Editing Sussex County, Delaware (section)

===European settlement===
Sussex County was the site of the first European settlement in Delaware, a Dutch trading post named [[Zwaanendael]] at the present site of [[Lewes, Delaware|Lewes]]. On June 3, 1631, Dutch captain [[David Pietersen de Vries]] landed along the shores of the Delaware to establish a whaling colony in the mid-Atlantic of the New World. The colony lasted only until 1632, when De Vries left. Upon returning to Zwaanendael that December, he found the Indian tribes had killed his men and burned the colony. The Dutch set about settling the area once again.<ref>Hancock, pp 12-13.</ref>

Although the Dutch and Swedes returned to resettle the Delaware River region as early as 1638, much of the Delaware Bay area south of what is today the city of Newcastle was not settled until 1662. At that time, the city of Amsterdam made a grant of land at the Hoernkills (the area around Cape Henlopen, near the current town of [[Lewes, Delaware|Lewes]]) to a party of [[Mennonite]]s. A total of 35 men were to be included in the settlement, led by a [[Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy|Pieter Cornelisz Plockhoy]] of Zierikzee, and funded by a sizable loan from the city to get them established. This settlement, established in 1663, was organized in part by the Dutch to respond to threats from the English colony of Maryland to the west beginning to assert rights over the area. The English wrested control of New Netherland from the Dutch in 1664 and they destroyed the Mennonite settlement that same year; English reports indicated that “not even a nail” was left there.<ref>[Scharf, Thomas J., ''History of Delaware, 1609 – 1888'', 1888</ref>

Settlement in the area after the English ejected the Dutch was slow. The Swedes and Finns who had settled in the area from the days of New Sweden had generally welcomed the English and were allowed to stay; the few Dutch found in the area were rounded up as prisoners and sent to Virginia as slaves. Lord Baltimore encouraged Marylanders to move east to settle the area. But the land was far removed from other, more established settlements and did not appeal to many new settlers. It was a tempting wilderness base for pirates to hide out from authorities and regularly pillage settlers for supplies.

The [[Netherlands|Dutch]] briefly recaptured the territory in 1673 as part of the [[Third Anglo-Dutch War]]. At that point, they established courts in the town of New Castle and at the Hoerkill at the southern end of the territory, effectively creating two counties out of the territory. After the war concluded in 1674, the Delaware territory was returned to the English. It was then placed under the control of [[James Stuart, Duke of York]].

[[File:Seal of Sussex County Delaware 1683.jpg|thumb|1683 Seal of Sussex County]]
In 1680, the Duke reorganized the territory south of the [[Mispillion River]] as Deale County with the county seat at New Deale (modern-day Lewes); and created a third county, [[Kent County, Delaware|St. Jones]], out of the Delaware territory between the Mispillion River and Duck Creek. In 1682, English King [[Charles II of England|Charles II]] awarded the Delaware territories to [[William Penn]] in settlement of family debts, and Penn reorganized all three Delaware counties: Deale County become Sussex County, and St. Jones County became Kent County, in recognition of Penn's homelands in the county of [[Sussex]], England. He brought 200 people from Sussex, England as colonists.<ref name=lower341>{{Cite book|last=Lower|first=Mark Antony|title=Worthies of Sussex: Biographical sketches of the most eminent natives or inhabitants of the county|author-link=Mark Antony Lower|publisher=Sussex Advertiser|location=Lewes|page=341|year=1865}}</ref>  The town of New Deale was renamed Lewistown (today known as Lewes). At this time, Penn claimed that the Delaware territory extended as far south as [[Fenwick Island, Delaware|Fenwick Island]]. The 'Three Lower Counties' (Delaware) along [[Delaware Bay]] were considered under Penn's sphere of settlement and became the [[Delaware Colony]], a satellite of Pennsylvania.

