The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 31

Evening Journal SeconH Newsfront Pago 81 WILMINGTON DELAWARE 'No Cars Here, No Traffic' Bread and Cheese Island: Rare and Quiet Place Tuesday, SeCOlld September 5, ii Newsf ront "We were up fishing in the Jailhouse pond and got and utility towers carrying heavy wires across the land. A swing to the right skirts Hidden Lake, a black-looking body of water called Turtle Swamp by two 10-year-olds who had stopped to fish there. "ARE THERE any fish In here at all, mister?" asked Richard Lee, Marshallton. "Sure there are," said Billy Bartoc, also of Marshallton. "Something's been taking my worms." As he spoke a fish broke water near a bed of reeds far from where the boys were fishing.

Jolt Get out for a closer Inspection and you'll find a corrugated steel pipe in the road bed carrying, right now, a six-inch wide trickle of water. THIS TRICKLE Joins White Clay Creek on the south and west and Red Clay Creek on the north and east to cut off the surrounding land. The two streams converge st the foot of the island just above the Christina River. There are 300 acres within the boundaries of the creeks. There are two houses, a filter plant, the Pennsylvania Railroad line bisecting the whole, Bread and Cheese Island southeast of Wilmington It known only to small boys, lovers, hunters, the uncommonly curious and four people who call it home.

It's a loaf-shaped area of swampland and trees, pastures and cropland with the wild and the tamed never sharply divided. You need no boat to visit the island. You can drive Into the heart of it without knowing there is an island there. You turn off Route 7 near Stanton and jolt down a rutted dirt road. The island entrance Is.

marked by an extra dirt lane branching off the main road. A jeep turned into the lane and stopped. "Bread and Cheese Island? Ask my wife's mother. She's inside the house," said Walter Janowski, Ogletown Road. "You'd better wait and ask Uncle Bill," said Mrs.

Felix Hastings. "He owns this house and he knows the history of the island." "The house here is, maybe, 150 years old," she said. "It's all brick, except for two porches. There are 14 rooms here. It's so old the sills are put together with wooden pegs.

"It has two cellars," volunteered her daughter, Mrs. Janowski, "one lower than the other and dark and cold. Probably a wine cellar at one time," Slanfon t. i awhile and plowed out the road. It'd drifted over again by the next day." The elder Hastings was a toolmaker until 10 or 11 years ago when he was injured in an accident.

Born in Salisbury, he has lived for 60 years in the Wilmington area. He likes his isolated life on Bread and Cheese Island. "When I bought this place," he said, "people gave me three months to live here before I got too lonely and moved away. It's been a long three months." Hastings still does a lot of work he farms 100 acres but the huge wooden barn, that once held 100 cows, now holds only nine. HUNTERS INVADE the Is land in the fall.

There are foxes, pheasants and quail there, rabbits and sometimesdeer. Hastings leases land for trapping in the winter. Bottled gas Is used for fuel. There is no electricity in the house and no telephone. A circular staircase winds to the upper floors from the main section of the house.

A bare wooden stairway goes up from the kitchen. "That stairway leads to but two rooms," Mrs. Hastings said. "The rooms are shut off from the rest of the upstairs, so probably somebody here had servants there at one time." chased out of there, Richard said. "We got a sunny Are there any snakes here, mister? Is it better to use a bobber or sinker?" Past Hidden Lake the road edges a field of clover, hugging woodlands that lead to White Clay Creek.

"This is a regular lover's lane," the driver said. "But you have to watch for the mud holes. Stop in one and you're here all night." "THERE'S DEER here," he said. "I used to hunt these parts." A moment later he stopped the car at a dead end. "There goes one now," he shouted.

He'd seen a flash of white among the trees. It turned out to be the shirttail of a boy who dodged down the bank to the creek and disappeared with the wild abandon of a young deer. Fallen logs served as bridges over the stream. Plainly visible across the creek were orderly rows of houses, part of the Glenville development. The car turned and, ignoring the lane this time, took off across the clover field to hit the left wing of the Island's road system.

