Name changes are not new to Lewes
Much like the current petitions to change Savannah Beach back to Lewes Beach, Lewes residents voiced their displeasure with the city’s street names about 85 years ago.
According to a March 3, 1937 article in The Morning News, “The original street names of the earliest colonists are to replace the more modern names on the street signs by authority of the town council, in keeping with a restoration project agitated by interested residents for the past five years.”
The request was made to mayor and council in the form of a petition from a committee of the Lewes Rotary Club. Street names were changed from Savannah Road to State Street, Mulberry Street to Knitting Street, Park Avenue to Shipcarpenter Street, King Street to Kings Highway and Canal Street to Front Street. It was noted in the article that the action to change the names was to restore the original names of the streets that appeared on “ancient land grants.”
As most know, Mulberry Street remains today. The revival of Knitting Street did not sit well with some residents. According to a March 12, 1937 article in the News Journal, 24 property owners protested the name change. They also presented a petition to council. In the article, it says Knitting Street was the name of the road in a document dated Sept. 28, 1685, in which the building now known as the Ryves Holt House is mentioned as sitting on the corner of Second and Knitting streets. The battle went on for two years until city leaders decided to change the street back to Mulberry. According to a April 20, 1939 article in the News Journal, nearly every resident of the two-block street attended a council meeting to demand it be changed back to Mulberry. City officials agreed. “After all, they live on the street and own the property,” city leaders are quoted as saying.
According to Volume IV of the Journal of the Lewes Historical Society, Shipcarpenter Street and Park Avenue had its own controversy around 1919. Around that time, Shipcarpenter Street disappeared and was replaced by Park Avenue. It had also been known as Camile Street in the early 1900s. Eventually, a compromise was struck, with the block between Third and Front streets being named Shipcarpenter Street and the stretch from Third Street to Blockhouse Pond remaining Park Avenue.
What’s in a name?
Savannah Road has been known as South Street and State Street. It is believed South Street got its name because, at the time, it was the southernmost street in Lewes. As for Savannah Road, early documents refer to the area as a watery savannah. That’s likely how the name eventually came to be. As for State Street, the name can be directly traced back to the extension of the road to Lewes Beach in 1932. However, it only lasted until the name change controversy in 1937.
Some Lewes streets were deliberately named.
Several streets off Kings Highway were named for presidents, including Adams, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, Washington and Franklin, although Ben Franklin was never president. Prior to the renaming effort, Franklin Avenue was known as Morris Avenue in honor of businessman Elihu J. Morris, who operated a cannery at the end of the street near the railroad tracks (now the Lewes to Georgetown Trail). The cannery operated there until at least 1936.
Like Morris Avenue, other streets honor Lewes’ past. Queen Anne Avenue and Railroad Avenue pay homage to the prominence of trains in the city. Queen Anne Avenue lies on the path of the former Queen Anne Railroad, which also had a depot in that area. Railroad Avenue is in the vicinity of the Junction & Breakwater Railroad depot, which was near today’s Lewes library and spurred south to Rehoboth Beach.
Dewey and Manila avenues, which run between Savannah Road and Kings Highway, can be directly tied to the Spanish-American War. Dewey honors Admiral George Dewey, who defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, Philippines, in 1898. Similarly, Schley Avenue, which runs between Washington Avenue and Gills Neck Road, was named after Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, who was in command when the Spanish fleet was defeated in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba in 1898.
On Lewes Beach, streets are laid out simply. Streets between Cedar Street and the bay are named after states, while streets between Cedar Street and the canal are named after Delaware towns. Cedar Street, however, derives its name from cedars that once grew in profusion on the beach.
Editor’s note: A lot of the information in this article is available in the various volumes of the Journal of the Lewes Historical Society, which has been compiled in 25 editions since 1998.