But the boundary disputes continued between Pennsylvania and Maryland. [[Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore]] and [[William Penn]] both claimed the land between the 39th and 40th parallels, according to the charters granted to each colony. Whereas Penn claimed the Delaware territories extended to Fenwick Island, Calvert claimed the Maryland Colony ended at Lewes, with all the land south of the settlement belonging to [[Somerset County, Maryland|Somerset County]].<ref>[http://www.usgwarchives.org/de/sussex/ Sussex County, Delaware: USGenWeb Project]{{Dead link|date=June 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=no }}</ref>

In 1732 Charles Calvert signed a territorial agreement with William Penn's sons that drew a line somewhere in between the two colonies and renounced Calvert's claim to Delaware. But Lord Baltimore later claimed that the document he signed did not contain the terms he had agreed to, and refused to put the agreement into effect. Beginning in the mid-1730s, violence erupted between settlers claiming various loyalties to Maryland and Pennsylvania. The border conflict between Pennsylvania and Maryland would be known as [[Cresap's War]].

In 1750–1751, a team of surveyors from both colonies surveyed and marked the [[Transpeninsular Line]], which established the southern boundary of Sussex County. However, residents of the disputed territory continued to pay taxes to Maryland into the 1770s.

The issue was unresolved until the Crown intervened in 1760, ordering [[Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore]] to accept the 1732 agreement. As part of the settlement, the Penns and Calverts commissioned the English team of [[Charles Mason]] and [[Jeremiah Dixon]] to survey the newly established boundaries between the Province of Pennsylvania, the Province of Maryland, Delaware Colony and parts of Colony and Old Dominion of Virginia.

Between 1763 and 1767, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed the [[Mason-Dixon line]], settling Sussex County's western borders. After Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1781, the western part of this line and the [[Ohio River]] became a border between free and slave states. Although Delaware remained a slave state, it already had a number of free blacks, and slaveholders manumitted more slaves in the first two decades after the Revolution.

The resolution of the boundary dispute enlarged Sussex County considerably, and the new territory was nicknamed New Sussex.

In 1769 a movement started to move the county seat from Lewes to the area then known as Cross Roads, the present day site of [[Milton, Delaware|Milton]]. The current county seat of [[Georgetown, Delaware|Georgetown]] was settled upon on January 27, 1791, after residents in western Sussex County successfully petitioned the Delaware General Assembly to move the county seat to a central location, as the limited roads at the time made it too difficult for outlying residents to reach the county seat in Lewes.<ref>[http://www.sussexcountyde.gov/about/history/general/index.cfm?action=countyseat Sussex County – History<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071022125910/http://sussexcountyde.gov/about/history/general/index.cfm?action=countyseat |date=October 22, 2007 }}</ref>

Georgetown was not a previously established town. On May 9, 1791, the 10 commissioners headed by President of the State Senate [[George Mitchell (Delaware State Senator)|George Mitchell]] negotiated the purchase of {{convert|76|acre|m2}}, and Commissioner Rhodes Shankland began the survey by laying out "a spacious square of {{convert|100|yd}} each way." Eventually the town was laid out in a circle {{convert|1|mi|km|spell=in}} across. It was centered on the original square surveyed by Shankland, which is now listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]]. Georgetown was named after Senate President George Mitchell.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.georgetownde.com/gorghist.html |title=At The Beach-Georgetown, Delaware History<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=March 13, 2008 |archive-date=March 31, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080331022829/http://georgetownde.com/gorghist.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Sussex County has been known by several names over the years, including Susan County, Hoorenkill or Whorekill County as named by the Dutch prior to 1680 when [[Kent County, Delaware|Kent County]] broke off. From 1680 to 1682 it was known as Deale County, after being taken over by the British under James Stuart, Duke of York prior to signing over to William Penn. It was called Durham County when claimed by the Lords Baltimore during the boundary dispute with the Penn family.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.mydelawaregenealogy.com/de_county/su.htm |title=Sussex County, Delaware Genealogical Records Information<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=March 13, 2008 |archive-date=September 4, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120904051444/http://www.mydelawaregenealogy.com/de_county/su.htm |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref>