#10 - The Ryves Holt House, The Story So Far

 

For this week’s article, I introduce the Page for the Ryves Holt House. You can access it here, or by navigating through the menus. I will eventually add more pages for more topics: Ryves Holt, Swanendael, Whorekil, the Lord Baltimore Raids, etc as my research progresses. I will also update the pages periodically as I discover new facts and my understanding of the various narratives evolves. I want to use these pages to keep myself aware of what my research is telling me, to remind myself of what I currently believe was going on, and to help order my thoughts. So, I apologize for the brevity, but I don’t actually know much yet. 

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The Ryves Holt House was, according to dendrochronological testing, built in 1665, although some sources claim it was built between 1685 and 1710. It would have been built after the failed 1630s colony of Swanendael and the 1663 Plockhoy settlement, but before the Lord Baltimore Raids. If the early date is true, the house would have probably originally been built by Dutch settlers, but perhaps lived in by English colonists after the Raids. At some point between the Lord Baltimore Raids and Ryves Holt purchasing the building in 1723, the house was operated as an inn by Phillip Russell, a cup-bearer of William Penn, who was licensed for the tavern on September 28, 1685. Ryves Holt lived in the house until his death in the 1760s. His wife and daughter continued to live in the house, eventually handed down to his step-great-grandson, Jacob Jones. Jones served in the War of 1812 and lived in the RHH at least until he left for war. Sometime before 1800, the original front door was moved from the right side of the front façade to the center to balance the addition to the left; at this time, the fireplace was also moved from the current front door area several feet back to center it along the wall of the new addition. Ultimately, after the 1980s, the house passed to the local Episcopal Church where it is now part of the First State National Historical Park and operated by the Lewes Historical Society.

*The photo is my own, taken in July 2019.