USA > Delaware > Sussex County > Lewes > History of Lewes, Delaware. Read before the Historical Society of Delaware, Nov. 17, 1902 > Part 1
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PAPERS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE. XXXVIII.
HISTORY OF LEWES,
DELAWARE.
BY PENNOCK PUSEY, HISTORIOGRAPHER OF THE SOCIETY.
Read before the Historical Society of Delaware, Nov. 17, 1902.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE, WILMINGTON. 1903.
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1753408
R. SHAW
DEMOLISHED 1871.
THE OLD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT LEWES. REBUILT 1760.
NITTI T 1798
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HISTORY OF LEWES.
Of the several European projects which in the seventeenth century caused the great deportation of people from the Old World to the shores of the New, none was more remarkable than that which was actively promoted by the Lords States General of Holland. The United Provinces were then the greatest maritime power of the world, and the zeal for fresh - discoveries with a growing thirst for extension of trade, sent the ships of the little Dutch republic into all known ports, while unknown marts were keenly sought in the then per- sistent efforts to find a new passage to India across the · American continent. '
While religious motives in some form more or less inspired emigration from most other countries, trade was the dominant purpose of the Dutch, religious propagation and other objects being the resulting and secondary incidents of the primary inspiration. But the latter, however originating, were the achievements which have had most immediate con- cern with the progress and history of mankind; and it is here that the early Dutch navigators won imperishable and deserved renown.
While it is generally conceded that the Spaniards as early as 1526 had explored the whole Atlantic coast as far Nortli as the thirty-fifth degree of latitude it is certain that the practical discoverer of Delaware Bay and River was Henry Hudson, an English navigator in the service of the Dutch
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HISTORY OF LEWES, DELAWARE.
East India Company. The journals both of Hudson and of Robert Juet, his first officer, show that the discovery was made on the 28th of August, 1609, and they detail the courses and distances sailed along the coast, and the sound- ings off the bars and within the capes which have since been found remarkably accurate. Upon incontestable evidence, thus definite and circumstantial, the Dutch laid claim to the adjacent territory as against the vague and sweeping assumptions of the English under the general discovery of the Cabots in the prior century. Unfortunately for the Dutch they were slow in asserting their prior right, which gave ground for the English contest, until organized colon- ization and actual occupancy of new territory became requi- site for rightful ownership. But not less by this juster test than by their prior discovery had the Dutch the first valid claim to what is now Delaware territory. It was a claim . moreover founded upon recognition of the prior right of the natives, of whom the land had been purchased, and it was sealed with the blood of the purchasers; for it was the Dutch expedition of De Vries, provided with all requisites for actual cultivation of the soil that in April, 1631, landed near Lewes and began the settlement which suffered a sad massacre from the Indians-an event to be more fully noticed hereafter.
Hudson in 1610 again came to the New World with a trading cargo, which he exchanged with the Indians for furs, and the following year a voyage was made by Hendrick Christiaensen and Adrien Block with the Schipper Rysar, who returned with a valuable cargo of furs, together with two red men, sons of Indian chiefs. This so quickened the curiosity and public interest in the new land that a inemorial
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HISTORY OF LEWES, DELAWARE.
upon the subject was sent to the Provincial States of Holland and copies distributed formally to their principal cities. Then followed a succession of voyages, among which was that of the ship Fortune, commanded by Captain Cornelius Jacobson Mey, from whom Cape May derived its name. In the same fleet was Block's vessel, the Tiger, which was destroyed by fire when about to sail for home. But her undaunted navigator, while the other vessels pursued their return voyage, built a hut on the shore of a little island, where he spent the winter of 1613-14 in constructing a boat to take the place of the burnt Tiger.
