Smyrna times., 1908-08-12
DAYS RECALLED ON
BLACKBIRD CREEK
w. A. HUKILL OF WHINING
TON WRITES OF OLD DAYS
Tells of Incidents on The Log
Landing Farm, Blackbird Creek
And Other Familiar Places

do Ouih DUSu vi Wnlcn we nave
touched, at least it proves of great
interest to me whenever l have an
opportunity to visit that neighbor-
hood. l was born in the old
house on the farm now occupied by
one of the Johnson brothers and ex-
actly opposite to the Log Landing
farm, but was taken there by my
father in infancy-in thirty-seven or
eight, (1800, and was raised and
lived there till l was married in
1859 and went to live on the lower
section for we had divided the old
tract and built another house on that
portion now occupied by Mrs. CHM
in 1850 and occupied by another one
Of the Johnson brothers. l built the
house which is now on the old farm
property and pulled the old original
down with my own hands in 1868,
portion of which was drawn by
brother when eighteen years old with
a pencil and which was joked about
as his first effort at sketching from
which Mr.. Hammitt of Wilmington
made me pen picture which hangs
on our wall now and which [ greatly
prize.
It's perfect facsimile of the old
farm house. always slept in the
kitchen which was never plastered
and never had any sash or window
glass in it but simply inclosed by a
solid wooden shutter and rlany were
the times when l tip-toed it around
in my bare feet in the snow drifts
to get down stairs to make the fire
in the morning and many times have
/ trotted along behind my uncle,
Henry Hukill, across the swamps to
school when l could not button my
own trousers. There was not barn
or granary that would hold loose
grain in the neighborhood and when
they threshed their grain they had
to use some part of the dwelling
house till they could get off to
market with it and the first barn in
that section was built on the Log
Landing farm after it had passed
out of the hands of the Townsend
sand owned by a William Hyatt of
Philadelphia, in 1916. l know the
lumber was sent from Philadelphia
on a sloop up Blackbird creek and
carpenters John Nicholas and Moses
Coats boarded with our people while
they built it and would work all day
and walk four miles to the Methodist
meeting at old Union Church at
night. That barn is still there.
found out few weeks ago when
was down in that section, started
from Greenspring and went around
by Prior Corner and started in on
the Thoroughfare Neck road and by
the old Stephenson farm, where l
got my wife and owned by her
father, and found as a tenant one of
the johnson brothers and from there
to the CHM farm where my wife and
/ went to housekeeping in 1859,
where I found another of the Johnson
brothers as a tenant, and from there
to the old farm proper which had
been divided by Ananias Ennis when
he was owner, where l found more
of the johnson brothers occupying
and owning them, and a further
peculiarity is that the father of
therse boys had occupied the old
farm as tenant under me as owner in
1868, and when the boys were kids.
Some of the timber land on the road
from Blackbird to Gum Bush remains
about the same as sixty or seventy
years ago. But the changes wrought
in the farms and farming are Sc
great that any one can hardly
recognize that it is the same. The
farms are all we'll fenced and nicely
farmed, the buildings are in gooC
shape and the farms are productive
a new house on Log Landing, fin'
large farm. and good outbuildings OF
Shading Point, also new houses ant
outbuildings on the old Bennett
tract, are all looking prosperous.
One of the boys ambitions those
days was to arrive at the front whel
he could have a pair of large boot
as the boy did not wear shoes all tn
wear round as now. They had
Sunday pair and in the fall of tn
year when the nights were getting
cool he was allowed to put his Sun
day shoes on in the morning for
while till the sunshine warmed u
things little and they were pulle
off again until the next morning
Many times when we would be ou
milking the cows in the mornin
have l made the old cow get u
from her roosting place to warm m
feet in the spot where she had bee
lying, and one of the boys creates
pleasures was setting box traps
the fall of the year to catch rabbits