Shipley--Bringhurst--Hargraves family papers

Shipley, Bringhurst, and Hargraves are the family names associated with Rockwood, a Victorian Rural Gothic Revival mansion and estate that was built in North Wilmington, Delaware, between 1851 and 1854. The Hargraves were the last family to privately own Rockwood before its donation to New Castle County in the mid-1970s as a historic house museum and public park.

Sources:

Leach, Josiah Granville. History of the Bringhurst Family; with Notes on the Clarkson, De Peyster and Boude Families. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1901.

Mickey, Thomas J. America's Romance with the English Garden. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2013.

Additional information derived from research notes compiled by the Friends of Rockwood.

Other information and biographical materials derived from the collection.

The builder of Rockwood was Joseph Shipley, Jr. (1795-1867), a descendant of prominent Quakers and early founders of Wilmington who made his fortune in transatlantic merchant banking out of Liverpool, England. Joseph Shipley, Jr., was the ninth of ten surviving children born to Joseph Shipley, Sr. (1752-1832), and Mary Levis (d. 1843). The elder Joseph Shipley inherited the Brandywine Mill property of his father, Thomas Shipley (1718-1789), and prospered in that business.

Joseph Shipley, Jr., attended Westtown School and began work in the Philadelphia counting house of his cousin, Samuel Canby. Shipley worked for Philadelphia merchant James Welsh by 1819, traveling south into Virginia and North Carolina to buy notes from banks for Welsh's firm. He sailed to Liverpool on October 20, 1819, for what was supposed to have been a short trip on behalf of Welsh. The lucrative transatlantic trade kept him in Liverpool for the next thirty years, and he returned to America only three times (in 1826, 1841, and 1847) before his retirement in 1850.

By 1822, Shipley headed the firm Shipley, Welsh & Co., and bore responsibility for all of Welsh's cargoes sent to Liverpool. In 1825, he joined in a limited partnership with the firm William and James Brown & Co., and also continued to conduct business as Shipley, Welsh & Co. These businesses thrived on shipment of American cotton for Lancashire mills, but also profited in merchant banking, granting credits and buying and selling foreign exchange. Transatlantic financial and business crises of 1837 greatly affected Shipley's personal finances. He was eventually made a participating partner in all four of the Brown houses of business. The name of the English house was changed to Brown, Shipley & Co., which continued operations as a private British bank into the 21st century.

Joseph Shipley, Jr., lived in Liverpool from 1819 until 1850 or 1851, when he retired from his career and returned to the Brandywine area to complete the building of Rockwood. Inspired by Shipley's Gothic/Italianate home, Wyncote, located in the village of Allerton, near Liverpool, the Rockwood mansion house was designed by English architect George Monier Williams. Joseph Shipley reportedly visited the site of land that he would acquire for Rockwood when he visited Delaware in 1847. Shipley corresponded frequently with his brother Samuel Shipley, as well as with his nephew Thomas S. Newlin, both of whom helped manage affairs in Delaware and conducted numerous land acquisitions that would comprise the Rockwood estate. Shipley's nephew Edward Bringhurst, Sr., supervised building negotiations and contracts in his uncle's absence.

Upon his return to Delaware, Joseph Shipley, Jr., became known for the horticultural development of the Rockwood estate and was elected as a vice-president of the Delaware Horticultural Society.

Shipley died in 1867. His will allowed his sisters to live in Rockwood until their deaths, but provided that when the last sister died the estate would be liquidated and all proceeds would be divided equally amongst his nieces and nephews (Shipley never married and had no children). Sarah Shipley Bringhurst (1812-1896), niece of Joseph Shipley, Jr., and mother of Edward Bringhurst, Jr. (1835-1912), used her share of the estate proceeds to purchase the Rockwood house, property, and many of the furnishings for her son. The Bringhurst family moved into Rockwood in 1892, after the death of Hannah Shipley (1801-1891), the last surviving sister of Joseph Shipley, Jr. (1795-1867).

The Pre-Rockwood Bringhursts comprise the ancestors of Edward Bringhurst, Jr., and Anna James Webb Bringhurst who acquired the Rockwood mansion from the estate of Joseph Shipley, Jr. Primary amongst these early ancestors were Dr. Joseph Bringhurst (1767-1834) and his wife Deborah Ferris Bringhurst (1773-1844), both of whom were prominent in religious, social, intellectual, and political circles throughout their lives. Papers related to the Pre-Rockwood era Bringhursts provide rich documentation of Quaker families active in the post-Revolutionary, early Federal period of American history in Wilmington and Philadelphia.

The Bringhurst family moved into Rockwood in 1892, after the death of Hannah Shipley (1801-1891), the last surviving sister of Joseph Shipley, Jr. (1795-1867). Joseph Shipley's will allowed his sisters to live in Rockwood until their deaths, but provided that when the last sister died the estate would be liquidated and all proceeds would be divided equally amongst his nieces and nephews (Shipley never married and had no children). Sarah Shipley Bringhurst (1812-1896), niece of Joseph Shipley, Jr., and mother of Edward Bringhurst, Jr. (1835-1912), was able to use her share of the estate proceeds to purchase the Rockwood house, property, and many of the furnishings for her son.

The two generations of Bringhurst family members who lived in the Rockwood estate were Edward Bringhurst, Jr., and his wife Anna James Webb (1843-1923), and their four children: Elizabeth Shipley Bringhurst Galt Smith (1863-1932), Mary Thomas Bringhurst (1865-1965), Edith Ferris Bringhurst (1874-1947), and Edward Bringhurst V (1884-1939).

Edward Bringhurst, Jr. (1835-1912), was the eldest child of Edward Bringhurst, Sr. (1809-1884), and Sarah Shipley Bringhurst (1812-1896), and the great nephew of Joseph Shipley, Jr. (1795-1867). As a young man, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Young Men's Association of Wilmington. He married Anna James Webb in April 1862. Bringhurst initially succeeded his father as a pharmacist in the family practice on Market Street in Wilmington, Delaware, which he continued until 1876. Bringhurst’s only sibling who survived childhood, brother Ferris Bringhurst (born 1837), died in a gas explosion at the pharmacy in 1871.

Edward Bringhurst, Jr., married Anna James Webb (1843-1923), the daughter of another prominent local Quaker family, on April 22, 1862. Anna and Edward had four children: Elizabeth Shipley Bringhurst (born 1863), Mary Thomas Bringhurst (born 1865), Edith Ferris Bringhurst (born 1874), and Edward Bringhurst V (born 1884).

In 1892, Edward Bringhurst, Jr., purchased the Rockwood house, property, and much of the furnishings from the estate of Joseph Shipley with the financial help of his mother, Sarah Shipley Bringhurst (a beneficiary of Joseph Shipley), and moved his family there shortly after.

As a Wilmington businessman, Bringhurst served at various times as director of the Wilmington Savings Fund Society; president of the New Castle County Fire Insurance Company; president of the Wilmington and Great Valley Turnpike, Wilmington and Philadelphia, and Wilmington and Kennett Turnpike Companies; director of the Huntington and Broad Top Railroad and Coal Company, and the Front and Union Passenger Railway Company of Wilmington; and as a member of the Delaware Historical Society. Bringhurst was also a practicing Quaker and a member and trustee of the Wilmington Monthly Meeting of Friends.

Edward Bringhurst, Jr., died in 1912.

Anna James Webb Bringhurst (1843-1923) was the daughter of Thomas Dutton Webb (1810-1898) and Mary H. James Webb (1818-1873) of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Two of Anna’s siblings were Frank Thomas Webb (born 1850) and Richard H. Webb (1840-1864). Richard H. Webb became a Union soldier in the American Civil War and was killed in the Battle of Cold Harbor in 1864. Anna married Edward Bringhurst, Jr., in April 1862, and together they attended the Wilmington Friends monthly meeting. Anna also worked for the Friends’ Benevolent Society and was president of the organization for many years. She was involved with Rockwood finances, and many Bringhurst family checks and receipts are in her name.

Elizabeth Shipley Bringhurst Galt Smith (1863-1932) was the eldest child of Edward Bringhurst, Jr., and Anna James Webb Bringhurst. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1863, she was commonly referred to as “Bessie” in family papers and correspondence. Bessie married the widower John Galt Smith (1843-1899), a linen merchant twenty years her senior, on June 1, 1886. Galt Smith had two children from his previous marriage, Florence K. Smith (born 1874) and George Kennedy Smith (born 1881). Bessie and her husband split their time between living in New York City and Ireland, generally spending June to August in Ireland and the rest of the year in America.

