Friends of Historic Glasgow (Delaware)

Threatened by Cloverleaf - News Gazette article (5/30/73)

"The News Gazette," New Castle, Delaware; May 30, 1973

"THREATENED BY CLOVERLEAF"

"La Grange, a country estate near the Intersection of Routes 896 and 40 in Glasgow, is threatened by a recent decision of the State Department of Highways and Transportation to make 896 a limited access highway and make a cloverleaf at the intersection with Route 40. Built by Samuel H. Black, the name "La Grange" was suggested to him in 1824 by the Marquis de Lafayette, whose own estate in France was entitle "la Grange." The house was completed in 1815 and is currently owned by Mrs. Steven Barczewski. There are 238 acres of land which Mrs. Barczewski vows will never fall into the hands of builders and developers.

The entire area is historically significant for it was here that the Battle of Cooch's Bridge was fought and in the nearby woods there are remnants of earthworks dating back to the Revolutionary conflict.

Black, the son of David William and Margaret Ferris Black, was born in 1782. He studied medicine under Dr. John Groome of Elkton, completing his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He practiced his profession for 20 years and his sizable practice included the town of Elkton, Middletown, Port Penn, and Newark. He died a few hours after an apoplectic seizure while attending a board meeting at Delaware College, of which he was one of the founders.

He had one of the finest libraries in the state and was a popular writer and lecturer on both agriculture and medicine. He served as a state senator and as state representative and at one time engaged in a hotly contested race with George Read, Jr., for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

In order to demonstrate his confidence in vaccination as a protective agent, it is said that on one occasion Black took his little son, Robert, who had been vaccinated previously, to a camp of Indians then at Cooch's Bridge and exposed Robert to some cases of smallpox. The experiment proved to much of the community that there was merit in vaccination."