#7 - Popular history books on Lewes, DE

Really, Lewes is such an adorable place. When we are all allowed outside again, I definitely recommend a trip there. It is a quaint little town on the banks of a canal that leads to the Delaware Bay. There are lovely calm beaches along the bay to visit and ocean beaches at the more lively nearby town of Rehoboth. ...Although, I do love it so much as it is now… Maybe y’all should actually stay away. 

The two books I am writing about for this post, Hidden History of Lewes and Remembering Sussex County, are popular history books meant for general history buffs and/or tourists. They are meant for light reading. They would not be something I could use in an academic setting, I imagine outside High School, your professors would also not like to see them used as sources. But these two books, and other popular histories like them, are published by journalists and historians through a system of some rigour. So the information inside may not be the whole story, or not as well researched as I would like, but they are a great source for understanding the lay of the land. 

The Hidden History of Lewes is written by Michael Morgan, a freelance journalist in the Delaware and Maryland area, who has written several other books. The book is organized chronologically with the ‘discovery’ of the Delaware Bay by European explorers in the early part of the 17th century and ending with stories set around World War II as well as with recommendations for visiting Lewes. 

My goal for reading this book was to see what sort of stories Morgan could find about the town and if any of them related to the Ryves Holt House. I also hoped he had a well developed bibliography I could use to track down other sources: primary and secondary sources. I was delighted to find something for each goal! The book described the first effort to settle at Lewes Creek. On June 1st of 1629, the local Siconese people traded the land around the creek to the Dutch for various trade goods. Then in 1631, Captain Peter Heyes dropped off several dozen Dutch colonists at ‘Whorekill,’ which is apparently the original Dutch name for Lewes Creek, citing Dutch men ravaging the local women as the source of the name… Kill, by the way, is Dutch for creek. These early settlers built a wooden fort as protection from both the indigenous groups and other Europeans. This place was called Swanendael, Valley of Swans. Morgan makes note here that ‘Zwaanendael’ is used only later on, it is not a colonial name (I knew it!). In 1632, David de Vries, the leader of Swanendael learned that the settlement had been utterly destroyed and all residents killed by the local peoples. The area was abandoned thereafter.

So far so good. This confirms what Wikipedia says about the Ryves Holt House and Lewes, that there was an earlier settlement in the 1630s. And it confirms the suspicions that I had about the name ‘Zwaanendael.’ Still, though I doubt the RHH could have been from this settlement, I cannot yet even confirm the colony’s location nor if every building was destroyed.

Next Morgan talks about the Plockhoy settlement at the Whorekill. He describes Pieter Cornelisz Plockhoy’s desire for an egalitarian colony. They arrived in 1663. Sometime before, the Dutch would have built a small military outpost of some kind. However, in 1664, Sir Robert Carr, an Englishman, captured and destroyed the colony.  Apparently after this, since the census of 1671 notes about 47 adult men in and around the Whorekill, the area was lightly populated. But in 1671 over several months, Marylanders, first led by Captain Thomas Jones then by Captain Thomas Howell, ransacked and pillaged the town.

Here Morgan quotes something about destroying the ‘quaking society of Plockhoy to a nail.’ I should track down that line, perhaps it comes from a primary source. This section is also important because Wikipedia, Archipedia, and the NPS all claim the RHH was built in 1665. Morgan’s book supports the idea that if that date is true, it would have had to survive these Marylander raids. But how interesting is that gap - in 1664, an Englishman captured the town from the Dutch, but then other Englishmen ransacked the town (Marylanders) in 1671. What is going on here? Did the Dutch reclaim the town during the late 1660s? Did the English fight amongst themselves? Or was the town still ethnically Dutch and the English took offense to that?

The next section of the book talks about the official handoff from the Dutch New Netherlands to the English New York Colony in 1674, then the passage of Delaware to the hands of William Penn in 1682. This is also around the time the Whorekill is renamed Lewes and we get the creation of Sussex County. In 1683, William Penn even visited Lewes to take depositions from some residents that survived the Marylanders’ raids. This is also the time when Lewes really grows into a town instead of isolated farms.

