Will the real Rhoades Shankland house please
stand up? Actually there may be two still around
Is the house discussed in this
column in the Sept. 6 edition of
the Cape Gazette the real Rhoades
Shankland house? Or is the house
owned by Jane Jefferson, a half a
mile closer to Lewes on Savannah
Road, the real Rhoades Shankland
house?
Although there doesn't yet
appear to be concrete proof, the
right answer may be that both
buildings served as residences of
the prominent surveyor, lawyer
and sheriff in the 1700s.
(Yes, I realize that my math was
off by 100 years in last week's
column and headline. The house
at Wescoat's Comer being moved
this week into Lewes was report-
edly built in 1767 which would
make it 229 years - not 329 years
old as I reported. 229 years still
ranks the building as one of the
area's very significant buildings.)
In the wake of last week's arti-
cle however, a News Journal arti-
cle surfaced which discussed a
Shankland reunion in 1941.
Descendants of Rhoades Shank-
land, who had long ago moved
westward, arrived in Lewes to vis-
it the land of their forebears. The
article mentions that they visited
the home lived in now by Jane
Jefferson, and pictured below, as
the 18th century residence of
Rhoades Shankland.
Ralph Prettyman of Milford is
an indirect descendant of the
Shanklands and has been doing
extensive research recently on the
Prettyman family at the state
archives in Dover.
The area around Wescoat's
Comer was known previously as
Prettymanville because of the
many Prettyman families living in
the area in the 19th century and
because of a wagon-building
operation in that location by a
member of the Prettyman family.
The Prettymans and Shanklands
joined in the late 1700s or early
1800s, according to Ralph Pretty-
man's research, when Rhoades
Shankland's daughter, Mary, mar-
ried Shepherd Prettyman. The
couple had several sons all of
whom lived on land in the area
thus leading to the older name of
Prettymanville.
"Surveys of the area from back
in that time show that Rhoades
BAREFOOTIN'
Shankland owned a good deal of
land in the Prettymanville area.
All of his land in that area was on
the same side of the road where
the one Rhoades Shankland
house, now being moved, is locat-
ed. However the surveys also
show that he owned more land, on
both sides of Savannah Road,
closer to Lewes near where
Canary Creek crosses the road."
That would be more in the area
of the old Ebenezer Cemetery,
where some Shankland members
rest, and in the area of where Jane
Jefferson's house now stands. An
1818 survey of Shankland's prop-
erty shows a house but it is locat-
ed on the survey just west of
Canary Creek and south of Savan-
nah Road.
"Surveys of that period usually
depicted buildings as they actually
appeared," said Prettyman, "and
this survey shows a house with
two chimneys like the one at
Wescoat's Comer. Under either
circumstance, the house on the
survey had to be moved to get to
the other side of the road for either
location. He could have easily
had two residences."
Another clue? Frank Zebley's
book of Delaware churches
repeats an historic quote saying
that Methodist Church organizers
of the area held their fast meeting
in Rhoades Shankland's new
house." That was 1788. If the
We, scoat's corner house was built
in 1767 as often mentioned, it
would hardly be considered new
21 years later. So it's entirely
possible that there are two Rhoad-
es Shankland homes still standing
200 years after they were built.
Is this another Rhoades Shankland house in Quakertown?
CAPE GAZETTE, Friday, September 13 - September 19,1996 - 7
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