This in an area of much history...

I love Sussex County Delaware. I am native born, multigenerational and proud to be one of those who, as they say; "are from here".

The earliest records of our family show we were here well before the Mayflower arrived in 1620; some our ancestors were here in the early 1500's or before; when the only records here were all the family Bibles that each family kept.

In this area, we were populated by those escaping religious persecution in Europe. This heritage has much to do with the names and character of our area. Many local ancestors fled Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man, when Henry IV dethroned Richard II and the subsequent political and religious purge sent religious zealots to places out of the reach and care of England. I've learned that many were foragers only and did not farm or hunt, only fished, from directions they read in the Bible.

Some of these folks evolved into local farmers, plain woodsmen, wild plant pickers and eaters, herbalists, tanners, soap makers, hunters, and under all they were missionaries in the areas of what are now Lewes, Milton, Angola, Long Neck, Broadkill, Nassau, Cool Spring, Whitesville, Quakertown and Red Mill Pond.

These folks worshipped only God, the Christ, and read only the most original scriptures or were as they say just PLAIN... This was all deadly illegal under the British rule, except as licensed by the King. Others were burned, hung, drawn, quartered, drowned slowly and otherwise tortured to death publicly and imprisoned in terrible conditions meanwhile.

I was raised at what is now Eagle Crest Aerodrome, on what was early known as the White Farms, near Milton. I started school at Milton school then went to Lewes School and graduated 1967 from Lewes School. Since then I've lived in several areas of what we locals sometimes call "Saltwater Sussex" and what I used to call The Henlopen Quadrant; that is the locations within 25 miles of Cape Henlopen.

The Whites, Taylors, McIntires, Potters, Fishers, Maulls, Brittinghams, etc. were of my mother's family and were or descended from the earliest teachers and missionaries here that I know of. Many of these early settlers established mills and mill ponds where (perhaps) America's first manufacturing industry, that of grinding oak bark and developing it into tannin was done. This damming of the creeks to make mill power, caused our first swellings of little creeks and springs into what became larger mill ponds. Red Mill Pond was such an early example, as was Milton Pond, Millsboro Pond, and several smaller ones such as Beaver Dam Pond, and Saw Mill Pond, etc. As the mills were abandoned and dams burst, many of these ponds receded and disappeared.

These "plain people" as they were often known, to themselves, were just plain and not bound to any king, or religion, except God and the Bible in it's original languages and in early German. I recall some hand written Bibles, in ink and pen, Bibles in our family home at what is now Eagle Crest Road and Route One.

Route 1 by the way was the first road in what is now America and connected all the original settlements, although it was first useful only on foot, later by mule and horse. Much later by wagon. There were many fords and later bridges as road one, traversing this land from south to north, crossed the many creeks, streams and rivers that fed from the land to the Delaware Bay.

Cape Henlopen is the anchor point of Salt Water Sussex County, where the Delaware Bay meets and flows into the Atlantic Ocean at Lewes. When you stand at Cape Henlopen Point, you can see the razor line of color change where the dark waters of the Bay meet the blue waters of the ocean in a diagonal line extending from the beach out into the sea. This darkness of the waters is caused by the nutrient rich, therefore muddy, waters that seep out of the great marsh which borders almost all of Delaware.

This Great Marsh is, even today, one of the most ecologically rich and diverse lands in the world; were thousands of native plants and numerous animals live. Here they have no native predators to speak of. A most wonderful book about this Marsh is Progger: A Life on the Marsh, by Tony Florio. Only in the last few years have predators plied these lands, feral dogs and cats loosed from the tourists, visitors and new townspeople into our great marsh, no longer household pets, these thousands of wild cats and dogs, bring a deadly new addition to the lands.

We have, here in Saltwater Sussex, a conspicuous absence of poisonous snakes. The early Plain People were unique in that they learned to live here year 'round, (although the American Indians did not) especially in and along this fertile great marsh. These Plain People gave this land and any others who came here their full admiration, acceptance and friendliness. They loved and were loved by the natives who browsed, hunted and fished here. This character caused them to be known as kind, strong, courageous and resourceful -- and thus they gained the trust and admiration of these natives.

Because of the relatively large number of missionary settlers here, and the prosperity they created by ingeniously trading goods they made and services to the native peoples - along with the good will that was enjoyed among all... there was much peace between the native hunters and fishers with these Plain folks.

This region was found to be of great importance to the Dutch and English. The plain folks tended to stay well away from each other as a show of privacy and independence. They did not ordinarily join the dangerous, politically combative and disease ridden towns for generations after these towns were established here - as the area colonized. In fact there were many of the Colonial towns that died out or were burned out by the natives - because of the unhealthy conditions and attitudes that prevailed. The Plain Folk recorded the facts. Thus we have numerous histories of places where everyone was killed or died and these histories were written by the local Plain Folk.

Lewes: This region was hotly contested by the Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and English. The first officially recorded settlement here at the beach, was established by Dutch patroons, or proprietors, in partnership with the Dutch navigator David Pietersen de Vries; it was called Swanendael and was established (1631) on the site of the town of Lewes. However, within a year it was destroyed by a Native American attack. This attack notwithstanding, the Native Americans were generally friendly and willing to trade with the newcomers. And, notably the native people, who seldom lived here but hunted and fished here during the non mosquito seasons, got along well with the Plain People and not the settlers.

