Friends of Rockwood records

The Friends of Rockwood, Inc., supported the maintenance of the site, collections, and educational mission of the Rockwood Museum in Wilmington, Delaware, from 1976 to 2014.

The Rockwood Park & Museum is made up of an English-style manor house and its outbuildings and grounds. Rockwood was built by banker Joseph Shipley, Jr., in the 1850s and eventually passed to Shipley's great-nephew, Edward Bringhurst, Jr. It was owned by the Bringhurst family and their descendants until it was gifted to New Castle County, Delaware, in the 1970s.

In 1976, the Friends of Rockwood was formed in the interest of promoting Rockwood, then newly acquired by New Castle County, to the public. Its founding members were Grayce Hess, Bill Davis, Uel Combs, Kirby Thomas, Bobee Vernon, Frances Richardson, Fritz Haase, Fritzie and Bill Wiessinger, and Earl and Frances Krapf. In 1977, the Friends incorporated and signed a formal cooperative agreement with the County for the planning and conducting of cultural and recreational activities for the advancement of the museum and its history. By the end of its first year, the organization had forty-eight members. Early efforts by the Friends included small-scale fundraising and community engagement activities, such as the 1979 Frolic on the Fourth picnic, a precursor to the Friends’ largest fundraiser in later years, the Rockwood Ice Cream Festival.

In 1981, the Friends amended their bylaws to expand their fundraising role in order to assist the County with preservation activities at Rockwood. Consequential to later ownership disputes over the museum’s collections, no such agreement was clarified formally between the Friends and the County.

In 1983, the museum arranged for the Friends to take over responsibility of its revolving fund. The fund collected and retained Rockwood-generated income for multiple uses including operations; conducting public functions; displaying exhibitions, programs, lectures, and workshops; contracting professional services; maintenance and enhancement of the museum and its collection; and supporting research and public outreach. The revolving fund also helped provide money for a 1983 interpretation report of the manor house, a 1986 historic structure report by consulting engineers, and the development of a master plan in 1995 for the governance of the museum and grounds.

The Friends bought their first pieces of furniture for the permanent collection in 1983 and began fundraising in earnest for the “acquisition, maintenance, and management of the Rockwood collection.” Though New Castle County owned the estate and manor house, the collections of furnishings, decorative art objects, and other personal property located at Rockwood were still owned by the Hargraves family, descendants of the Bringhursts and the last owners of the property. With funds raised, the Friends were able to acquire eighty percent of the house’s original collection. Fundraising efforts by the Friends also supported publicizing and promoting Rockwood, and establishing and maintaining an onsite Victorian reference library.

The Friends’ first Ice Cream Festival was held in 1983 and drew 3,500 attendees. The event paired serving ice cream and refreshments with Victorian-era arts and crafts, events, and games. The festival drew national media coverage in 1985, and, in 1986, it was named one of North America’s top events by the American Business Association. Delaware’s Tourism Office inducted the event into its hall of fame in 1997. By 1998, the last year the festival was sponsored by the Friends of Rockwood, the event drew 20,000 visitors and generated $80,000 in revenue. The same year, Friends of Rockwood membership had reached nearly 500.

In 1984, New Castle County purchased land that included two of the estate’s outbuildings: the porter’s lodge and the gardener’s cottage. A 1986 agreement divided the care and maintenance of these between the County and the Friends. Income generated by renting these properties was used in the Friends’ collection acquisition and promotional activities.

The election of Thomas Gordon as County executive in 1997 began a surge of involvement by New Castle County government in the management of Rockwood, including an examination of the Friends’ continued role as benefactors to the estate. In 1999, the County appointed a Rockwood Museum Planning Task Force to provide recommendations for museum improvements. While this task force included members of the Friends of Rockwood, the group overseeing the plan’s implementation, the Rockwood Advisory Committee (RAC), did not. In 1999, the Friends were given notice to vacate Rockwood and to remove the museum collections, including furniture, decorative objects, and archival materials, while the mansion and park underwent extensive renovations. Further contentions between the Friends and County arose later that year over details of the agreements regarding ownership of the collections purchased by the Friends. Also in 1999, the County took over management of the Ice Cream Festival, though the Friends continued to staff a table at the event in future years. The festival was folded in 2006 due to lack of funds, though it was revived again in 2010.

In 2001, the Friends and the County participated in negotiations proposing a resolution for claims to Rockwood’s collections, and in 2002, the parties came to agreement, with the Friends quitting their claim to the materials and properties and the County agreeing to their retention and management. At this time, the Friends also secured two seats on the Rockwood Advisory Committee.

The Friends were invited by the County to return to Rockwood in 2005 and conducted activities from a small office in the manor house. In its later years, the organization renewed its fundraising activities and held a variety of events at Rockwood, including a murder mystery dinner and a Victorian costume ball. The group raised significant funds intended for restoration of the manor house’s conservatory, but issues surrounding the County’s prevailing wage clause barred the funds from being used.

Again asked to vacate their office in the manor house in 2014, the Friends disbanded and donated their remaining funds via grants to various Delaware historical organizations with projects central to the Friends’ interests in Victorian history and the families of Rockwood. This included a donation to the University of Delaware Library for the processing of Rockwood's archival collection, the Shipley–Bringhurst–Hargraves family papers, and for the digitization of photographs within the collection. Other monies were used to establish and endow a Friends of Rockwood Graduate Research Fund for Victorian Studies at the University, directed by the Center for Material Culture Studies.

Sources:

Fox, Donna H. The Friends of Rockwood Story: Accomplishments and Contributions to Rockwood Museum, 1976-2014. 2014

Rockwood Can No Longer Function With Small Intimate Groups of Visitors. Delaware Today. https://delawaretoday.com/things-to-do/rockwood-can-no-longer-function-with-small-intimate-groups-of-visitors/ Accessed 05 Jan. 2024.

Friends of Rockwood Fund. University of Delaware Center for Material Culture Studies. https://www.materialculture.udel.edu/index.php/for-graduate-students/friends-of-rockwood-fund/ Accessed 05 Jan. 2024.

Friends of Rockwood Museum, Wilmington, Delaware. Friends of Rockwood. https://web.archive.org/web/20110714121409/http://www.friendsofrockwood.org/ Accessed 05 Jan. 2024.