a rare name*, I knew this was very likely our man. As you probably noticed in the image above, there is a Mrs. Carrie A. Waite living at the same address. I searched the next census (from 1920) for a Jackson and Carrie Waite in Glendale, California, and found this: This is the same couple. Her...

There's been a bunch of talk about this first image on the Beau Monde loop this week (this is a yahoo group for Regency Romance writers). As the image doesn't appear to be available online, and I own Sex in Georgian England by A.D. Harvey, I thought I'd share it (sadly it's just a phone pic, as my scanner doesn't work with my new computer and I haven't got around to buying a new one). Quality control at the condom warehouse , c.1744. The man behind the table is a clergyman, who is apparently blessing the wares. The girl is blowing them up, looking for leaks. Period condoms were made of sheep gut (intestine) and were sold in envelopes, inside boxes. They were dry, and had to be soaked in water before use (not exactly spontaneous) and they were not normally used to prevent pregnancy, but by men who didn't want to contract a disease from the whores they slept with. The length of intestine was closed at one end with thread, and was held in place on the man...

A friend (bless him!) recently sent me a box of Godiva chocolates. After the first gooey, delicious bite, I got to thinking about the name Godiva and how interesting it is for a chocolatier to choose that name for his product! Which leads me to... Lady Godiva . The historical Godiva, or Godgifu, was an 11th century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who pressured her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, into relieving the tax burden on his people. She nagged and nagged until he finally said, “If you will ride naked through the streets of Coventry, I will lift the taxes.” So she did, and he did, and thus the legend was born. At least that’s the story. Roger of Wendover, writing at the end of the 12th century, credits Godiva with this feat, but modern scholars dispute it, pointing out that the story was highly romanticized by Tennyson in the Victorian era and the whole tale was probably an embroidered tale about a simple shopping trip to town. But if Godgifu did ride naked through the town, wha...

As we saw in the last post , the Brandywine Chalybeate Springs Hotel, built in 1826 by Justa Justis and owned by a group of Quaker businessmen from Wilmington, was easily the grandest entertainment venture launched in Mill Creek Hundred in the 19th Century. Only three years in, it was already receiving its first expansion. Prior to the 1830 season, the hotel was enlarged, lengthening the piazza and increasing the number of rooms to nearly 100. However, even with all these improvements, the hotel was still not making the kind of money its investors had hoped. After taking an additional loan to make the 1830 upgrades, the Brandywine Chalybeate Springs Company was in bad financial shape. The company was in such debt, in fact, that in August 1833 they were forced to sell the resort and grounds at what must have been a painful loss. So, who could afford to buy a resort hotel that a group of the wealthiest men in Wilmington could not afford to keep? One of the richest men in Philade...

As we've seen in a few earlier posts, there were, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, a number of hotels, taverns, and inns in Mill Creek Hundred. There was, however, only one true resort hotel -- Brandywine Springs. When constructed in the 1820's, the Brandywine Chalybeate Springs Hotel was probably the largest building in the hundred, and certainly the most lavish. In fact, it may have been the largest non-industrial building in MCH until well into the 20th Century. And though it never operated as successfully as its backers had hoped and eventually came to an untimely end, it left a mark on the area felt to this day. The land on which the hotel sat, at the corner of Newport Gap Pike and Faulkland Road, was owned in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries by the Yarnall family, who operated there an inn known as the Conestoga Wagon. By the early 1800's, Holton Yarnall was deeply in debt, and he unsuccessfully tried to sell his property several times. In 1827, th...

Yesterday I escaped from the summer heat and spent time with Johnny Depp. His celluloid double, that is. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides at the local cinema. Johnny Depp was, of course, delightful and the rest of the scenery was engaging. To my fascination, the opening scenes were shot in London and I found myself trying to pick up small pointers for historical flavor. (Are there any lengths an author won’t go to justify playing hooky?) Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp’s character, made fools of the judicial system in a very interesting courtroom and dined with King George in a lavishly decorated palace. After that, he led a cavalry troop on a hair-raising chase through London’s streets, before finally dumping a wagonload of fiery coals across their feet to escape. Coals? That many? In the late seventeeth or early eighteenth century? My historian’s nose pricked up. Just how common were coal-fired stoves close to the royal palace at that time? And come ...

In my last post , I promised I'd tell you what the Plum Room is -- because I hadn't yet found out about it myself. All I knew that it was one of many in the house that's the subject of the book I was enjoying so much -- At Home: A Short History of Private Life , in which the popular historian Bill Bryson takes us on a virtual tour of the rooms and sundry recesses of his house in England, for an delightfully informative and thoroughly engaging ramble through the byways of (mostly) modern western history. Bryson, by the way, is much more than "just" a popular historian: if you check out his Wikipedia entry , prepare to be gobsmacked by the breadth of his occupations and accomplishments. In any event, so engaged and delighted was I by this most recent book of his (even if it did sting to have a hitherto unsuspected anachronism in my novel Almost a Gentleman exposed) that I rushed to blog about it in mid-tour. Breathless from a trek through the hall, kitchen, sculle...

 Remains of the Yearsley Barn Mill Creek Hundred, like every region of Delaware (or anywhere else, for that matter), has had certain families who you would call the "movers and shakers". Around here, those would be clans like the Eastburns, Marshalls, Cranstons, Montgomerys, and others. But moving past these families, you find a lot of smaller families whose names may not be quite as familiar, but whose history in the area goes just as deep. One family that certainly fits this description is the Yearsleys, who for at least a century and a half (and maybe more) lived and worked along the northern end of Duncan Road, just south of Red Clay Creek Presbyterian, where many of them now lie. We're also lucky enough to have one of their homes, as well as the remains of another structure, still standing today. Now, because the Yearsley family was never particularly large or high profile in the area, there is very little written about this part of their family. I have, however...