More settlers came in the 1650s and they began to harvest timber to send back to Amsterdam for shipbuilding. It wasn’t long before the British took control of the area, but the Dutch never left. The two groups intermarried, and by the 20th century, very few Dutch families remained.
In 1931, town officials decided to mark the 300th birthday of the landing by building a museum. The Zwaanendael Museum, a striking brick and carved stone building, was designed after the city hall in the Dutch town of Hoorn, home to the area’s first settlers. No artifacts exist from the original settlement, but the museum features a few pieces of Dutch ceramics, clothing and wooden shoes mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries.
One unusual item is a 17th-century wooden koekplank, a cookie mold with indentations onto which the dough would be pressed to create a pattern before baking. The museum also explains the area’s maritime history, including the sinking of the British warship HMS deBraak in Delaware Bay during a storm in 1798.
As you leave the building, you can’t help noticing the large portraits of the Dutch queens Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix. “What’s interesting is that it’s been three generations of queens,” said Elizabeth Gott, lead interpreter at the museum. “Beatrix’s son [Willem-Alexander] will be the first king they’ve had in three generations. He has daughters, so after that it will be back to a queen.”
Koninginnedag, or Queen’s Day, goes back to the childhood of Wilhelmina, who became the country’s first female monarch in 1898. The tradition continued with Juliana, who reigned from 1948 until 1980. The national holiday in the Netherlands now includes outdoor concerts, flea markets, food and drink. More than a million people will gather Saturday in Amsterdam to honor Beatrix, who turned 73 in January (but opts to celebrate during a month that’s nice for street parties).
In Lewes, it’s a decidedly smaller celebration. On Saturday, museum docents clad in orange — the queen’s family is the House of Oranje-Nassau — will lead a day of Dutch-related children’s games and crafts, offer samples of orange sherbet and give a Dutch royal history lesson.
In addition to the museum and the abundant displays of tulips in the spring, Lewes has a few other Dutch connections worth exploring. Part of the Ryves Holt House, one block from the center of town, dates to 1665 and is the oldest house in Delaware. It now serves as the headquarters of the Lewes Historical Society.
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