In Ireland, the Galt Smiths first lived in "Meadowbank," a house in a suburb north of Belfast. In 1891, John Galt Smith signed a thirty-year lease on Kilwaughter Castle, ancestral home of the Galt family, in Larne, Ireland. After her husband died in 1899, Bessie continued to live at Kilwaughter during the summer and in America in the winter. Over her remaining years at Kilwaughter, Bessie’s parents and siblings intermittently visited her in Ireland and traveled with her in Europe.

Bessie’s personal correspondence indicates that she considered herself to be a lady of high social standing and refinement. Even during her time in Ireland, her tastes (honed by her connections to British high society) strongly informed how the Bringhurst family decorated Rockwood, as well as their clothing choices. Much of her correspondence is filled with advice and critiques related to fashion, manners, and matters of style.

Bessie traveled to Ireland in June of 1914 and became stranded due to the onset of hostilities leading to World War I. She was unable to book safe passage back to America until 1919. During the war years Elizabeth continued to be in frequent communication with her family back home in Wilmington. Letters from this period detail her relationships with her servants and the management of a large estate during wartime. The letters from this time offer an unusually detailed glimpse into the lives of servants and workers on a large Irish estate in the early 20th century. Bessie came to know many of her servants quite well and included many details of their personal lives in letters back to her family in America.

The letters also offer insight into Bessie’s experience with the Ulster Women's Unionist Council and her connections to important Unionists, including Colonel James McCalmont and his wife, Emily Anne Martin McCalmont. Bessie's intention to sub-lease Kilwaughter to the McCalmonts was obstructed by the onset of World War I in Europe. During war-time, Bessie also made Kilwaughter available as a convalescent facility for injured officers and organized and hosted weekly sewing parties of local gentry and local farmer's wives to provide clothing and other cloth goods for use by military hospitals.

After the end of World War I, the deteriorating security situation caused by the escalating Irish Civil War prompted Bessie to vacate Kilwaughter. Many possessions were removed with her back to America, and the rest were sold at auction. Bessie moved back to Delaware in 1922 and lived at Rockwood for the remainder of her life, where she and her sister Mary Thomas Bringhurst entertained guests with extensive dinner parties. The details of these are documented through guest lists and place cards that can be found in Subseries II.B.9.

Bessie died in 1932.

Mary Thomas Bringhurst (1865-1965) was the second child of Edward Bringhurst, Jr., and Anna James Webb Bringhurst. Mary Thomas Bringhurst never married, and lived in Rockwood from when her grandmother and her father bought the estate in 1892 until her death, at which point she willed Rockwood to her niece, Nancy Bringhurst Sellers Hargraves (1898-1972). Near the end of her life, Mary Thomas Bringhurst made clear to her niece her "primary desire to preserve the beauty of Rockwood," both mansion and estate, even if it had to be accomplished by a "transfer to a public or private body politic or institution."

Mary's life spanned a century from the end of the Civil War until the era of the Civil Rights Movement. As keeper of the family home and heritage, Mary instilled a love of the Rockwood property and family history in her favored niece, Nancy, who with her husband, Gordon Hargraves, preserved the Rockwood legacy. Series III., Hargraves family papers, further documents Mary's personal relations and legal arrangements with the Hargraves.

Mary Thomas Bringhurst was a member of the Delaware Historical Society, the Colonial Dames of America, the Female Benevolent Society, and the Wilmington Society of Fine Arts. After her death in 1965, she was remembered as “an inimitable raconteur and gracious hostess” of memorable Rockwood events.

Edith Ferris Bringhurst Sellers (1874-1947) was the third daughter of Edward Bringhurst, Jr., and Anna James Webb Bringhurst, and the only one to have children. In 1897, Edith Bringhurst married Alexander Sellers, president of William Sellers Co., which manufactured machine tools. Edith moved with her husband to Black Oak Farm in Media, Pennsylvania. They had four children: Nancy Bringhurst Sellers Hargraves (1898-1972), William Sellers (1899-1995), Alexander Sellers, Jr. (1901-1970), and Edith Claypoole Sellers Farnum (1910-1999). Daughter Nancy Bringhurst Sellers Hargraves inherited Rockwood from her aunt, Mary Thomas Bringhurst, after her death in 1965.

