#28 - More Lewes History Journals

 This week is back to research and a bit of freedom! I had the pleasure of finally touring the Ryves Holt House again, which recently opened their doors post-Covid. Sadly the main part of the house is closed, but rumor has it they are refurbishing the house to feature a new exhibit in the fall! So, only the store was open, but that turned out to be just fine because you can go back into the circa 1940s kitchen addition in the back (mint green!). It was also great because I managed to pick up a few more volumes of Lewes History, the journal of the Lewes Historical Society. 

Months ago, in Blog Post #8, I surveyed the few issues I managed to scavenge before Covid happened, Volumes 19, 20, 21 (years 2016-2019). Go read that post to find out which were my favorite articles from those three.

This time I managed to get my hands on a few much older issues of Lewes History as well as newer ones! I now have Volume 2 (1999), Volume 4 (2001), Volume 5 (2002), Volume 16 (2013), and the newest one, Volume 22 (2020). It is interesting to see how the journals have changed overtime; mainly how they’ve become more professional and academically useful. The original series do not use sources, citations, or endnotes. So they come across more like folklore and hearsay. They remain interesting reads because you can still feel the passion for the history of Lewes in the writings, but they are not something an author can use in their own writings. But later on, mostly by 2013, the journal is more often using sources and citations. They are not yet using them consistently, however. But by 2016 and certainly in 220, the editors have managed to streamline and standardize the process so a reader can trace the sources used and understand the articles better. They are all very much more interested in reporting dates and names, answering the Whats, Who’s, and Whens rather than the more interesting Hows and Whys. But still, for a local journal, it's pretty darn impressive nevertheless. Also, Ms. Hazel makes several appearances throughout!

I really enjoyed how the early journals were heavily themed. Volume 2 is from 1999, so in honor of the looming Millennium (they were published in November), they put together a series of articles to create a Tour of Lewes in 1900. The journal alternates between accounts of buildings in downtown Lewes and anecdotes about the lives and events in the town around 1900. Its delightful because many of the buildings are still standing, some on the same sites, but some have been moved around. Others have been demolished or destroyed and this journal helps to rebuild how the town would have been at the turn of the twentieth century. I would definitely recommend picking up a copy of Volume 2 and using it as a walking tour guide on your next visit to Lewes (or use Google Streetview!). 

Volume 4 from 2001 is maybe not as interesting, at least for my current research on early Lewes and the Ryves Holt House, but since I have a soft spot for sailing ships and Lewes was actually bombarded by the British in the War of 1812, I snatched this one up anyway. That’s really what this edition of Lewes History is about - the War of 1812 and the Civil War. There are some excerpts about local sites and buildings like the cemeteries and Rabbit’s Ferry House, which is now a Lewes Historical Society building. But otherwise, the articles tell the tale of a local black boy who somehow found himself sailing on the Confederate ship Alabama. 

Volume 5 from 2002 is going to be so very useful. This edition’s theme is the Duke of York patents and early property ownership along Pilottown road just outside Lewes. The articles talk about specific buildings and plots of land including some maps to who where people probably lived. It's so well done and clearly researched, but the citations and sourcing are still very inconsistent. This means that unfortunately, I cannot use this editions of the Journal of the Lewes Historical Society for my own research, but I will be able to use it to cross reference my own hypotheses and deductions once I get my hands on the Duke of York Patents and the other primary source material I have my eye on. Stay tuned, dear reader, these are in the pipeline already!

Next up, after a bit of fast-forwarding, is Volume 14 from 2013. At some point in the intervening years, the Journal of the Lewes Historical Society changed its name to simply Lewes History and redesigned the cover, probably to be a bit more professional and modern. These later issues, as you can see from the earlier blog post, are not quite as themed as the earlier ones. They often tie somewhat together, though. For instance, 2013 is roughly themed around the Lewes’ connection to the Delaware Bay. A couple of the articles talk about issues around navigating and charting the bay. This issue will be really helpful when I turn my attention much closer to maps of Lewes. I mean to do this soon, I already have some suspicions about Swanendael/Whorekill/Lewes as has been discussed before, I hope by looking at maps in a more systematic way than I did in Blog Post #17, that I can shake out some valuable information about the goings on in early Lewes/Whorekill/Swanendael. Besides, by this time, each article has sources and citations, even if they are inconsistent in format.

And finally, Volume 23 from this past year, 2020. This one is truly great even if the topics are not to my interests. There is a clear dedication to detailed and well researched writing with full sources and citations. As a local journal with mainly passionate local writers, however, you can still see an interest in narrative historical writing rather than discourse. The articles work to populate important gaps in historical writing but continue to be mainly reports of dates and names; the articles are often turned into narratives of events rather than a synthesis or analyzation of events. So, some parts of the journal continue to deal with the What, When, and Whos, rather the Hows and the Whys. Denise Clemons’ delightful “Suffragettes in the Kitchen: How Cookbooks Advanced the Cause” is certainly an exception. Her article focuses on, as the title suggests, Suffragettes and cookbooks, but she does so in a way to connect a widely known cookbook (at least to those who know the history of Cookbooks) with a local one in the archives of the Lewes Historical Society, Tested Lewes Recipes. In this way Denise brings Lewes’ history into the historical arena by using a local source to support a more widely held understanding of the political utility of cookbooks. She could probably publish a whole book or at the very least a more detailed article about this topic in a more widespread journal with ease.

It is amazing to see how the Lewes History journal has changed and evolved overtime. It started out small and informal but full of delightful local stories, it has since grown into something that strikes a good balance between scholarly standards and general interest. I wish it was more easily accessible. Hopefully soon Lewes History will be available online or in a digital format. I can’t wait to see what will be in this year’s issue! 

p.s. Reach out if you think any of these journals or articles could be useful to your research!