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Delaware » Kent County » Along DE 9 » Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune

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c. 1807–1815. West side of DE 9, 0.2 miles south of Leipsic Rd.
  • (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
  • Wheel of Fortune (Delaware Division of Historical & Cultural Affairs, Dover, Del.)
  • (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
  • (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
  • (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)

Only the wealthiest farmers of Little Creek Hundred could have afforded so fashionable a two-story brick dwelling. Not until recently have historians proposed a date later than mid-eighteenth-century for the very conservative house. The plan is five bay, single-pile, center passage, and with the usual rear wing. The front and side porches are later additions. The farmstead—named “Wheel of Fortune,” probably as a play on the name of its 1738 owner, John Chance—comprises 235 acres in an as-yet-unspoiled agricultural landscape. The WPA Delaware Guide (1938) noted its excellent preservation, being then occupied not by tenant farmers, as usually the case, but by the owner, a U.S. senator. A brick smokehouse, brick milkhouse, granary, corn cribs, and dairy barn together form a surprisingly intact complex. The dairy business was once lucrative in Kent County but subsequently faded away.

Writing Credits

Author: 
W. Barksdale Maynard
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Data

What's Nearby

Dover Downs and Dover International Speedway
Octagonal Schoolhouse (District No. 12 Public School)
Mrs. Steele's Broiler House
Delaware State University
“Swedish” Log House (Josh's Cabin)

Citation

W. Barksdale Maynard, "Wheel of Fortune", [Dover, Delaware], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/DE-01-KT17.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Delaware

Buildings of Delaware, W. Barksdale Maynard. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, 231-232.

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