Remembering Farnhurst: Stories from the Delaware State Hospital 1894-1920

A Book Review

Remembering Farnhurst: Stories from the Delaware State Hospital 1894-1920

By Katherine Dettwyler

Published by Outskirt Press and Printed in the USA.  611 pages, it is a large paperback with a decent font that is readable by old people.

She gives a good history of mental illness in Delaware, followed by 186 case studies of patients who were admitted between 1894 and 1920 to the Delaware State Hospital at Farnhurst.  An excellent glossary is at the end. The book is broken down into type of mental illness with the case studies related to those illness in that section.  Delaware has three counties and since Farnhurst is located in New Castle County you would expect the most case studies to be from New Castle County and they are.  However about 20% of the case histories are from Kent and Sussex County.  Since Sussex County is the one I am interested in, there were about 25 cases out of the 186 cases given.  When you live in Sussex you get use to getting the short end of the stick when it comes to Delaware.  Some of the Sussex county surnames are; Melson, Williams, Hastings, Johnsons, Hitchens, Cooper, Pratt, Wells, Megee, Jones, Towers, Ross, Gebhard, Malloy, Posties and peiffer.      

The book came about when a maintenance worker found a couple old ledgers at Farnhurst recording the entry of patients, additional ledgers were found, in 2012 Katherine Dettwyler converted 3,000 records from the ledger to a searchable data base.  2460 of those records can be found at farnhurst.weebly.com/the-ledger-project--database.html.

I would recommend this book, not so much for the genealogy information since I am interested in Sussex County but the general history of mental illness in Delaware.  

The book will become a standard for your reference library between the descriptive information given on illness, medicine, institutions in the area, and outlooks in the 1800s and 1900s. 

Joseph Henry Put off Train

Put Off Train, He Drowne.

Laurel, Del., June 4.—Joseph Henry and his brother could not find their tickets on a train between Seaford and Laurel, and the train was stopped and they were put off. In returning on foot Joseph stumbled from a bridge and was drowned in the Nanticoke river. He leaves a widow and three small children.

Above from the Daily Banner Cambridge Md June 3 1907

L&L Video Store

L&L Video Store operated downtown from about 1987 to 1990.  It was the first video store Delmar had.

Henry and Lulu Acker

At the Acker family plot in Melson are the graves of Henry Charles Acker and Lulu Elizabeth (Feemster) Acker.  The Ackers moved from Montana to be in Delmar about 1928.   The reason for the move is unsure but the depression hit Montana hard and there was still a strawberry boom going on the Eastern Shore so maybe that is the reason. 

Lulu Elizabeth Feemster was born in 1874 in Tennessee to Paul Silas Feemster and Isabella “Bella” Ranklin Wilson Feemster.  Lulu had two brothers; John and Hugh and one sister Alberta. Her father was a college professor and Congregationalist Minister and the family ended up in Missouri.  Lulu worked as a clerk in Kansas City while her sister Alberta Moffet  went to the College of Physicians to become a Doctor.

 About 1908 Dr Alberta Feemster moved from Kansas City to Judith Gap Montana.  She took with her, her sister Lulu and her widowed mother, Bella. 

above 1909 item from the Judith Gap newspaper

Judith Gap was a small town that was in the Judith Gap between the Big Snowy Mountain Range and the Little Belt Mountains.  A railroad; the Milwaukee, has a line that runs the valley with a station in each of the small towns that dot the area.  The area grew Winter Wheat and raised sheep at the time Lulu Feemster lived there. 

above from the 19th Jan 1912 Judith Gap Journal Newspaper 

While Dr Feemster made herself busy being a doctor, Lulu filed for a homestead claim and took a job in town at McKenzie Trading Company store. She was in charge of the dry goods department.

In 1911 Henry Acker arrived in Judith Gap from Minnesota to work his 160 acre homestead (Section 34-Township11n-Range 15E).

above Henry Acker

Henry was born in 1860 in Grand Island Erie, New York.  Henry’s parents were Lambert and Amelia Wilke Acker.  His parents were from Germany.  The family traveled across the northern United States living in Michigan and Minnesota.  They were farmers. 

10 March 1911 Judith Gap Journal

Henry and Lulu meant over an ice cream freezer in Judith Gap and at the age of 52 and 37 they were married in 1912 in Judith Gap, the first wedding ceremony to occur in that town.

23 Feb 1912 Judith Gap journal 

By 1915 their son Donald Acker was born on the homestead.  The family attended the Community Congregation Church where Henry was a deacon.   Following World War 1, Montana slipped into a deep depression that ran through the 1920s into the Great Depression in 1929.  Drought compounded the economic failure and Montana was one of the few states to lose population after World War 1.  About 1929 Henry, Lulu and Donald moved to outside of Delmar, Maryland.  Lulu brother, John, would move to Iowa, her other brother Hugh would move to Baltimore, her mother had died in Montana and her sister Alberta lived in New York.  Of historical interest her brother Hugh William Feemster, who ran a grain elevator for the Western Maryland Railroad in Baltimore, sit on the 1932 grand jury in the Euel Lee case. Euel was a negro charged with killing Green Davis, his wife and two daughters over around Berlin.

