Old Embreeville

Old Embreeville was settled and developed within a relatively short time. In 1822 William Embree, who came from a family of French Huguenots, bought 2 contiguous tracts of land (about 61 1/2 acres) from the estate of Charles Wilson. Embree acquired an additional 13 acres in 1828. Like many members of his family, Embree was a brewer, maltster, and storekeeper. The village which Embree and his family had built between 1822 and 1842 was sold off in small parcels, save for the 64 acre farm which stayed intact until 1956. Over the next 150 years the lots in the old village contained a store, storekeeper's house, a shoemaker shop, wheelwright shop, 2 dwelling houses, stables, blacksmith shop, and a slaughter house. More than 150 years have passed since a village sprouted near an 18th-century mill seat on the West Branch Brandywine River. The modest homes of locally quarried stone and locally sawn wood are perched on the hills which rise rather abruptly from the powerful river below.