Winding and turning, this carried over a railroad crossing and continued beside the tracks. Corn grew heavy near the road. Blackbirds fluttered against the sky and two crows rose In lazy pattern. THE OUTLINES of a house wsre risible at the end of a TM ft Vs. tw'-r fit uncaring, despite warning Bread and Cheese Island it a dumping spot for the sign (inset) along entrance road.

1 WILLIAM C. Hastings, owner of the farm and a spry 74, was turning over wet hay before he quit in the face of rain clouds. He came to the house and sat down beside the kitchen table. "Bread and Cheese Island? Named by an Indian chief," he said. "The bread stood for the wheat that was grown here, the cheese for the cows that were raised here.

All rich land." There are 165 acres on the Hastings farm. Island owners at present, according to fastings, include himself; Charles Ferguson, who owns a farm to the south, and the Delaware Water Corporation, which bought part of the Ferguson land. History of the island Is sketchy. There is this note in Conrad's History of the State of Delaware: "Brpart anH Cheese Island after vanmie 1 havw ui uuu ownersmps from Olle Poul-son's in 1668, came into the possession of Edward Robinson in 1737 and was owned by him till 1755. Late in that century Barney Harris, William Woodstrock and Simon Crandston had a shipyard on the island.

The British drove them out in 1812 David Lynman owned the island for many years." Hastings purchased his farm 39 years ago. He's lived on it for the last 35 years. Mrs. Hastings, wife of his nephew, and her husband, a Railway Express employe, have lived there for 31 years. Mrs.

Hastings' two daughters, Mrs. Janowski and Mrs. Richard Ferguson Airpirt Road, were raised there. Now her grandchildren come to visit. "It's a good place," she said.

"No cars here, no traffic. The nights in summer are cool and in winter you know it's cold." "It's good land," Hastings said, "rich land." "HE'S HAD plenty of offers to sell from developers and the like," Mrs. Hastings said. "But they don't want the whole lot. They Just want part of It." "The winters aren't too bad," Hastings said, "except for last winter.

That was a bad one. They came eut here after we'd been snowed in mm. 4- Exactly how old house? is the "It's been here since Columbus," Hastings said. Plenty of wildlife? "Everything from buffalo on down," he said. He's a straight-faced man, but the seams of his face fold easily into laughter.

"Just go into Newport and ask who Uncle Bill is," Mrs. Hastings said. "They'll tell you right off." Janowski drove his jeep around the lower section of the farm, the four-wheel drive grinding as the vehicle forced its way through underbrush and jolted in and out of ditches. HE DROVE past the Ferguson home, but there was no one in sight. A dog barked noisily.

"If you go down to see Ferguson," he said, "sound the horn first on account of the dog." "If you write about the hunting," he said, "go easy. This has been pretty nice here. I'd hate to see it crowded." Hastings walked out to the car. "Come out again," he said simply. The road back skirted a swamp on the right.

White flowers grew against black water and hummocks of grass. A south-bound train went past, crossing the island in seconds. It whistled once at the crossing. (J jrAi-; i-f ,1,1 v), WmammaemmtmmmmmmttkMiiM''1'' one bicycle to reach island, reported little luck although worms were disappearing fast. Two Marshallton boys fish waters of Hidden Lake on Bread and Cheese Island.

The lO-year-olds, using AU pictures by staff photorphr Undergrowth is heavy on the island. Hiker trudget down ancient lane, hemmed in by tree. I 1 1 jm mm lyp'PtU'W't I 'U i I Vr, j- A.t 8.MM-atodjMiaMifeg Mwwm.MjywJ H--' -'mmrr-r. IM n-rniii kA iioiiV- JtJyAJhM1.jjiafcli Ml f.rti.. minim sy "ir-ttnn 1 Cheese Island for 35 years.

He bought his land in the 1920s and has stayed since, despite learnings that he might gat lonely there. The brick home of William C. Hastings peers from behind trees, its outbuildings hidden. Hastings has been a resident of Bread and Island patriarch is William C. Hastings.

The land is rich and productive, to 7i-ycur-old former tool und die maker who retired to farm a decade ego..