This new craft, the first built in America, was 38 feet keel, 4472 feet long, 11 feet wide and 16 tonnage. She was christened Onrust or Restless, and although scarcely larger than a modern fishing smack or oyster shallop, was destined to great historic fame; for it was with this diminu- tive vessel that Captain Cornelius Hendrickson in 1615-16 made a thorough exploration of Delaware Bay and River, at least as far north as the mouth of the Schuylkill. In the course of his adventures the enterprising explorer ascended our Christiana, where he met a band of Minqua Indians with whom he traded ; and it should prove a matter of some interest to our immediate community that perhaps on the very spot where Wilmington now stands the captain held a friendly conference with the red men, from whom moreover he rescued three white captives who had wan- dered from the Dutch fort on the Hudson. That imme- diately hereabouts was the scene of these events there can be little doubt, since here was the first upland reached after ascending through the marshes, a locality which was long a favorite abiding place of the Indians and from whom our
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HISTORY OF LEWES, DELAWARE.
first Swedish settlers subsequently purchased their landing place and town site.
While authorities differ as to the extent of Hendricksen's cruise through the Delaware, there is no good reason for doubting the truth of the explorer's own report which dis- tinctly states that he "discovered and explored certain lands, a bay and three rivers situate between 38 and 40 degrees ;" nor can we fairly doubt that Hendricksen, as the first explorer in detail of the Delaware Bay and River, was the first white man to tread the soil of what is now Delaware territory, while the experience of nearly three centuries has confirmed the accuracy of his report respecting the character of the country, its trees, streams, native fruits, wild animals, abundant game and temperate climate. Indeed, while, for some reason Hendricksen failed to receive proper reward or recognition at home, his services were of incalculable value in first acquainting the Old World with the resources of the New ; and while he was thus persistently laboring with little hope of reward, others, less deserving, were soon to be unduly rewarded. Fleet after fleet, carrying multiplied adventur- ers, hastened across to America in an eager race for gain. For on the 27th of March, 1614, the High and Mighty States General of Holland had issued their famous ordi- nance or edict granting and conceding to whomsoever should from that time forward discover any "new passages, havens, lands and places," the exclusive right of navigat- ing to the same for four voyages, provided such discoverers made "pertinent" reports thereof within fourteen days of their return.
The effect of this prodigious stimulus was to enlist fresh capital and to vastly increase the number of exploring ves-
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HISTORY OF LEWES, DELAWARE.
sels coasting the new continent. A single summer sufficed " to so augment the number and greed of adventurers that - the demand for new countries and their fabulous treasures exceeded the supply; and upon the return of the vessels in the fall the navigators and their merchant associates drew up their reports with charts of their several discoveries, and hastened to The Hague to claim the concessions offered by the official edict. Unfolding their maps and warming with eloquent tales in the wondering presence of the twelve High Mightinesses the navigators enlarged upon their various adventures, told of losses and gains, travails and triumphs, and, depicting a future of Dutch glory as the harvest of their sacrifices, they demanded the promised reward. It was promptly granted ; and by a special charter under the date of the IIth of October, 1614, the adventurers acquired control of the entire Atlantic coast from Canada, then New France, to Virginia, embracing the whole region from the 40th to the 45th parallel of latitude, to which was given the name of New Netherlands. To this vast territory the grantees had the exclusive right to trade for five years-a monopoly which would seem to dwarf the soaring propor- tions of modern plutocracy and belittle its most expanded Trusts.
The so-called "discoveries" thus so summarily rewarded could have comprised, in such brief voyages, little more than passing observations largely conjectural, and there is no evidence extant that any of these privileged vessels entered the Delaware; but there was one little craft, we have seen, that not only entered but thoroughly explored the rivers, creeks and harbors of our fronting waters and traded with the natives along their shores. Long after the returned
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HISTORY OF LEWES, DELAWARE.
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adventurers had received their huge reward abroad the little home-built Restless, without reward, continued her busy career of exploration. To her bold commander, Captain Cornelius Hendrickson, honor was due alike for his humane release of the Indian captives on the Christiana and for the invaluable information he contributed respecting the character and resources of the country. While little of such information has been preserved it is known to have materially facilitated the organization of that great Dutch West India Company, which was so large a factor in the early colonial history of America.
