The First Settler of Lewes: A History of the Fourth Street Preserve (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781467158626)

Learn about efforts underway to save the historic and environmentally important Fourth Street Preserve from local author and preservation leader Michael Rawl.

In 1670 the first officially deeded land in Delaware was granted by the Duke of York to Lewes' earliest settler, Helmanias Wiltbanck. Thirty of the original 104 acres of Wiltbanck's beloved pra serve remain pristine and undeveloped today, right in the heart of Lewes. Three families owned this land for 312 of the past 355 years. Their tales involve attacks by Native Americans and the British, death and survival during the "fever years" and a prominent but forgotten judge who wrote the original Delaware constitution and funded its Revolutionary War troops.