Timber Farms

History of the Land Timber Farms is Built On

A HISTORY OF THE LAND WE LIVE ON

By Vanessa Manges-Spence

Much of our neighborhood's civic association's focus is on land development and what might impact our neighborhood positively or negatively. Sometimes in the middle of learning about a new development plan I wondered how families, sometimes generations of families living along Old Baltimore Pike, Salem Church Road and Walther road felt about our development?

That question prodded me to find out what was here before my house was. To answer that question I spent a lovely afternoon with Mr. and Mrs. Wapniarek.  John Wapniarek played here on the grounds of what was his grandparent's farm before our development came to be.

Mr. Wapniarek shared with me a lot of childhood memories and stories told to him by his parents.  As a scrapbooker, I enjoyed learning his family history as much my own.  It described a period of time when neighbors were truly concerned for family and friends.  Time was spent accordingly for running the farm, supporting the family and finding enjoyment of one another.

His grandparents John and Catherine bought the existing 155 acre farm in 1908 for $5,000.  Shortly after they had to replace the original clapboard farm home.  They replaced it with a stucco ranch home with two bedrooms.  His dad was already accustomed to farm life having moved from a farm and its home that originally sat on the corner of Salem Church Road and the development that is now Castlebar, close to Beck's Pond recreation area.

A portion of the farm extended to the other side of where I-95 now is and it was this back end of the property that was good for crops.  His grandfather would plant different things such as wheat, soybeans, oats and corn and delicious watermelons that grew along Woodland Road in the 120's area.  Crops were not his chief source of income.  Horses, pigs, chickens and sheep were a more common sighting here at the time. Livestock grazed in the front of our development (100-110 Woodland and West Silverfox) on fields that were approximately 20 acres

The house and some outbuildings sat in the area of what are now the 140's on Woodland. Osage Orange trees were brought in from Texas to create a hedgerow that separated the Wapniarek's farm and Woolyhan (Norwegian Woods) they are still evident behind some homes.  It was against the hedgerow where the original lane to the farmhouse was.  Our present entrance was created during development. 

His father, William Wapniarek, as a young man would commute to Wilmington and worked in a leather factory.  Each morning he would cut through the woods onto Salem Church Road and over to Red Mill Road where he caught the train to town.  Now the high-speed line is there.  That area was actually a small town, Ogeltown, marked by Frenchie's country store complete with penny candy. The Ogel's owned a large parcel of land and their home is now the gift shop near Bob Evan's on Rt. 273.  In 1927 his dad married his mother Helen and moved to Wilmington.

He told me that the pond was a natural pond but it typically dried up each summer.  In the winter it was shallow enough to freeze over and they would ice-skate.  What is now Holly Cove was a low spot and was often wet.  The builder set pipes below it to help dry it up and moved the water further towards Silverfox and the low 100's on Woodland.  Along the 120's-140's on Woodland from the farmhouse and buildings a steady creek moved along the lane and hedgerow up towards Old Baltimore Pike. It seemed all the water liked to settle in what is Phase I of Timber Farms.

In other areas of Timber Farms he remembers the bee keeping area that sat mostly near my home at the end of Timber Wood Blvd. and West Hummock.  Trees were sparse on the front end of the property and it was mostly open fields the builder converted to build our neighborhood.  

As a closure their was much more he shared with me about neighbors and how neighbors children found their influences from this early neighborhood.  Let me just say that if we, as neighbors, could be as embracing, everyone would want to live here.