This part is brief in the book, but hopefully it will become juicy: Morgan makes mention of several residents of the Whorekill, but with very little context. This however gives me a lot of names to search for in primary documents, including in those William Penn depositions.

As Morgan’s writing moves into the 18th century, he notes the Sussex County Courthouse is the most important building in town, and that it stands next to Philip Russell’s tavern (AKA the RHH). Russell then sells the building to Ryves Holt in the 1720s. His wife and daughter continue to live in the house after his death in 1760. At some point around 1800, the house passes to Jacob Jones, the step-son of Penelope Holt, who is either Ryves’ daughter or granddaughter. He served in the War of 1812, which the RHH also survived despite the town being bombarded by the English. 

Again, I am pleased that Morgan’s book agrees with what I had read already. Philip Russell did own a tavern in the early 1700s on the same site as the RHH, although I need to confirm it was the same building, not just the same plot. It is also nice to know the house remained in the same family through at least Jacob Jones (despite the issues of him being the grandson or great-grandson of Holt), this helps to nail down the timeline. Also, if the house was built in 1665, then kept in the same family from the 1720s until the 1820s, that could help explain its preservation. And a little aside - you can see evidence of the War of 1812 in Lewes, there is a building that was struck in its foundations by a cannonball - you can see it still today!

The rest of the book tells stories about the later history of Lewes which do not pertain to the RHH, so I will leave them unrepeated in case any readers would like to read The Hidden History of Lewes themselves. I will mention one last tidbit from the book which could be interesting if confirmed: there is a monument to Swanendael out Pilottown Road outside Lews (further up the Bay). It sits across the highway from St. Peter’s Cemetery. The monument was erected in the early 20th century, which is immediately suspicious to me, think about all the controversies about Confederate Monuments; the folks from the early 1900s just loved to remember ‘histories’ that made them the victor (just you wait for the eventual post on historiography). But Morgan states that no archaeological evidence for Swanendael has been found in the area of the monument. I wonder if even the site of the failed colony is actually known.

Finally, I will end with Remembering Sussex County. I had slight hopes this book would mention the RHH. And there really wasn’t much. I gathered a few sources to look up later, mostly secondary histories, though. I should maybe have been immediately suspicious because of the full title: Remembering Sussex County: From Zwaanendael to King Chicken. That funny Z name again. The book was separated into 3 geographical sections, so the part relevant to the RHH was pretty short. The author, James Diehl, another journalist, recounts the same basic story of Lewes from Wikipedia, but seems to indicate that Swanendael was succeeded by Zwaanedael, which was then followed by Lewes. A continuity I severely doubt. He also supports the idea that the colony was destroyed by Indians due to a ‘misunderstanding,’ this reads more as an imperial and colonial narrative rather than a factual recounting. I definitely want to get to the bottom of this story even if it is not at all relevant to the RHH. Diehl also entirely skips any mention of the Lord Baltimore/Marylander Raids.

You might notice, dear reader, a bit of disdain for this book. And you would be right. It's a fine piece of general, popular history, but it perpetuates so many misconceptions and problematic colonial dogma. I know this sounds a bit liberal or PC, but it's an important thing to think about when you read history books and nonfiction. In relation to the RHH and Lewes, you can see that by writing off the destruction of ‘Zwaanendael’ as just a misunderstanding by the Indians, the author is just continuing the ridiculous story that violence in colonial America was simply due to Indian naivete. Which is wrong and horrible. You can really see how problematic Remembering Sussex County is when you read Jame Diehl’s biography at the end of the book. He may be a journalist, but he now works in marketing. And this is his first book. While I truly believe Diehl did not mean to be condescending and publish incorrect information, his bio shows you why you really need to think about what you’re reading, who wrote it, and why it got published. 

Hey, look at that - critical thinking, kids.

*photo taken from Amazon, where they have the book as part of Kindle Unlimited, but I'm sure you can also find a copy at an independent bookstore.