#30 - First State National Historic Park

    The Ryves Holt House has the tagline the ‘Oldest House in the Oldest Town in the Oldest State.’ It delighted me and intrigued me the first time I heard it. Delaware is afterall the oldest state, being the first colony to ratify the Constitution. And I love old buildings, hence the start of this blog. Of course, the folks of Lewes and myself are not the only people to recognize how cool the Ryves Holt House is, it has stood over Lewes for something like 350 years and has thus witnessed nearly all of the colonial history of America from the establishment of European settlements to the disestablishment of slavery, from the French and Indian Wars through the Revolution, the Civil War, the War of 1812 and all the way to the World Wars. The Ryves Holt House watched (and housed) the pilots of Lewes as they guided ships to Philadelphia and then witnessed the arrival of thousands of immigrants over the centuries. So, in 2014 Congress passed legislation to add the Ryves Holt House to the First State National Historic Park alongside other important Delaware sites like Fort Christina, the New Castle Courthouse, and Beaver Valley-Woodlawn Tract. There are seven sites in total as part of the Historic Park, scattered up and down Delaware to tell the history of the First State. They encompass elements of much of Delaware’s history from the original Native American inhabitants all the way through the Women’s Suffrage movement. 

    This week we are going over the Historic Resource Study put together for the First State National Historical Park called ‘A Historic Saga of Settlement and Nation Building.’ Perhaps a bit pretentious for a title, but it does get the point across. The primary focus for the Historical Park was indeed about European Settlement and Nation Building, but it has since expanded to include much more. The Study was prepared by Paula S. Reed and her company, Paula S. Reed & Associates, a historic preservation company out of Hagerstown, MD, as well as Edith B. Wallace, who seems to be an independent historian or a cultural resource professional in Maryland. Its goal is to provide context and interpretation to aid planners, cultural resource specialists and the interested public in understanding the narratives and histories of the Historical Park Sites. In doing so, it actually becomes a little clunky and repetitive in organization. The Study is organized first with an overall discussion of the history of Delaware, as territory, colony, and state, and how the sites are interwoven into that narrative. Then each site is given closer consideration. However, this functions to make reading the thing rather repetitive. 

    I was disconcerted to find myths about Lewes repeated in something of such a late publication date - 2019. This resource study clearly believes the DeVries monument on Pilottown Road is for the failed 1631 colony, despite admitting that the 1950s/60s excavations were unclear. The authors fail to mention the other fort built on this site, that of the 1659 Dutch fort during the Anglo-Dutch Wars. They also stick to the erroneous spelling of Zwaanendael, with the caveat (spelled also Swanendael). This annoys me, dear reader. One of these days I will track down this alternative pretend-Dutch spelling and lay the silly thing to rest. 

    Analyzing the arguments, emphases, and sources for the Historic Resource Study leads me to believe that since the architectural descriptions for the sites are so well written that the authors must (as they indeed do) work more closely with architectural preservation than history. Their sources are quite surface level, and in fact significantly overlap with sources I have already discussed on this blog. Jean Soderlund and her Lenape Country reappear, as does Leon DeValinger, Jr’s “Burning of the Whorekill.” But they still seem to often fail at providing the contemporary understanding of the history of Lewes, the same understanding that I am starting to support in my own research. That it is Swanendael, that the DeVries Monument is unlikely to be the 1631 colony’s fortifications, and that the destruction of Swanendael was much more than a simple misunderstanding. They also spend startlingly little time looking at the Ryves Holt House itself. They barely mention the discrepancy in age - 1665, 1685, 1710 or something else altogether, which is understandable since this is simply a survey, but then they shift to the history of Lewes rather than the history of the house. The house’s importance comes from its inhabitants, namely Ryves Holt and his step-great grandson, but the tie to a larger narrative is often hard to find. 

    But, hey, that certainly gives me a lot to talk about, doesn’t it? I see such a large gap that Lewes can fill in the historical narrative, one that is made glaringly obvious in this survey. Stay tuned, dear reader. Next up, the blog will pivot a bit to discuss ways to organize research and tips to keep data straight as you progress in research. So, join me over the next couple weeks to learn about the lovely world of annotated bibliographies! 

Maybe consider it our recap episodes.