David Trombello, by the famous February 30th stone in St. Peter's Churchyard on Second Street in Lewes, will be documenting and inventorying cemeteries in Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred for The Lewes Historical Society. The project is funded by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund of Jacksonville, Florida.

Gravestones of patriots, civil war veterans, river pilots and generations of other Lewes and Lewes-area residents are being documented by David Trombello, an intern at The Lewes Historical Society during Summer 2003. The project, managed by the Society's Executive Director Michael DiPaolo, is an attempt to identify and inventory all historic cemetery sites in Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred. Since June, David has cataloged St. George's AME cemetery on Pilottown Road and most of St. Peter's in Lewes. Next will be several smaller cemeteries located outside of Lewes.

Trombello, who was selcted as the 2003 Research Intern, is a senior history major at the University of Delaware this coming academic year and lives in Milford, Delaware. "As part of my project, I determine the position of a grave marker using a Global Positioning System unit, record the condition, shape and size of the stone and then transcribe the inscription. Finally, I take several digital pictures of the marker," Trombello said. "It's like a puzzle sometimes, to begin to see relationships between families and eras. To find stones that may have been hidden and to make sure that those people aren't forgotten is a task that takes a lot of time and patience to make sure its done right."

"This project is going to serve many functions," DiPaolo stated, "First, we will have an accurate record to glean information from concerning funerary customs in lower Delaware from about 1700 to the early 1950s. Second, we will have a better idea of how the cemeteries themselves developed, grew and changed over time. And most importantly, as development pressures increase, we can document sites before they are inadvertantly lost forever." The project is being looked forward to around the state as such a comprehensive inventory of gravesites and transcriptions does not exist for this part of Delaware. "This project is intended to benefit planning activities to take into account cultural resources that may exist as well as to benefit the genealogist and historian with ties or interest in the Lewes and Rehoboth area. While many large and small gravesites have been identified by the Society to document, many more may be hidden or overgrown. If the public is aware of any such site in Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred, please contact the Lewes Historical Society.

The Society will add the raw data collected by David to a database over the winter to make the cemeteries easily searchable and accessible. Plans call for the results to be partially available through the Society's website, www.historiclewes.org and, when all the cemeteries are documented, to be published in book format. The current project period will last through 2005. The Society, however, anticipates that it may take additional field seasons to fully document and inventory Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred cemtery sites.

The project and internship are generously funded through the support of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund of Jacksonville, Florida. For more information about the Cemeteries Project or The Lewes Historical Society, please call 645-7670.

©2002-2005 The Lewes Historical Society