National Register Listing

Coombe Historic District

a.k.a. See Also:Hughes Early Man Complex

W of Felton on DE 12 and SR 281, Felton, DE

"The Coombe Historic District is significant to the heritage of Delaware for its unusual mixture of archaeological resources, both prehistoric and historic, in combination with two excellent examples of domestic architecture from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This well-preserved, interdisciplinary assemblage provides a unique opportunity for a site-specific examination of the various ways man has responded to the environmental and cultural fabric of southwestern Kent County, from approximately 10,000 years ago to the present.

The prehistoric component of the Coombe Historic District represents some of the earliest human occupations (8,500-11,000 B.P.) on the Delmarva Peninsula. The well-drained knoll triangulated by the Coombe House, the road, and the Hopkins Cemetery was listed in the National Register in 1979 as "Area F" of the Hughes Early Man Complex. As a whole, this complex was seasonally occupied as hunting camps which have yielded lithic materials, reconfirming the technological continuity from the Paleo Indian Period through the Early Archaic.

One of the first historic references to the area is a grant of land in 1715 by William Penn, Proprietor of Pennsylvania and the Three Lower Counties on Delaware, to John French of New Castle. The large, square, 580-acre tract, called "The Cave," was subsequently transferred and divided through sale and probate. In 1776, Benjamin Coombe, a Quaker Kent County farmer, purchased the western half of the "Cave" from Philemon Dickinson of Philadelphia.

The Benjamin Coombe House, built in 1778, represents an important departure from the architectural norms evidenced in the majority of brick Delaware Georgian plantation houses of the second half of the eighteenth century. With few exceptions, the more substantial houses of this period were either of the hallparlor-plan or contained two single-pile cells divided by a stair hall, with the double-pile, side stair-hall house plan coming into more common use at the end of the century. The Coombe House, however, is of an uncommon double-pile, double-cell configuration that has not been discerned elsewhere in the state.

Recently, there has been much scholarly discussion concerning the existence and nature of a Quaker architectural aesthetic. The Coombe House, with its comparatively austere interiors, would appear to be an example of the commonly held notion of the functional simplicity of "Quaker Georgian" architecture. Though Benjamin Coombe was very wealthy, most of the rooms in his house are devoid of unnecessary Woodwork, featuring only the most basic forms of fireplace and doorway architraves, simple chair rails and baseboards. The paneled dados of the "dining room" and common room seem almost an obligatory concession to visually define the more public and formal rooms of the house. The very practical interior shutters of these two rooms fold, out of sight, into the jambs.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1982.