««fl«Ki(m4inWMip / ^/ / /• / r / / / CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM THE BOOKS OF GEORGE MORGAN WELCH '03 COLONEL Judge Advocate General's Department Army of the United States F 172S8 W"'™'"*'"-"'"'^' County ^°'llHllimMifiii?iiiiini'i?i?i?'' Delaware 3 1924 028 865 olin 520 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924028865520 A n. IB3I- SOME RECORDS SUSSEX COUNTY DELAWARE COMPILED BY C. H. B. TURNER LEWES, DELAWARE PHILADELPHIA ALLEN, LANE & SCOTT 1909 t PREFACE. Some of the records in this book have been pubhshed before, but in a form inaccessible to most people. Previous to the settlement of the dispute between Lord Baltimore and Penn Sussex County was only 30 miles long and 12 miles wide. That is the portion referred to in these records. I am deeply indebted to the Rev. Sadler Phillips, Chaplain to the Bishop of London, and the Rev. and Mrs. P. T. Mignot of Guernsey for many kindnesses shown me when searching for records in Europe. To Mr. WiUiam M. Marines' " Bombardment of Lewes," I owe most of my information about that important event. C. H. B. T. Lewes, Del., November 5, 1909. — SOME RECORDS OF SUSSEX COUNTY. ' ' There is probably no State in the Union where one would find less material for writing its history than in Delaware," says the American Historical Association in its report for 1906. Let one attempt to write the history of any portion of Delaware and the statement of the American Historical Association will be found only too true. Where Lewes now stands the Indians had a village called Sikoness, or Sikeoyness. We can imagine the astonishment of the savages as on August 28th, 1609, Henry Hudson sailed into the bay opposite the village. From that time until 1631, when the expedition called Devries' expedition sailed into what is now called Delaware Bay and planted the Colony on a point of land above Lewes, which the colonists called Swaanendael, the Indians saw very few, if any, white persons. The VanRenssalaer Bowier papers give us some account of the doings at Swaanendael until the colonists were mas- sacred by the Indians. It is as follows: "With the de Walvis, they, in 1631, took possession of the bay of the South River in New Netherland, occupying the place of their colony with twenty-eight persons engaged in whaling and farming, and made suitable fortifications, so that in July of the same year their cows calved and their lands were seeded and covered with a fine crop, until finally by the error of their Commis all the people and the animals were lamentably killed, whereby they suffered incalculable damage, which damage the remonstrants attempted to repair in the year 1632 with the former ship den Walvis and besought the Com- pany to lend a helping hand, who neither by word or deed would render any assistance." Samuel Godjn, Patroon of Swaandael, sold out to the West India Company, July, 1634. There had been considerable friction between Kilian* and the West India Company, because Kilian wanted colonists to till the land, and the West India Company were opposed to having the land cleared and settled, as it caused a scarcity of fur-bearing animals. * Van Renssalaer. — I SOME RECORDS OF SUSSEX COUNTY. The VanRenssalaer Bowier papers say: "During the two years when the late Mr. Godijn and his people were trading in Swanendael, the Company received from the South River^ through their servants, a no less quantity of skins than in former or later years, but he obtained his furs in addition to these by bartering with other tribes. "This caused so much jealousy that the Company sent a Commis there, trading close by the people of Godijn, deprived him in one year of over SOO skins in Swanendael alone." Again Kiliaen VanRenssalaer says: "We are trying to populate the land and in time to spread the teaching of the Holy Gospel by many people, while they (the West India Company), on the contrary, employing only a few people, look solely for the profits of the fur trade." The Swedes do not seem to have attempted to colonize what is now Sussex County. Secretary Van Tienhoven, writing from The Hague, Feb- ruary 22d, 1650, says: "The further progress of the Swedes could be prevented and neutralized by planting a Colonic at Swaanendael, otherwise called the Whorekil, on the West side of the Bay." And he also says: "Send a clergyman, or, in his place provisionally, a Comforter of the Sick, who could also act as Schoolmaster." While records are lacking that would tell us many things to the credit of the Dutch, the above record sets forth in a few words that they had a care for men's souls, as well as for their minds and