GOSLEE MILL POND
ROBINSONVILLE - RABBITS
FERRY ROAD
The court at Lewes,
on 4th of March, 1695, granted Jonathan Bailey,
part
of the branch called
Bundick's to set a water mill. The conditions Baley was to
follow
were:; “mill was to be
built within fifteen months, he was to attend and minde the same
and grinde grain well and
in due course, as brought thither withour respect of persons,
at the eight part tolle
for wheat and sixth part tolle for Indian corn .
Records show there was a
grist mill in operation in 1887 which had been maintained
for more than a century
and a half and now operated by Benjamin Burton located at the head
of Love Creek. Bundicks
branch is the head of Love Creek and the time period is a fair match,
so, the Burton mill
possibly was the Bailey mill.
Records show Benjamin
Burton had two mills, the upper mill, (Bundicks branch),
and the lower mill being
at Angola. For several year the upper mill, on Bundicks branch,
owned by Burton, but
operated by a man name of Goslee , therefore Goslee Mill.
This
mill had at times been
called Goslings Mill.
James H. Hurley,
Georgetown, purchased this mill from Burton heirs, operated it
from 1904 until almost
1920. Hurley was married to Maude Coverdale in 1905, born and
raised on a near by farm,
and she learned to operate the mill. The mill in 1934 was torn down,
as it was run down,
falling apart and unsightly..
At that time Hurley built
a small grocery store at the mill site which was active until
1968. Hurley died in 1929,
Maude ran the store until it closed in 1968, she being 88 years old.
Maude had remarried in
1932 to a Georgetown man, Stephen Warrington, who died in 1950.
Maude died at age 90 , 8
February 1978.
Farmer Clarence Walls,
owner of the next door farm, remembered how the mill
operated and planned to
build a replica as he is part owner of the pond.
Goslee Mill Pond is
located on Robinsonville Road at the head of Love Creek where
a 300 foot wide dirt dam
was built by men and ox cart hauling dirt from the 'dirt hole' near
by which is still there to
be seen. The dam is intact but the spillway broke out and water
no longer controlled.
In early 1900''s Gypsies
came to camp a month or so in the fall on their way south
and the area was known for
awhile as “Gypsy Landing “. They came in horse drawn wagons ,
maybe a dozen, with extra
horses to trade, a jolly and happy band of people, colorfully
dressed,
dancing at night by camp
fires, telling fortunes and trading, hand made quilts for one
thing.
They disappeared in 1915.
The general area is now
known as Rabbits Ferry . There were two school houses
there, one white and one
for the colored, both with the name Rabbits Ferry. The white
school,
a one room school house,
#89, built one mile west of Bundicks branch on Beaver Dam road,
at junction with Kendele,
once Bundicks , Road. It was painter red and called Rabbits Ferry
Little Red School.
Abstract: July 4, 2018,
by Harrison H., Lewes, from web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra, dated
August 21. 2012.
The article appears to
have been written by a child of James and Maude Hurley for
The Delaware Beach Life
Magazine, August 2012.
