Melson House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

From the record

“Melson House, also known as the Brown Residence and Curtis Jacobs House, is a historic home located near Atlanta, Sussex County, Delaware. It was built in the 18th century, and is a two-story, three-bay, brick dwelling.”
Wikipedia article Melson House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 136 National Register listings published here for Sussex County · listed in 1978 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. N of Atlanta on SR 30, Atlanta, 19933
When was it listed? March 1978
Category. building
Census division. Bridgeville-Greenwood
National Register reference number. 78000914 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

28 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 28 fires within 5 miles of Melson House between 2005 and 2020, burning about 72 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	9
Equipment and vehicle use	7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3
Natural	3
Arson/incendiarism	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
23 September 2005	Natural	28 acres	Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge	GUARD
22 September 2007	Equipment and vehicle use	2.6 acres	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
18 September 2015	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
15 September 2008	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
14 September 2008	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
6 August 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	HRYNKO ROAD
22 August 2008	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
4 July 2012	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named

Every fire recorded in Sussex County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Melson House: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Smithville Bank	Iron	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Sussex County

Storms near this property

2 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Atlanta, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 1997 and 2020: 2 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
September 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Atlanta	-	A tree was downed onto wires near the intersection of Federalsburg Rd and Hartzell Rd. Time estimated from radar.
June 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Atlanta	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Sussex County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Woman's Christian Temperance Union Fountain	1.0 miles	2009
Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church	2.1 miles	1978
Eratt House	2.7 miles	1983
Maston House	3.0 miles	1975
Scott's Store	4.0 miles	1983
Old Bridgeville Fire House	4.4 miles	1984

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78000914 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Sussex County	All 136 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.