Deserving to rank with Usselinx, Minuit and other earnest leaders of American colonization, Hendrickson was thus an effective co-adjutor in their cherished scheme; and at last their patient and persevering labors were rewarded by the formal incorporation on the 3d of June, 1621, of the great Dutch organization whose autocratic and comprehensive powers perhaps the world never saw paralleled in the history of granted franchises.
. But with the usual abuse of irresponsible power members of this Dutch West India Company soon launched upon a career wholly foreign to the peaceful purposes for which it was constituted. The war with Spain affording a fair pre- text they pursued a course of privateering that became little short of colossal piracy against the commerce of Spain and Portugal. This yielded such enormous spoils that they unblushingly protested against a proposed peace or truce upon the naive and quaint plea candidly expressed in their memorial that their company, formed wholly for a peaceful object could not exist without war !
Nevertheless there were some shrewd and conservative,
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CAPE HENLOPEN LIGHTHOUSE.
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HISTORY OF LEWES, DELAWARE.
yet energetic, members who did not forget the original pur- pose of the company, but honestly believed in the profit and prosperity to result from its legitimate pursuit of coloniza- tion and commercial projects. Among these men of sub- stance were John De Laet, the historian; Killiaen Van Rensselaer, Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert. These men, with others of prudent and prophetic views, secured from the so-called assembly or "College of Nineteen" a charter of Exemptions and Privileges," which was con- firmed by the States General on the 7th of June, 1629, under which enormous tracts of land and extraordinary powers, privileges and franchises were accorded to all such as should plant colonies or settlements in New Netherlands.
This was the original basis of that patroon system of vast land tenure that specially characterized the early settlement of New York State. It was provided that on certain con- ditions members could send, on the company's ships, three or four persons as agents to select lands, and that after first satisfying the Indian's right to the same and defining the desired boundaries such members should become the feudal lords or patroons over tracts of fixed size, on condition that on each of theni a colony of not less than 50 adults should be planted within four years. These tracts for colonial settlement might be 64 miles in length or half that extent if on two sides of a navigable river, and they were acquired in absolute fee simple by the patroons who were sole magis- trates, and, within their own bounds "had chief command and dower jurisdiction," with the exclusive privilege of fishing, fowling and milling, and of founding cities and appointing officers. They prohibited all manufacturing, retained complete monopoly of the fur trade, and in all other
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respects the patroons were to be sovereign in their lordship.
Thus in the virgin soil of the New World where equality in human conditions it was fondly hoped might take root, were sown the seeds of privilege -- in the heart of that primal domain where the free air bred jealous individuality and the chance of a fair and equal start for all, there was planted a complete feudal system: and a landed aristocracy of pre- tentious and alien purpose strutted its brief hour on the broad theatre destined for freest democracy.
Among the earliest tracts secured under this bountiful charter were two on either shore of lower Delaware Bay, the one on the East taken by Samuel Godyn and the other on the West by Samuel Blommaert. The tract taken by Godyn, after whom the bay was then named, included Cape May and a large surrounding area, while the land selected by Blommaert comprised a tract in the southeast corner of what is now Delaware, 32 miles long north and south, and two miles wide east and west. Two persons had been sent from Holland in 1629 to examine the land and make the requisite preliminary purchase from the Indians, and the patent for the tract was registered and confirmed on the Ist of June, 1630. While it is impossible at this day to identify the exact inland boundaries of this domain it is certain to have embraced the entire water frontage of what is now Sussex county upon ocean and bay and to have included the present sites of Rehoboth and Lewes. And thus our little State had a colonial connection with New York in its scheme of settle- ment and at least a corner of its territory was involved in the operations of the huge patroon landed interests of that State. For, the early example of Godyn and Blommaert on the South or Delaware Bay was speedily followed by others
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HISTORY OF LEWES, DELAWARE.
on the North or Hudson River among the most conspicuous of the latter being Van Rensselaer, whose tract embraced nearly all of the present counties of Albany and Rensselaer.