bodies. The Hoorn Kil, the name given these parts by the Dutch settlers, unfortunately spelled Horekil, Whorekill, and so many other ways, suggests the love of David Pietersen de Vries for his native place the municipality of Hoorn. Vice-Director Alrichs, writing to Amsterdam, Holland, from New Amstel, on the South River, August 13th, 1657, says : "I have already stated that there is a fine and excellent country called the Whorekil, abounding very much in wild animals, birds, fish, &c., and the land is so good and fertile that the like is nowhere to be found. It lies at the entrance of the Bay, about two leagues up from Cape Henlopen." Lord Baltimore's people were giving the Dutch on the South River much uneasiness by their claims to all the territory occupied by the Dutch, from New Amstel to the Whore Kil. CIVIL RECORDS. 6 '' The Marylanders were threatening New Amstel and the Whore- Kil; New Amstel, being the more important place, the Dutch "did resolve to quit the Whore- Kill, thinking it better to quitt that place then to run the hazard of weak- ening New Amstell. The English then came out of Mary- land, from a part now , called Somersett County and drew neere the Whorekill, tradeing with the Indians. Where- upon it was reported that the said English men began to build and settle in that part of the country. "A Commander and sixteen men were sent to the Whore- kill to take possession againe, but another 'resolucSn' was taken a short time after to call the said soldiers back, and soe the Whorekill was left againe. "There was likewise a boate dispatched to the Whorekill and there plundered and tooke possession of all effects be- longing to the Citty of Amsterdam, as alsoe what belonged to the Quaking Society of Plockhoy to a very naile, ac- cording to the letter written by one of that company to the City of Amsterdam, in which letter complaint was made that the Indians at the Whorekill had declared they never sold the Dutch any land to inhabitt." The Dutch placed buoys in the Bay, 1658. The same year the Whore Kil was annexed to New Amstel. In 1657 the Indians near Lewes, or the Whore Kil, had captured some shipwrecked English. Word was sent to Vice-Director Alrichs at New Amstel. In a letter from Alrichs to Mr. Petrus Stuy^resant, Director- General of New Netherland, dated Fort New Amstel, Oc- tober 29th, 1657, he says: "Since writing the foregoing I have tried in several ways, as for instance dispatching first Capt. Flaman, to go to the Horekil, to release the English, who were shipwrecked there with two boats, but he, Flaman, has come back, without having accomplished anj^hing on account of the loss of an anchor; I then have sent Michiel * * * there, who, after an absence of 14 days ransomed the remaining Englishmen from the Indians and brought them here together * * *, to the number of 14." One of the earliest settlers in the Whore Kil was Hal- manius Frederick Wiltbank, to whom was granted 800 acres of land, July 28th, 1676. There were grants to others at the same date: Henry Strieker, Timothy Love, (Re- hoboth Creeke), Randall Reveille, John King, Robert Winder, 4 SOME RECORDS OF SUSSEX COUNTY. Daniel Harte, John Roods (Roads), Daniel Brown, Alex- ander Molestine, Abraham Clemmy, and Otto Wolgast. As we shall see later Wiltbank played a more important part in the history of Lewes than did the others named above. Order Appointing a day of General Fasting and Prayer: "Honorable, Dear, Faithful "Although the most merciful God, rich in grace and compassion, hath, notwithstanding our unworthiness, watched over us hitherto and daily gives us abundant cause to proclaim His praise and to bless His august name for the innumerable benefits and favors ex- hibited from time to time, in granting peace and quiet both with our neighbouring Christian nations and the Indians, the natives of the country, as well as in bestowing a bountiful harvest, having certainly blessed our basket of bread and staff of life, wherein His goodness and beneficence are clearly manifest. "Yet, considering that the righteous God hath visited many and divers inhabitants of this Province, not only this summer, with pain- ful and long, lingering sickness, but, moreover, also, that His kindled anger and uplifted hand threaten with many and divers punishments, especially with a devastating Indian war, which is no other than a just punishment and visitation of our God for our enormous sins of unbelief, dilatoriness in God's service, blaspheming His holy name, desecrating the Sabbath, drunkenness, lasciviousness, whoredom, hate, envy, lies, fraud, luxury, abuse of God's gifts, and many other iniquities.