The Lewes Historical Society

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Lewes's famed February 30 gravestone, the gravestone of Elizabeth Cullen.

Click for the
Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred Cemetery Database

The following Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred cemeteries are currently included in the online database:

Ancient Burying Ground
Bethel Methodist Church
Burton Family Cemetery
Dewey Beach Black Cemetery
Ebenezer Methodist Church (Savannah Road)
Ebenezer Methodist Church (Cedar Grove Road)
Israel United Methodist
Lewes Presbyterian Church
Marsh Family Cemetery
Paynter Family Cemetery
People’s Memorial Cemetery
Rehoboth Presbyterian Church at Midway (Midway Presbyterian)
St. George’s AME
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
Wiltbank Family Cemetery

Cemeteries can tell us much about our culture. Since 2003, The Lewes Historical Society has been conducting systematic surveys of cemeteries and historic burial sites in Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred, Sussex County, Delaware. Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred is roughly bordered by Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Old Mill Creek to the north and west, Love Creek to the South and artificial divisions comprising the far western border of the Hundred. Stones in our survey range in date from 1707 to 1950. No stones with dates of death after 1950 were included in this survey. The one exception to this rule is if multiple persons are listed on a single stone and one has a death date prior to 1950, each person is then listed regardless of date of death.

Each stone is fully transcribed, photographed and located via Geographic Positioning System (GPS) device. The Society also records information about the stones condition, art work, shape and size. The Society enters this information into a database that is fully searchable at the Society's Library.

The GPS data is entered into ArcView, a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) system. This allows users to see the information spatially as well as to see individual cemeteries and the landscape as a whole develop over time.

Each summer, the Society welcomes an undergraduate intern to conduct field surveys, transcribe data, process cemetery photographs, work with the database and research aspects the cemetery that are of mutual interest to the intern and to the Society. The following students have been Cemetery Research Interns:

2003 - David Trombello, Milford, Del. (University of Delaware)
2004 - Julia Robinson, Morgantown, W.V. (Wesley College)
2005 - Laura Moore, Rochester, N.Y. (The College of Wooster)
2006 - Erin Toohey, Masillon, Ohio (The College of Wooster)
2007 - Anna Rothman, New Boston, N.H. (Brandeis University)

The Lewes & Rehoboth Hundred Cemetery Survey is funded through the generous assistance of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund of Jacksonville, Fla. Many thanks to Eric Montgomery of The Computer Guy (TCG) and Al Toman of studio 9 for their donation of time in creating the database. The Society also deeply appreciates the ongoing technical assistance of The Computer Guy (TCG).

The Lewes Historical Society
110 Shipcarpenter Street
Lewes, Delaware 19958
Tel: 302-645-7670
Fax: 302-645-2375
E-Mail: info@historiclewes.org