America’s 250th anniversary is rapidly approaching, and over those years the Spring Grove Mill House in Hockessin, DE, has nearly seen it all.
With unbelievable ties to major U.S. events spanning from the Revolutionary War to the first moon walk, the property has a unique place in American history. Were it not for the sleuthing skills of a former police investigator who happens to be the current owner, this home’s fascinating story might have remained buried.
“When my wife Florence and I purchased the Spring Grove Mill House in 2017, we had no idea of the home’s historic significance,” says David E. Deputy, a former captain with the Delaware State Police and a retired brigadier general with the Delaware Air National Guard.
The couple had hoped to retire in an old home constructed before electricity, indoor plumbing, cars, and phones. Though in need of serious renovation, this beautiful six bedroom, 4.5 bath, 4,000-square-foot home set on just over seven acres fit the bill.
However, it wasn’t until a year after their purchase when he was gifted a historical map from 1868 that included his new home—from which he learned the dwelling was actually constructed in the early 1800s and was formerly a mill—that Deputy’s curiosity was sparked and he found himself on a historical path of discovery.
“The investigative skills I practiced as a trooper proved to be valuable in conducting research into the history of Spring Grove,” says Deputy. “However, this time it was like solving a 250-year-old cold case.”
By digging through county deeds, tax records, old maps, archives, newspaper clippings, ancestry sites, talking to former residents, and even studying cannonballs found in the area, Deputy was able to uncover a fascinating line of American history that ran right through his Spring Grove home.
Deputy’s thorough research led to the publication of his new book, “The Spring Grove Mill House: The Home With the Most Ties to American History.” However, he is quick to emphasize the word “ties” in the subtitle since not all of the history linked to Spring Grove happened on site.
Nonetheless, as we stand on the cusp of the United States semiquincentennial celebration on July 4, the journey of this home is a perfect reflection on how many major events have transpired over this nation’s first 250 years.
The scene of a tide-turning Revolutionary War event
On Sept. 8, 1777, General George Washington and 11,000 members of the Continental Army were pursuing British forces that were headed north to seize Philadelphia following the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge in Delaware. At the same time, General George Weedon advanced his brigade to a hillside east of Mill Creek, DE, where a clash broke out that included British and American sharpshooters exchanging shots.
Known as “General George Weedon’s foray at Spring Grove,” the incident may have helped turn the tide of the Revolutionary War by serving as a distraction that allowed George Washington to pinpoint the exact location of British forces. He was then able to make strategic adjustments with his troops before the pivotal Battle of Brandywine that occurred three days later.
And that foray happened right on the property where the Spring Grove Mill House now sits.
“One day I found a Revolutionary War map online,” says Deputy. “There was a yellow flash on the map that covered the exact location of the Spring Grove Mill House—our current home—that showed combat happened here in 1777.”
Deputy’s discovery led him to even more about the interaction Weedon had with the redcoats on his property. What he learned was that without the distraction of Weedon’s foray, the British probably would have captured Philadelphia without resistance.
“Such an outcome would have caused embarrassment and caused hesitancy for the French to fully support Washington, which was a major factor in winning the war,” explains Deputy.
In 2023, the State of Delaware put a historical marker to commemorate the foray on the property of the Spring Grove Mill House, which Deputy helped to facilitate.
But this thread to the American Revolution was only the first of many historical connections for this property.
Cotton ties the mill to the War of 1812 and wool to the Civil War
Though the home had been advertised as having been built in 1880, through his research Deputy discovered it was actually constructed much earlier.
The first house was built on the Spring Grove site in the early 1700s in conjunction with a sawmill. In 1787 the milling operation expanded into two operational mills by adding a gristmill.
“Our home, the Spring Grove Mill House, was built in 1813 while the War of 1812 was raging,” Deputy tells Realtor.com®. “The war caused the price of cotton to skyrocket because the British Navy blockaded U.S. ports and at that time the U.S. would ship raw cotton to Europe to be manufactured into cloth and sold back into the U.S.”
As such, there were not enough cotton mill factories to keep up with the demand. To take advantage of this, banks were willing to fund the development of cotton mill factories knowing they would be profitable. That generous funding is what led to the construction of the Spring Grove Mill House, which became the centerpiece of a small village surrounded by the new cotton mill factory, five small stone homes for mill workers, and a barn.
Then a few years before the Civil War, the owner at that time converted the mill to a woolen factory. “This led to a contract with the Union Army to manufacture Kersey wool for blankets and outwear,” says Deputy.
The Civil War connections also extended beyond uniforms and supplies for the Army.
The driveway of the Spring Grove Mill House was once a road that followed along Mill Creek, which also formed a narrow passage in between the Spring Grove Mill House and the cotton mill factory. Deputy discovered that this was once a pathway for the Underground Railroad all the way through the mid-1800s.
“The next mill less than a mile upstream from Spring Grove was a confirmed safe house,” adds Deputy.
Gambling led to a connection with JFK’s assassination
In 1891, there was a suspicious fire at the mill and after 140 years of milling operations, it was never used for those purposes again. However, the home’s history didn’t stop when the milling abated. It simply entered a new phase.
Most notably, the home was purchased by Donald Ross and Wilhelmina Du Pont after the stock market crash in 1929, along with 2,000 more adjoining acres. Thus began what’s known as the Du Pont Ross era of Spring Grove, which lasted for over five decades.
During that time, the Du Pont Ross clan managed to get the state of Delaware to change its constitution to allow gambling. That led to them building Delaware Park, a thoroughbred racetrack that welcomed 20,000 visitors daily throughout the 1900s.
They also raised and trained horses on their land through Brandywine Stables, with one of their horses, Greek Money, winning the Preakness Stakes by a scant nose in 1962.
One of their trainers, Joe Clancy, who lived on the Spring Grove property, had also served in the Marines with JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in Japan in 1958. Incensed that Oswald would assassinate the president he loved, Clancy apparently left Delaware with a friend to head to Dallas with plans to take out Oswald himself.
“They got arrested in Tennessee buying guns and ended up in jail while Oswald was murdered,” says Deputy, but they and their families still tell the story today. However, it sounds like they literally dodged a bullet.
“At one point after discovering all this old history, I thought to myself, is this house going to be connected in some way with the Kennedy assassination and the Apollo moon landing,” says Deputy. Turns out, it was.
Wilhelmina du Pont Ross sold the Spring Grove Mill House property to the Winton Blount family in 1977.
Winton was the CEO of his father’s construction company, Blount International. They specialized in high tech government projects and built launchpad 39A for the Apollo program.
Apollo 11 launched from that launchpad in 1969—the space flight that put Neil Armstrong on the moon.
Continuing the story while saving the history
Now that the story continues with his family, Deputy says he feels a certain responsibility to preserve it for future generations.
With the painstaking renovations that he and his wife have undertaken (to the tune of $70,000), the home is now physically restored to its past glory. But perhaps just as exciting for Deputy is the history that he uncovered.
“An intentional byproduct of writing this book is to motivate and teach readers how to uncover the history of a home,” says Deputy.
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