The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore regions of Maryland and Virginia. The peninsula is 170 miles (274 km) long. In width, it ranges from 70 miles (113 km) near its center, to 12 miles (19 km) at the isthmus on its northern edge, to less near its southern tip of Cape Charles. It is bordered by the Chesapeake Bay on the west, Pocomoke Sound on the southwest, and the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.
Samuel Blommaert was a Flemish/Dutch merchant and director of the Dutch West India Company from 1622 to 1629 and again from 1636 to 1642. In the latter period, he was a paid commissioner of Sweden in the Netherlands and he played a dubious but key role in Peter Minuit's expedition that led to the Swedish colonizing of New Sweden. For years Blommaert was involved in the copper trade and industry. In 1645 he was appointed for a third time as a manager of the WIC, being one of the main investors from the beginning.
Sussex County is located in the southern part of the U.S. state of Delaware, on the Delmarva Peninsula. As of the 2010 census, the population was 197,145. The county seat is Georgetown.
Lewes is an incorporated city on the Delaware Bay in eastern Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population is 2,747. Along with neighboring Rehoboth Beach, Lewes is one of the principal cities of Delaware's rapidly growing Cape Region. The city lies within the Salisbury, Maryland–Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. Lewes proudly claims to be "The First Town in The First State."
Georgetown is a town in and the county seat of Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 6,422, an increase of 38.3% over the previous decade.
Fort Christina was the first Swedish settlement in North America and the principal settlement of the New Sweden colony. Built in 1638 and named after Queen Christina of Sweden, it was located approximately 1 mi (1.6 km) east of the present-day downtown Wilmington, Delaware, at the confluence of the Brandywine River and the Christina River, approximately 2 mi (3 km) upstream from the mouth of the Christina on the Delaware River.
Delaware Colony in the North American Middle Colonies consisted of land on the west bank of the Delaware River Bay. In the early 17th century the area was inhabited by Lenape and possibly the Assateague tribes of Native Americans. The first European settlers were Swedes, who established the colony New Sweden at Fort Christina at present day Wilmington, in 1638. The Dutch captured the colony in 1655 and annexed it to New Netherland to the north. The English took control from the Dutch in 1664, and in 1682, William Penn, the Quaker Proprietor of Pennsylvania to the north, leased "the three lower counties on the Delaware River" from James, the Duke of York.
Delaware Bay is the estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the northeast seaboard of the United States. Approximately 782 square miles (2,030 km2) in area, the bay's fresh water mixes for many miles with the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean.
The National Register of Historic Places in the United States is a register including buildings, sites, structures, districts, and objects. The Register automatically includes all National Historic Landmarks as well as all historic areas administered by the U.S. National Park Service. Since its introduction in 1966, more than 90,000 separate listings have been added to the register.
David Hall was an American lawyer and politician from Lewes, in Sussex County, Delaware. He was an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and member of the Democratic-Republican Party, who served as Governor of Delaware.
Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy was a Dutch Mennonite and Collegiant utopist who founded a settlement in 1663 near Horekill on the banks of Godyn's Bay, near present-day Lewes, Delaware. The settlement was destroyed within a year via an English raid.
In Lewes, Delaware the Zwaanendael Museum was created to honor the 300th anniversary of Delaware's first European settlement, Zwaanendael, founded 1631. The museum models the former City Hall in Hoorn, Netherlands. It has 17th century Dutch elements such as stepped facade gable, terra cotta roof tiles, carved stonework, and decorated shutters. The top of the building's front features a statue of David Pietersen de Vries, leader of the expedition that founded Swanendael.
David Pieterszoon de Vries was a Dutch navigator from Hoorn.
Vriessendael was a patroonship on the west bank of the Hudson River in New Netherland, the seventeenth century North American colonial province of the Dutch Empire. The homestead or plantation was located on a tract of about 500 acres (2.0 km2) about an hour's walk north of Communipaw at today's Edgewater. It has also been known as Tappan, which referred to the wider region of the New Jersey Palisades, rising above the river on both sides of the New York/New Jersey state line, and to the indigenous people who lived there and were part of wider group known as Lenape. It was established in 1640 by David Pietersen de Vries, a Dutch sea captain, explorer, and trader who had also established settlements at the Zwaanendael Colony and on Staten Island. The name can roughly be translated as De Vries' Valley. De Vries also owned flatlands along the Hackensack River, in the area named by the Dutch settlers Achter Col. Parts of Vriessendael were destroyed in 1643 in reprisal for the slaughter of Tappan and Wecquaesgeek Native Americans who had taken refuge at Pavonia and Corlears Hook. The patroon's relatively good relations with the Lenape prevented the murder of the plantation's residents, who were able to seek sanctuary in the main house, and later flee to New Amsterdam. The incident was one of the first of many to take place during Kieft's War, a series of often bloody conflicts with bands of Lenape, who had united in face of attacks ordered by the Director of New Netherland.
Zwaanendael or Swaanendael was a short-lived Dutch colonial settlement in Delaware. It was built in 1631. The name is archaic Dutch for "swan valley." The site of the settlement later became the town of Lewes, Delaware.
Delaware State Park is a 1,686-acre (682 ha) public recreation area on U.S. Route 23 near the city of Delaware in Delaware County, Ohio, in the United States. It is open for year-round recreation including camping, hiking, boating, hunting, fishing, and picnicking.
Samuel Godin, Godyn or Godijn was a wealthy merchant, originally from Southern Netherlands, trading on Spain, Brazil and the Levant. He was one of the administrators of the Noordsche Compagnie, involved in whaling, and of the Dutch West India Company. From 1620 he traded on New Netherland. His name was at first given to the Delaware Bay and he was one of the main investors in Zwaanendael. The colony did not last very long as it was plundered by Native Americans soon after its founding.
Lewes Historic District is a national historic district located at Lewes, Sussex County, Delaware. The district includes 122 contributing buildings and 6 contributing sites encompassing most of the 17th-century town of Lewes, together with part of Pilot Town. The district is primarily residential with resources ranging from small working-class houses to large and ornate houses from the Victorian period in a variety of popular styles including Queen Anne and Second Empire. Also included in the district is the Market Street commercial area, including three frame store buildings and the elaborate Smith Block. Other notable buildings include St. Peter's Episcopal Church, the Ellis Marine Complex, Cannonball House, Governor Ebe W. Tunnell House, Walsh Building, Zwaanendael Museum (1932), Cornelius Burton House, Lewes Historical Society enclave, and the De Wolf Houses. The contributing sites include the site of an 18th-century fort and the 1812 Park.
Otto Wolgast was one of the first settlers of Lewes, Delaware in the United States. He was an early magistrate and follower of Mennonite reformer Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy at the Dutch colony of the Zwaanendael in the New Netherlands. He would later serve as justice of the peace under the English colonial authorities.
