FSC-2014 Lums Pond Letterbox
Cache Details:
Parking is available in the boat launch area--this is a state park fee area at cost of $3 instate or $6 out of state. This is daily fee that would be good at all state parks. It is free if you have a Delaware state park sticker.
Take the Swamp Forest trail and enjoy the pond views. The cache is at the published cords.
Description:
Lums Pond, the largest freshwater pond in Delaware, covering 200 acres (0.81 km²) in central New Castle County, was built in the early 19th century as an impoundment for the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. The pond supplied water to fill the locks of the canal and water power for a local gristmill. The pond became a natural recreational draw for the residents of Delaware. Ownership was transferred to the state of Delaware in the mid-20th century. Lums Pond State Park was opened to the public in 1963. The Lum's Mill House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973
Lums Mill House is named for its 19th-century owners, a father and grandson who were both named John Lum. The building is a two-story brick house built in three phases, beginning in the early to mid-18th century. The earliest part of the house, built about 1730 by Samuel Clement, is a three-bay, two-story house laid in English bond on the sides and rear and in Flemish bond with glazed headers on the front. Both front and rear facades feature pent roofs. Samuel Clement built the first dam and mill on this part of St. Georges Creek. A one-story, three-bay extension was added to the east end later in the 18th century, and this was raised to two stories after 1809. The interior reflects mid- to late-19th-century renovations.
The house was transferred to the State of Delaware as part of a five-acre area designated as a historic monument by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1966, following the widening of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Responsibility for the historic monument and the two buildings included within it was transferred to the Delaware Division of Parks and Recreation in 1977.
