SUSSEX COUNTY BY SCHARF

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CHAPTER LXV.SUSSEX COUNTY..
H2000001 HISTORY OF DELAWARE. 1609 - 1888. VOLUME II. J. Thomas Scharf, A.M., LL.D., Author of History of Maryland, History of the City of Philadelphia, Pa., etc., etc. L.J. RICHARDS #x0026; CO, 1888, pp. 1200-1215.

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CHAPTER LXV.
SUSSEX COUNTY.

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SUSSEX COUNTY is the southernmost county of Delaware, and has an area of about nine hundred and fifty square miles. It is bounded on the north by Kent County and Delaware Bay, on the south by Maryland, on the east by Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Maryland and Kent County. It is drained by the Mispillion Creek, Cedar Creek, Prime Hook Creek, Beaver Dam Creek, Cool Spring Creek, Love Creek, Middle Creek, Miry Creek, Farry’s Creek, Indian River, Irons’ Creek, Pepper Creek, Turkey Creek, Herring Creek, Assawaman Bay, Pocomoke River, Sheals’ Creek, Gray’s Creek, Broad Creek, Coal Creek, Tussocky Creek, Little Creek, Nanticoke River, Deep Creek, Gum Creek, Gravelly Creek, Clear Creek, St. John’s Creek, Marshy Hope Creek and the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The surface is nearly level, and a large part of it is covered with forests. The soil is mostly fertile, the staple products being corn, wheat, cattle, pork, lumber and potatoes. The county is intersected by the Delaware Railroad and the Junction and Breakwater Railroad, and contains thirteen hundreds as follows: Lewis and Rehoboth, Georgetown, Cedar Creek, Broadkiln, Indian River, Northwest Fork, Broad Creek, Nanticoke, Seaford, Little Creek, Dagsborough, Baltimore and Gumborough. The town of Georgetown, in Georgetown Hundred, is the county-seat.

The territory occupied by the present county of Sussex was known in the seventeenth century as Hoorenkill, Horekill and Whorekill, and extended from Bompties (Bombay) Hook to Cape Henlopen (Fenwick Island). The first settlement was on the site of the present town of Lewes.

In 1658 Lieutenant Alexander De Hinijossa was given command of the Horekill, and was succeeded by Peter Alrichs,^* nephew of Vice-Director Jacob Alrichs, as commandant, in 1660. The territory was controlled by the Dutch authorities at New Amstel (New Castle), and Peter Alrichs, by reason of his official position, obtained a monopoly of the trade from Bompties Hook to Cape Henlopen, causing considerable dissatisfaction among the inhabitants, who complained to the Vice-Director William Beekman, of Fort Altena, and he wrote to Director Stuyvesant. Two years later, 1664, the territory passed into the possession of the English.

On April 22, 1665, Captain Martin Creiger, was granted permission to trade in Delaware Bay, and on November 11, 1665, Peter Alrichs was allowed to traffic at Horekill for “skins, peltry or what other commodities those parts would afford, he to make entry with the officers at Delaware (New Castle) of the quantity and quality of goods.”

On March 20, 1666, all duties on household goods were discontinued on the Delaware River, and on October 22, 1670, on petition of the inhabitants, all customs were abolished.**^**

On January 12, 1670, a grant was made to James Mills for a “neck of land” lying “to the southward of the town called Whorekill” He was also given

Notes

*.

Peter Alrichs took up a tract of land at the Horekill, while he was in command under the Dutch, but a patent was not obtained, and, upon the capture of the territory by the English, in 1664, all the land in his possession, both in New Castle County and at the Whorekill, was confiscated and later granted by Governor Richard Nichols, in 1665, to William Tom, clerk of the courts “on Delaware.” A tract at the Whorekill was granted to Tom, and his name appears in a list of persons whose quit-rents are still due, as follows: “Will Tom, at Grt Whorekill, 2 bushells.” This tract was on the Whorekill and on the side of Pagan’s Creek. It contained one hundred and thirty-two acres and was resurveyed to him July 7, 1675.

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**.

Samuel Jennings, later Governor of New Jersey, in a letter October 17, 1680, to Penn Lawrie and Lucas, assignees of Edward Byllinge, says, “In good time we came to anchor in Delaware where one, Peter Alrichs, came aboard and brought a handsome present to our Commander and sent for me into the round-house, where they both were, and Peter told me he had nothing to say relating to customs, he had no commission for it, nor did he know anybody that had.”

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