Edward Bringhurst V (1884-1939) was the youngest child of Edward Bringhurst, Jr. (1835-1912) and Anna James Webb Bringhurst (1843-1912). Although his given appellation was Edward III (the third), after a trip to Europe in 1896 he changed it to Edward V (the fifth).

Edward V was educated at home by private tutors and also attended Haverford School in Pennsylvania and Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He traveled extensively during his childhood and youth, notably to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, but also to Ireland and other European destinations with his family members between 1895 and 1922.

As an adult, he managed the Rockwood estate and the family's financial investments. Edward V was a connoisseur of fine furniture and antiques, as well as an accomplished dog breeder and aviation hobbyist. He was also a successful amateur photographer who exhibited at the Wilmington Salon 1934 and 1935. The vast majority of the photographs found in Series V. are attributed to Edward and include examples of his salon submissions. Edward spent much of his life in ill health (further exacerbated by an aviation accident), and died in 1939.

Anne “Nancy” Bringhurst Sellers Hargraves and her husband Gordon Sweat Hargraves were the last private owners of Rockwood before its donation to New Castle County as a museum in the mid-1970s. Nancy was the granddaughter of Edward Bringhurst, Jr., and Anna Webb Bringhurst and the niece of Mary Thomas Bringhurst (1865-1965), the last surviving sibling of the Bringhurst children who lived at Rockwood. Mary willed the Rockwood estate to Nancy upon her death in 1965.

Nancy Bringhurst Sellers was the daughter of Edith Ferris Bringhurst Sellers (1874-1947) and Alexander Sellers (1875-1957) of Black Oak Farm, Upper Providence Township, Pennsylvania. Alexander Sellers was a manufacturer who held various positions at William Sellers & Co., Inc., a machine tool manufacturing firm in Philadelphia, founded by his father, William Sellers. Alexander Sellers became president of the company in 1926 and chairman of the board from 1940 to 1942. Alex and Edith Sellers had three other children besides Nancy: William Sellers II (1899-1995), Alexander Sellers, Jr., (1901-1970), and Edith Claypoole Sellers (1910-1999).

As a young woman, Nancy Bringhurst Sellers was presented to King George and Queen Mary at the Court of St. James in London, an arrangement facilitated by her aunt Elizabeth "Bessie" Bringhurst Galt Smith living in Larne, Ireland.

In 1927, Nancy married Gordon Sweat Hargraves, son of Frank and Nellie Lord Hargraves. The couple made their home at “Meadowbrook,” an estate in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Gordon Hargraves served as legal guardian to Mary Thomas Bringhurst during the latter part of her life and provided support to her wishes to preserve the Rockwood home and property. He became executor of her estate after her death in 1965. After Nancy’s death in 1972, Gordon also became executor of his late wife’s estate and helped arrange the transition of Rockwood from a family home to a museum in the 1970s.

Edith Claypoole Sellers Farnum (1910-1999) was the daughter of Edith Ferris Bringhurst Sellers (1874-1947) and Alexander Sellers (1875-1957) and the sister of Anne “Nancy” Bringhurst Sellers (1898-1972).

Edith and Nancy Sellers’ grandfather, William F. Sellers (1824-1905), founded Bancroft & Sellers in Philadelphia in the mid-nineteenth century. The firm specialized in the manufacture of machinists' tools and mill gearing. Upon the death of its co-founder, Edward Bancroft, the firm became William Sellers & Co. in 1855. It was incorporated in 1886 and became known for its development and improvement of machine tools for various industrial applications. Edith and Nancy’s father, Alexander Sellers, followed his father into the business and held various positions at the firm, eventually becoming president of the company in 1926 and chairman of the board from 1940 to 1942.

In 1933, Edith Sellers married Henry Whipple Farnum II (1903-1965), son of Henry Whipple Farnum I (1868-1918) and Anna Scott Bickley (born 1878) of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Edith Sellers Farnum became a family historian and genealogist and wrote/compiled "The Record of My Ancestry. The Henry Whipple Farnum Family. Book of Origins, Private and Personal, With Historical Notes, Coats-of-Arms and Photographs." Though it is unclear if the work was ever formally published, her drafts, genealogy charts, and research materials are found within the collection. Related to these interests, Farnum became the secretary of Sellers Family Association, based in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s.

Farnum died in 1999.