But these lords of the soil, grasping as they gained, and, fired with visions of coming wealth and power, soon began to quarrel among themselves, and as soon, felt impelled, in order to avoid exposure of questionable transactions, to make an equal division of their vast acquisitions to quiet the dis- affected partners concerned. Then as the colonization and actual occupancy and cultivation of the land were necessary to complete good titles to the great estates Blommaert pre- pared an expedition provided with cattle, farming imple- ments and other requisites to that end, to be sent to the Delaware for due settlement, over which he appointed as commander David Pietersen De Vries of Hoorn, a bold and skilful navigator and master of artillery of the United Provinces. This great seaman and explorer who had just returned from a three years cruise in the East Indies was at first offered but a secondary position among the titled opera- tors, but declining any part under the highest assignment, his equality was recognized, and he was made full patroon on the 16th of October, 1630. The expedition sailed from the Texel in the ensuing December; it comprised the ship Walvis or Whale of 18 guns, and a yacht which, in addition to immigrants and farming supplies, carried implements for capturing whales, which were thought to be plentiful about the region of Delaware Bay.
Such was the origin and character of a voyage of historic fame known as the "De Vries" expedition. Yet the best sources of information favor the belief that De Vries him- self did not sail with this first expedition, but that it was
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commanded by Peter Heyes, and reached South or Goodyn - or Delaware Bay in April, 1631. Sailing up the western shore the two vessels passed the sandy point, now known as Cape Henlopen, and entered what was recorded as "a fine navigable stream filled with islands, abounding in good oysters" and flowing through a fertile region. They were met by the land odors and saw the bursting vegetation of a smiling April; and, wearied with the ship odors and the confinement and monotony of a four months' sea voyage, the immigrants gladly yielded to the allurements of the fragrant new home in its fresh spring apparel. There they landed with their supplies and their appliances for farming, for whale-fishing and for a permanent fixed settlement in a virginal and new land of promise. The settlers were about thirty in number, all males, and nearby, in good faith and high hopes they began that first Delaware colony which was destined to so brief an existence and so sad a fate.
The stream they had ascended, now known as Lewes creek, was then named Hoornkill in honor of De Vries, whose Holland residence was in Hoorn, while the landing place of this first Delaware colony to which the name was also applied, was nearly identical with the site of the exist- ing Lewes; and here thus began the eventful history of the little Delaware town. Moreover the whole settlement was also called Zwaanendael or "Valley of Swans," from the number of those beautiful birds there found, and the land it comprised was, as a precautionary or confirmative measure again purchased for the patroons on the 5th of May, 1631, by the captain and commissary of the expedition from ten Indian chiefs belonging probably to the Nanticoke or Tide Water Indians, a tribe of the great Leni-Lenape or
THE SAND MOUNTAIN NEAR LEWES.
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HISTORY OF LEWES, DELAWARE.
self-called "Grandfathers" or "Original People," compris- ing forty or more tribes which originally inhabited the great central belt of what is now the United States.
A small building with surrounding palisades was erected near the landing place, it is supposed, and then the com- mander, Peter Heyes, crossing over to Cape May there made a similar Indian purchase of a large tract of land in what is now southern New Jersey in behalf of the patroons. Being then not long in ascertaining that little was to be expected from catching whales in that locality, Captain Heyes in September sailed for Holland, leaving the com- missary, Gillis Hossett, in command of Fort Oplandt and the colony of Zwaanendael.
The tragic event that followed furnishes a vivid page of early colonial history. The colony was suddenly cut off without a survivor by the Indians. It was the first and probably the only blood of white men that ever stained Delaware soil by red men, at least in their tribal or con- certed action. Why and how the massacre occurred was never known with certainty, but it became a general belief that it resulted from the unwise and hasty conduct of Hos- sett and his men. The Dutch had erected, according to their custom, a pillar, probably as one of their boundary marks, which bore upon it a piece of tin traced with the coat of arms of the United Provinces. One of the chiefs, attracted by the shining article, with an innocent but mis- taken impulse, thoughtlessly possessed himself of the piece of tin of which he wanted to make pipes. For this act he was violently rebuked and threatened with punishment. The offender tried to explain that he meant no offence and offered ample compensation for what he had ignorantly
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taken, but he continued to be harshly abused by his accusers, who would listen to no plea for neighborly peace and good will. The Indians were all extremely anxious to appease the whites, of whom they stood in great awe, and, that nothing might be lacking in their zeal to atone for the offence, they slew the offending chief and brought his scalp in token of their act to Fort Oplandt. Instead of receiving the thanks and friendly return for which they had persistently labored the Indians were assailed with renewed violence for the very act by which they had meant propitia- tion, and they went away in great displeasure and despair. Then some friends of the murdered chief who had taken no part in the matter, feeling outraged at the harsh and unjust behaviour of the whites, sought revenge, and, stealing upon them when all but one sick man were at work in the fields, slew them at their labor, and then hastened to the fort, killed its one sick occupant as well as a huge chained dog on guard.