The Dutch West India Company, organized in 1623, was more interested in trade on the South River, as the Delaware was called at that time, than in settlement (the North River was the Hudson, in the Dutch colony of New Netherland). Several Dutchmen, interested in settling the area, put their services at the disposal of Sweden and colonized the area for that country. The best known of these was Peter Minuit, who had been governor of New Amsterdam (later New York). In 1637-38 Minuit directed the colonizing expedition for the Swedes that organized New Sweden . Fort Christina was founded in 1638 on the site of Wilmington and was named in honor of the queen of Sweden. The colony grew with the arrival of Swedish, Finnish, and Dutch settlers.

The waters of the Delaware Bay are tributary and watershed runoff from the Great Marsh and all the little streams, creeks, rivers and wetlands of eastern Delaware and New Jersey as well as the effluent of the Delaware River flowing down from Pennsylvania and New York. Thus the darker waters of the Delaware Bay are that way as a result the particles and filtered organic matter from the Great Marsh and wetland areas. These darker waters then flow generally south along the Rehoboth, Dewey, area beaches until the clear waters of the Indian River and Bay pushing out the Indian River Inlet force the darker waters away from the coast and out to sea. Thus the ocean water on the beaches south of Indian River Inlet tends to be far clearer than that north of the inlet.

Lewes is known as the First Town in the First State, because of this Dutch settlement, even though it didn't survive. Lewes was the first town settled in Delaware and Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution of The United States - hence the title we proudly proclaim for Lewes -- First Town in the First State. Lewes was first settled by the Dutch and Swedes. There are numerous books on the history of Lewes in the local book stores, perhaps as many as two dozen different historical and entertaining books on this fair town. Each has a different version of history to some extent. Amazon.com shows over a hundred.

Lewes has become one of the most historically sensitive and aware towns in the area. Some people still call Lewes by another older name Lewes Towne. Some of our visitors have nicknamed it Williamsburg North with a bit of a wink and a smile to go with their love. We have a wonderful little downtown along Second Street, Pilottown road, Market Street, Savannah Road and King's Highway. There are numerous specialty shops, restaurants and even the famous King's Ice Cream shop on 2nd St. to entice our numerous walkers. Lewes is, more than any other town in our region, a great place to walk all over town as you discover the little nooks, shops, businesses and trades that are usually in historically attractive buildings. In is not unusual to see hundreds of people walking the streets in Lewes, even in the off season. In the summer season, spring and fall, it is customary to see thousands of people and families slowly walking and looking at our old homes, businesses, museums and scenic views.

The Lewes Harbor is a wonderfully scenic deep water port, the only one in eastern Sussex County. There are sailboats and larger boats moored along the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal from the Roosevelt Inlet at the north end of Lewes down to the Canal Bridge where Kings Highway and Savannah Road combine to cross the drawbridge and connect historic Lewes to Lewes Beach.

Lewes Harbor as taken from The Lighthouse Restaurant.

Lewes Beach is more recently developed than the town of Lewes. The homes of Lewes Beach have seldom been there longer than 50 years and many of the older, smaller fixer-upper homes are being removed and larger modern homes built on the lots there. The lands of Lewes Beach, all of the lots, are owned by the town of Lewes. Residents, property owners and businesses get a 99 year lease which is renewable. This lease was originally supposed to be only for the growing of rabbits but, without changing the terms or law, is now used to support many lovely beach homes. The modest lease fee is paid to the town of Lewes annually. The lots in Lewes do "sell", actually the leases are transferred to the new land tenants at the same price as land would be deeded.

Cape Henlopen State Park includes most of the bay front and ocean front land and beaches around Lewes. There are some communities; Pilot Point, Cape Shores, Port Lewes, and the Delaware River and Bay Pilots Association along the Bay. The Cape Henlopen State Park was once Fort Miles the Army base. Fort Miles was set up between World War I and World War II to protect the Delaware Bay shipping traffic from the German submarines. Now the thousands of acres of beach, dunes, wetlands and woods that stretch between Lewes and Rehoboth are all part of the park and the military buildings have other beachy uses.

William Penn was a much loved European and politically active adherant of plain folks that remained under the yoke of England, while hiding their distaste for the religions of the Kings and meeting secretly. Penn was convicted of various political crimes and exiled over here were it was supposed other like minded plain folks already resided in horrid and deadly and uncivilized residency with the Indians. This land of Penn's exile, named Penn's woods or Pennsylvania was in deference to his social and political popularity. In 1682 a duke transferred the Lewes claim to Penn, who wanted to secure a navigable water route from his new colony of Pennsylvania to the ocean. The three counties of Delaware thus became the Three Lower Counties (or Territories, as Penn called them) of Pennsylvania. The individual counties were called New Castle, Kent (formerly St. Jones), and Sussex (formerly Hoornkill, also known as Whorekill, and Deale). The English proprietors of Maryland contested Penn's claim to Delaware, and the boundary dispute was not fully settled until 1750.

The inhabitants of the Delaware counties were at first unwilling to be joined to the