UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 1, Page 6                                
September 3, 1992                                              
Historical record; Story of 'stolen house' receives positive reviews    
                                                               
        STOLEN: a one-story house in southern Delaware, near the Cypress      
        Swamp. Built between 1781-1784 by the late Benjamin Christopher,      
        measuring roughly 16 by 18 feet, with an unfinished loft, a very      
        good brick chimney and unglazed windows. The exterior was weather     
        boarded with inch cedar board and roofed with cedar shingles 
        pinned on with wooden pins. Last seen on the property of John
        Jacobs, guardian of the Christopher children.                
                                                                     
     The house and surrounding land are the focus of The Stolen House,        
a book by Bernard Herman, associate professor of urban affairs and   
public policy and associate director of the Center for Historic      
Architecture.                                                        
     Published by the University of Virginia Press, the book was     
featured in the July 12 issue of The New York Times, in which the    
reviewer wrote "Bernard L. Herman, a University of Delaware historian,        
has written a curious and mostly quite interesting book...What the   
reader does get is a marvelous context...out of the records he pulls 
whole masses of astonishing information...you will be richly         
rewarded."                                                           
     Selected as an editors' choice in the July 19 issue of The New     
York Times, The Stolen House was described as "an account of an 1812 
lawsuit (leading) to a historian's fascinating examination of economic        
life when most Americans were poor and the few rich knew no shame."  
     Making his way through a labyrinth of documents, depositions and
court records, Herman has written about a lawsuit brought by         
Christopher's seven surviving children against Jacobs, their guardian,        
28 years after their father's death. Jacobs had married their widowed
mother two years after their father died, and she, in turn, died a few        
years later.                                                         
     The book not only provides a history of the house and the people
associated with it but opens up a window on life in southern Delaware
in the late 18th and early 19th century, when the inroads of         
civilization were beginning to make their imprint upon the land.     
     According to Herman, forest and swamp dominated the landscape and        
society. Lumbering was important, with large landowners, such as     
William Hill Wells at the top of the social ladder, and woodcutters, 
shingle makers, charcoal burners and wagoners at the bottom. The     
lumber that was harvested and the products from the forest were then 
shipped by schooners to cities such as Wilmington and New York.      
     The Christophers and Jacobs brothers belonged to the middle level  
of the forest society as small landowners. In addition, Jacobs and his        
brother owned a saw mill.                                            
     Today, Herman said, the land is drained and tilled with         
agriculture as the main industry so that the landscape itself has    
dramatically changed.                                                
     That Jacobs moved the house is an established fact. He not only 
moved the house, according to the Christopher children, he felled the
best lumber, moved the fences and sold the land to his brother, who  
acted as his agent.                                                  
     The children said he had cheated them of their patrimony. Jacobs'        
contention was he was burdened with bringing up eight orphans, that  
the land was poor and that he was paying off the family's debts.     
     The case revolved around the testimony and depositions of       
neighbors, and it is their stories and other legal records that give 
insight into life in the early 19th century.                         
     For example, when the Christopher children complained about the    
removal of fences, this act had far-reaching consequences. Fences were        
expensive and valuable and set off private land from public lands.   
Furthermore, they protected crops from roaming feral pigs, cattle,   
bears, deer and other foraging animals. The pigs, which were the     
mainstay of the poor, in particular were a problem, and in one       
incident were shot and killed in what Herman refers to as the Milford
massacre.                                                            
     Using the house as an example, Herman describes other houses of 
the time. "At least 85 percent of all housing in the area consisted of        
one story frame or log buildings less than 20 by 25 feet in size,"   
Herman wrote.                                                        
     But, he cautioned "despite our tendency to imagine such buildings        
as extremely crowded, it is a mistake to consider these small houses 
hovels.... Many houses of less than 450 square feet were ornamented  
with paneled hearth walls and contained fine pieces of furniture."   
     What was the outcome of the suit? By the time the orphans pressed  
their claims, the land was fallow, the fences and the house gone, the
valuable trees cut, although through the memories of neighbors, the  
farm could be reconstructed. Chancellor Nicholas Ridgley found neither        
side convincing in their arguments, and he dismissed the suit, but   
both sides had to pay court costs.                                   
     The stolen house no longer exists except in old documents, but it        
has played an important role in recreating the past and giving a view
of life in southern Delaware 200 years ago, according to Herman.     
                                        -Sue Swyers Moncure