History of Lewes, Delaware
With a history dating back to 1631, it is not surprising to find many homes in Lewes of both historical and architectural interest. Only a small number of them are listed here. The first town in the first state. Who says you can't be first in everything?
1. ZWAANENDAEL MUSEUM
Savannah Road & Kings Highway
Built in 1931, this adaptation of the old Stadhuis (City Hall) in Hoorn, the Netherlands, houses permanent and changing displays and exhibits, including the Cape Henlopen Story, the H.M.S. DeBraak, and the material culture of the surrounding area.
2. FISHER-MARTIN HOUSE
Located behind the Zwaanendael Museum at intersection of Kings
Highway and Savannah Road
Circa 1730, this charming gambrel-roofed house was moved from the country at Cool Spring in 1980 as part of the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the first European settlement on Delaware soil. Just when it was built and by whom is uncertain. The tract at Cool Spring was owned in 1695 by Thomas Fisher, a wealthy merchant, and was left to his son Joshua who became famous for charting the Delaware Bay. It was sold in 1736 to Rev. James Martin, a minister of Cool Spring, Indian River, and Lewes Presbyterian churches. It stayed in the Martin family for over two hundred years.
3. COLONEL DAVID HALL HOUSE
107 Kings Highway
This early 18th century cypress-shingled house is mentioned in a 1734 will of Nathaniel Hall, but is named after his more famous grandson, Colonel David Hall - lawyer, revolutionary soldier and judge - who was elected the 15th Governor of Delaware in 1802. Colonel Hall, who commanded the celebrated "Delaware Line" of the Continentals during the Revolutionary War at Valley Forge, is buried in the Lewes Presbyterian Church yard.
4. LEWES CITY HALL
East Third Street
Built in 1961, this colonial-style building houses offices of the City of Lewes, the Board of Public Works and the Lewes Police Department. The fireplace, in the Council Room, is made of stone from the Henlopen Lighthouse which fell on April 13,1926.
5. LEWES PRESBYTERLIAN CHURCH
Kings Highway
The Lewes Presbyterian Church was founded in 1682, and the present building was dedicated in 1832. It replaced two previous buildings on the same site, one built in 1707 and the other, a brick edifice, begun in 1727.
A beautiful Communion Service was presented to the Church about 1851 by Colonel Samuel Boyer Davis, Lewes-born commander of the troops at Lewes during the bombardment of the town in 1813.
There are many interesting tombs in the churchyard, including those of two Delaware governors, Colonel David Hall and Ebe W Tunnell.
6. SAINT PETER'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Second and Market Streets
The present building, consecrated in 1858 and restored to its original beauty in 1948, was preceded by two prior structures, the first one having been begun before February 14, 1707. A congregation of the Church of England existed in Lewes prior to 1681. There are many interesting stones in the churchyard, the oldest being that of Margaret Huling, born 1631. Four governors of Delaware are buried here.
The bronze tablet on the outside of the brick wall calls attention to the site of the Old Court House, erected when Lewes was the County Seat of Sussex.
7. RYVES HOLT HOUSE c. 1665
Second and Mulberry Streets
This dignified shingled house is believed to be the oldest house in the state. It is known to have been standing on its present site in l685 and has recently been dated at 1665 through the analysis of borings taken from the wood used in the structure. Once a colonial inn, this is the house to which Ryves Holt came in 1721 when he arrived at "Port Lewes" Holt (1696-1763) became the Naval Officer of the Port and was also many times High Sheriff of Sussex County. With other appointments and offices to his credit, he was made the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in The Three Lower Counties on the Delaware in 1745 and served in this capacity until his death.
Commodore Jacob Jones also lived in the house. Following the death of his mother, his father married a daughter of Ryves Holt. Commodore Jones won acclaim when his ship WASP captured the more heavily armed British warship Frolic during the war of 1812.
8. BURTON-INGRAM HOUSE
Shipcarpenter and Third Street
(In the Historic Complex)
Moved from Second Street in 1962 by the Lewes Historical Society, the main section of this house is constructed of hand-hewn timbers and cypress shingles. It contains an interesting stairway and interior woodwork as well as fine interior and exterior moldings. The cellar walls are of sailing ballast stones and brick. A section from a similar dwelling was brought from Milton to replace an original wing destroyed by fire in 1922. The Leah Burton Paynter bequest of 1968 enabled the Society to complete the restoration.
9. RABBIT'S FERRY HOUSE - VISITOR CENTER
Third Street
(In the Historic Complex)
This house was moved from the Rabbit's Ferry area of rural Lewes in 1967 and restored by the Lewes Historical Society. The small part is an early eighteenth century one-room farmhouse with a sleeping loft, and contains original cypress shingles and brick nogging in walls, woodwork and fireplace paneling. The larger portion, added in the middle of the eighteenth century, boasts doors, chair rail, window and door trim, mantle and paneling that are all original and intact. Tour tickets are available at Rabbit's Ferry House.
10. THOMPSON COUNTRY STORE
Third Street
(In the Historic Complex)
Built in Thompsonville, Delaware, about 1800, this store was operated continuously by the Thompson family from 1888 to 1962. Given to the Lewes Historical Society bv Harvey Thompson, it was moved, repaired and reopened bv the Society in 1963. The store has many of its original appointments and has remained essentially the same as when it served its original purpose on a full-time basis.
11. EARLY PLANK HOUSE
Behind the Thompson Country Store
(In the Historic complex)
This small building, originally located in the rear of the Orton property on Pilottown Road, was moved in 1963 to its present site. Experts hold construction to be of early Swedish type and while no construction date has been agreed upon, it is one of the area's earliest buildings. The wood floor and hand-carved clothes pegs point to its use as a dwelling. It has been restored and finished as an early settler's cabin.
12. THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE
Behind the Early Plank House
(In the Historic Complex)
This handsome Greek Revival structure was built about 1850 by Dr. David Hall on Savannah Road across from Second Street. Dr. Hall practiced medicine until just before 1900 when he sold the building to Dr.W P Orr, Jr., who moved it to the Northeast side of Second Street and used it until 1904. The next occupant was Joseph Shek who operated his tailor shop there. In 1945 it became Clifton's Newsstand and survived the Lewes Fire of 1971.
The Cliftons donated the building to the Lewes Historical Society. It has been restored and outfitted as a museum showing a doctor's office at the turn of the century.
13. THE BURTON HOUSE
Second Street & Shipcarpenter Square
(In the Historic Complex)
The Hiram R. Burton House has an 18th century kitchen wing which adjoins a larger section constructed at a later date. Furnishings were received from the private collection of John Farrace. This was the home of Dr Hiram Rodney Burton, Lewes physician, President of the Medical Society of Delaware, and a Queen Anne's Railroad Director, who served two terms in Congress upon his election in 1904.
This historical building contains a Reading Room for those interested in reading Delaware history.
14. CANNONBALL HOUSE MARINE MUSEUM
Front and Bank Streets
Erected prior to 1797, the building is sheathed with cypress shingles and was the home of David Rowland. It is known as the Cannonball House because it was struck by a cannonball in the War of 1812 during the bombardment of Lewes by the British on April 6-7, 1813. The building has been restored by the Lewes Historical Society and contains the Marine Museum, which houses an ever-increasing number of nautical exhibits. The garden was planned and landscaped by the Sussex Gardeners.
15. THE LIGHTSHIP OVERFALLS
Pilottown Road (On Canal Front)
The Lewes Historical Society accepted from the U. S. Coast Guard in 1973 one of the last lightships which functioned on the East Coast. It stood for years off Boston and upon being brought to Lewes was rechristened Overfalls for the lightships which from 1892 to 1961 marked the entrance to the Delaware Bay. The ship's move to Lewes, its preparation for a museum role, and its relocation to a permanent berth made available by the city in 1975, have all been major undertakings overseen by the Lewes Historical Society and later by the Overfalls Maritime Museum Foundation (OMMF). OMMF is now working to preserve and restore the ship so this national treasure (one of only 17 surviving lightships of a U.S. fleet that at one time numbered 179) will be available for future generations.
16. 1812 MEMORIAL PARK
Front Street (Opposite the Post Office)
This was a defense battery during the War of 1812 and the site is marked by a granite monument placed by the National Society, U.S. Daughters of 1812. Four large guns on the upper lumps were contributed by the government. Between them is a small gun believed taken from a pirate vessel abandoned in the creek. A three- inch naval gun on the lower terrace, used during World War 1, was placed by the American Legion in 1930.
17. MAULL HOUSE
Pilottown Road
Owned and restored by the Colonel David Hall Chapter, DAR, this historic house is an early type of Dutch house built about 1739. According to legend, it is here that Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, and his bride Betsy, found refuge on a stormy night in 1803 when their ship had put into Lewes harbor for repairs. Betsy is remembered locally for refusing to be seated at a bountiful roast goose dinner until her silver candlesticks had been brought from the disabled ship.
18. FISHER'S PARADISE
624 Pilottown Road (Private home)
Major Henry Fisher, the pilot patriot, built Fisher's Paradise between 1780 and 1790. Fisher, a fervent patriot, figures prominently in Lewes'colorful history. At the request of the postwardens of Philadelphia, he selected the site for the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse. It was Major Fisher who informed the Continental Congress and General George Washington that Lord Howe's fleet had been sighted off Cape Henlopen and was headed toward the Chesapeake. He was empowered by Congress to raise a company of 100 men for the defense of the Cape and the river country; he armed them at his own expense. Fisher's daughter sold the house to Colonel Samuel Boyer Davis who lived there when he commanded the town's defense in the War of 1812.
19. deVRIES MONUMENT AND FORT SITE
Pilottown Road
In 1631 on this site, 28 Dutch settlers under the direction of deVries established the whaling colony of Zwaanendael and erected a fort. The following spring, Indians burned the stockade and massacred the settlers. Although the ill-fated settlement endured only briefly, its existence was significant in Delaware's becoming a separate State The Monument honoring the significance of the settlement was erected in the center of what was once the North bastion of the fort (apparently by coincidence). In 1964 members of the Sussex Society of Archaeology and History found the postmold patterns of the South bastion as sketched by deVries. This discovery culminated several years of effort to determine the exact location of the fort.
20. THE RODNEY HOUSE
103 Second Street
Probably the oldest building remaining in the first block of Second Street, it stood for many years as a near neighbor to the Burton-Ingram House which was relocated in 1962 to the Historic Complex. The structure and an adjoining building at the corner formed the store and residence of the family of Henry Fisher Rodney (I 800-1869). A daughter, Miss Lydia, conducted a private school for children in the building before she and others of her family left Lewes in 1869 to establish an Episcopal girls' school in Portland, Oregon. Many features of the building attest to its age and durability - from the cellar up to the attic.
21. OLD FIRE HOUSE
West Third and Chestnut Streets
The former Lewes Fire Station and jail is located at the corner of West Third and Chestnut Streets. The property was conveyed to the Commissioners of Lewes in 1897, and the principal building was erected at that time, with the north side being added later. The structure served as the Lewes Firehouse and Lock-up (jail) until the Fire Company moved to its present location on Savannah Road c. 1920.
The building at one time served as the Lewes Town office, a school house, a Boy Scout Center, and a meeting hall for the Lewes Jaycees. During World War II, the building housed prisoners of war.