Honoring Quaker Roots
by Debbie Paruszewski
Special Newsletter Supplement - Friends of White Clay Creek State Park (FWCCSP RECORD, Vol. 4, No. 1, May 2001, p. 7)
The Chambers House today. (Photo courtesy of Thomas J. Hallenbeck.)
The choice of "Chambers House" as a name for the nature center at White Clay Creek State Park honors both the structure's original builder and his ancestors who were one of the first Quaker families to settle in the valley. The present structure was built by Joseph Chambers after 1819. It is likely that he was the great-grandson of John Chambers, a Quaker emigrant, and the first recorded individual of that surname in the region.
According to John Whiteclay Chambers II, a Rutgers University history professor and descendant, "In 1713, a yeoman farmer in Yorkshire named John Chambers, seeking to escape from religious persecution of Quakers in England, sold his farm and sailed with his family to William Penn's 'Holy Experiment' in Pennsylvania." He and his wife Deborah along with their five children arrived in Philadelphia in 1713. By 1715, John Chambers had settled on a plot of land on the White Clay Creek close to the present day Pennsylvania state line. In 1720, he purchased from David Lloyd, William Penn's agent, 664 acres along White Clay Creek, originally part of the "Hopyard" tract. He also purchased land on the west side of the creek. Upon John's death, the land was divided among his sons. His eldest son Richard married Elinor Miller of what is now Avondale, and they had at least two sons, John and Benjamin. Over the next two centuries, the descendants of John Chambers operated their farms, known as "Hopyard," "Hillvale," "Pennview," "Hillside," and "Hilltop," located along the White Clay Creek and what is now Chambers Rock Road.
It was a Benjamin Chambers who purchased 250 acres from David Evans in 1775, including the land on which the nature center stands. According to J. Thomas Scharf's History of Delaware, (1888), "previous to 1798, Benjamin Chambers erected a saw mill on White Clay Creek in the northwest part of the hundred." An 1810 census lists Benjamin Chambers, his wife, three sons, and four daughters as residents of White Clay Creek. Tax assessment records from 1816 value his holdings at $5,523 and describe a "good framed dwelling and unframed barn." It is clear that this is not the present nature center building, which must have been erected after this date. Upon Benjamin's death in 1819, his land was divided between two sons, Samuel and Joseph. Joseph received 100 acres, and according to Scharf, dismantled his father's mill. It was on this tract of land that the nature center was built, some time after 1819. Joseph and his family are listed as residents of White Clay Creek Hundred in the 1820, 1830, and 1840 census records.
Although much of the extended Chambers family retained their Quaker Meeting memberships, Joseph Chambers was not a Quaker. Members of the Chambers, Passmore, Thompson, and Sharpless families purchased land in Strickersville in 1827 where they built a meeting house which became London Britain Monthly Meeting. These family names are visible today on many of the tombstones standing in the meeting house cemetery on New London Road. Joseph's father, Benjamin Chambers, was a Quaker, according to park volunteer Jean Abplanalp in her research of unpublished abstracts for Kennett and New Garden Monthly Meetings. He was disowned from New Garden Monthly Meeting in 1772 for marrying Hannah Black out of unity. Hannah Black was also a member of New Garden Monthly Meeting, but they were married by a priest. Their son Joseph was never a member, since to be birthright, both parents of the child had to be members.
The procedure for an orderly Quaker marriage was for a couple to appear before the monthly meeting (the basic administrative unit in the Society of Friends) and express their intention to marry. Members were required to belong to the monthly meeting closest to their residence. Both bride and groom had to be members and it was the convention for the couple to be married "under the care" of the bride's home meeting if they belonged to different meetings. A committee checked into the couple's "clearness" to marry, to see that there were no previous commitments or obstacles, and that they had the permission of their parents. The couple then came before the monthly meeting a second time the following month and stated their intentions a second time. If everything was in order, they were given permission to marry. If the couple didn't want to go through this process and were instead married by paid clergy or civil license without permission of the meeting, they were reported as marrying out of unity. Another committee would meet with the couple and review the situation. If the member acknowledged his error and made an apology, the person could be retained or reinstated in membership.
Benjamin and Hannah did not appeal their membership. Although they may have continued to live a "Quakerly" lifestyle, they were no longer members and there is no further mention of them in the Quaker records. In addition to not appealing his membership, Benjamin Chambers (and his brother John) served with the Delaware militia during the American Revolution, another departure from his Quaker roots. His son, Joseph Chambers, did not request membership as an adult, although had he done so, he would likely have been accepted. It is probable that he retained close ties, however, with the Quaker community.
The property passed out of Chambers family hands from 1841 until it was purchased after 1920 by Mary Chambers Folwell when she inherited Chambers Rock Farms. Mary and her husband developed a thriving dairy farm of purebred Jersey milk cows grazing on their 508 acres. In 1938, they were among the first in the region to adopt modern agricultural practices such as contour plowing, diversion ditch arrangements, tree planting, and wildlife surveying as recommended by the new soil conservation program in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was Mrs. Folwell who added a modern addition to the Chambers House Nature Center, without compromising the architectural integrity of the original structure. She gave the house its nickname, "Stairways." It is due to this care and consideration that the building today is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. I like to think that she did this to honor her ancestors and their two hundred years of farming in the valley.