Such was the story told afterward by the Indians, for they left no white survivor to report differently of the butchery. While open to doubt in some particulars De Vries appears to have believed the account as afterward related to him, and there seems no reason to question its substantial truth.
But however sad its fate and brief its existence this early settlement and actual occupancy of Delaware soil was a vital factor in the attainment of our civic autonomy and separate existence as a sovereign State ; for it precluded our being absorbed into the territory of Maryland. The royal patent to Lord Baltimore of the next year, issued in 1632, having expressly restricted the grant to lands "uncultivated
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and inhabited by savages," it necessarily exempted lands which the " Savages" had already disposed of and " Chris- tians" had "cultivated." Such was substantially the decis- ion of the Lord's Commissioners after a patient hearing, and a decree of the King's Council issued in 1685 in order " to avoid further differences," divided the disputed penin- sula equally between the opposing claimants by drawing a line from a point equally distant from each bay on the lati- tude of Cape Henlopen running northward to the Pennsyl- vania boundary. The "latitude of Cape Henlopen" here quoted was that of the original Cape Henlopen at the south- east corner of our State, and the decision was a distinct recognition of both the southern and western boundaries of Delaware as now existing; and although the representatives of Maryland's claim rejected the settlement and long con- tended for the whole peninsula, the decision was the basis of the ultimate adjustment of the long pending controversy between the heirs of William Penn and those of Lord Balti- more.
Thus again was historic Lewes, in the first tragic experience of the place, deeply involved with the momentous problems pertaining to the very existence of the State. And the fact of the bloody baptism and early disappearance of the little colony instead of affording ground for ignoring Delaware's prior claim to territorial existence, would seem to lend pathos and add a quickened sense of historic sympathy to considera- tions of justice regarding the tragedy. Yet Lord Baltimore's claim to the whole area of Delaware was wholly baseless except by taking advantage of the colonist's misfortunes, disregarding their prior cultivation of the soil and assuming the rightful repossession by the Indians of the land they
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had fairly sold to actual settlers. The latter had acted in -good faith, and their vacation of the premises was not their choice but their cruel fate-an end deserving the kindly consideration rather than the envious cupidity of rival claimants.
Early in the year following the inassacre De Vries had made preparations for sailing from Holland with more settlers for Zwaanendael when the startling news of its destruction reached him. Deferring his departure some months, he sailed in the fall and, after a weary voyage, reached Delaware Bay in early December, and after taking precautions against an apprehended surprise from hostile Indians, De Vries sailed up the Hoornkill and even before landing saw growing evidence that his worst fears were to be realized. The stockade and various buildings forming the strong hold of Fort Oplandt were in ruins, and destruc- tion was seen on every side. But they failed to see the worst until they reached the spot where the settlers had met their cruel fate. There they found the ground bestrewn with the skeletons of their slaughtered countrymen and near at hand the remains of their cattle. It was a scene of oppressive awe; silence, ruin and desolation reigned in the once lovely valley, and the searchers returned sorrowfully to the ship. Seeing no Indians, De Vries ordered a gun to be fired, hoping to bring some of them to the ship; but none came until the following day when several appeared cautiously near the ruins of the fort, but declined approach- ing the ship, apparently signaling the whites to come to them. De Vries, anxious to gain particulars of the massacre went ashore the next day and held a parley with them, and after mnuch delay and skillful persuasion so far gained their
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