In 1936 Henry Acker died and in 1962 Lulu Acker died.   

It's National Hat Day

On honor of National Hat Day here is a 1928 Schoble hat ad from the S N Culver men's store in Delmar.

Frank Schoble hat company was located in Philadelphia and did a very sucessful business worldwide.  He had over 700 employees.

Fish For Bacon Switch 1933

from the Wilmington Morning News 17 June 1933

VANE BROTHERS

Vane Brothers operate Tugs and barges out of Baltimore and today service the West coast as well as the East coast.  The people that started it were from the Eastern Shore, first the Vane Brothers from Dorchester than the Hughes family from Quantico and Tyaskins.  A large number of people in Delmar and the area are related to them.  

photo from Vane Bros facebook page

Vane Brothers ship chandlery Baltimore was founded in 1898  by Capt. William (Bert) Burke Vane (1867 -1949) and his brother Capt. Allen P. Vane (1863-1941) of Church Creek Dorchester County Md.  They supplied ships with food, drink, rope, block and tackle, mops and brooms - anything needed for a ship.  They developed a-one-stop-shop shipping supplies business for sailing ships.  When a ship comes into port they cannot spend a lot of time tied up at dock due to dock fees, and money lost while they are sitting around a dock trying to find supplies. The ship chandler dealt with the time-consuming task of the butcher, the baker, the fishmonger, the cooper, the iron monger, and even the post office. It was a marine supply general store, complete with a wood pot belly stove to sit around while the order was being filled.  The Vane brothers started their business in Fells Point, in 1904 moved to Pier 4, Pratt Street.  Capt. Claude Venables Hughes had wanted to marry a Wicomico County girl but his future wife said he was away too much on his schooner.  He looks for employment at Vane Brothers, distant cousins, and in 1920 he joined the firm.  In 1921 his brother Capt. Charles Fletcher Hughes fresh out of the Army Air Corp. joined the firm. By 1941 they had bought out the Vane Brothers. In 1958 they moved to 916 South Broadway.   Due to the nature of the business, opportunities would come up to buy a ship or buy shares in a ship and Vane Bros had many ships over the years.   The Vane Brothers and the Hughes brothers were known for down to the earth common sense business people who got where they were by hardwork.

In 1951 Charles F. Hughes Jr joined the firm and was made president in 1971.  He started moving the company interests from chandlers to cargo transfers, bunkering, launch service, marine transportation, coastal ships, tugs and barges.  Its fleet of tugs and barges move petroleum products from New England to the Gulf of Mexico.  In 1991his son, Duff Hughes, took control.

Vane Brothers use Chesapeake Shipbuilders in Salisbury for the manufacturing of some of their tugs and by 2018 Chesapeake had built 20 tugs for Vane Brothers. 

Today Vane Brothers have 50 tugs, 75 barges and 2 tug/barge combination units.  They have over 1,000 employees. In 2018 the business is made up of a number of companies but the primary address is at 2100 Frankfurst Ave, Baltimore.

The Hughes brothers were descendents of seafaring men who all bore the title of Captain in front of their name.  They were from the Whitehaven/Quantico area of Wicomico county.   Going back to Hezekiah Hughes (1733-1767) who married Mary E. North (1745-1767).  Their son was Jesse Hughes.

Jesse Hughes (1767-1838) who married Sarah McClester (1755-1800) and had a son named Caleb Hughes.

Caleb Hughes ( 1787-1869) who married Charlotte Venables (1793-1868) and who had a son Thomas B J Hughes.

Thomas Benjamin Franklin Hughes (1828-1864) who married Elizabeth Jane White (1840-1913).  Their son Charles Venable Hughes (1859-1930) married Mary Amelia Rider Fletcher (1861-1950). 

3Claude Venables Hughes (1887 -1982 ) son of Capt Charles Venable Hughes (1859-1930) and Mary Amelia Rider Fletcher (1861-1950).  Claude Hughes married in 1919 to Eva Virginia Taylor ( -1966) daughter of George Handy and Virginia Lynch Taylor.

Claude and Eva had a son, Bruce T. Hughes (1926-1995), who  married Joyce Marie Holman of Montana in 1956.  They had Kimberly Scott Hughes (1957- ) and Kathleen Laurie Hughes (1963- ).  Bruce was involved in banking.

Claude and Eva had a daughter, Mary Virginia Hughes (1920-2003).  She was unmarried and lived in California.  Claude was the classic sailor with tattoos of the American flag and the marine emblem on his arms.

   Charles Fletcher Hughes (1895-1982) son of Capt Charles Venable Hughes (1859-1930) and Mary Amelia Rider Fletcher (1861-1950). Charles married first in 1925 Aleda Pauline (Polly) Taylor ( -1974) daughter of O. W. Taylor of Quantico.  They had a son; Charles F. Hughes Jr ( -2016) who married Elizabeth (Betsy) Anne Smith in 1952. Charles Jr and Betsy had a daughter, Ann and a son, Charles Duff Hughes. Charles jr. took over Vane Brothers and moved it from being a chandler to being a tug boat and barge operation.