FDR congratulates Lewes on tricentennial

Before Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected as the 32nd president of the United States, he served as the governor of New York 1929-32. As part of the City of Lewes’ tricentennial celebration in May 1932, FDR joined other governors in sending congratulatory letters to the city. Those letters were read to the public during the dedication of the Zwaanendael House (now museum). Reading FDR’s message was Rainier J. Wortendyke, president of the Holland Society of New York.

“The traditional friendship existing between the State of New York and the State of Delaware, really a link of inter-colonial amity forged and welded three centuries ago by our mutual forebears who envisioned the limitless possibilities of Manhattan Island and its environs and the Delaware River territory intensifies the regret I feel at my inability to be present at the dedication exercises of the Dutch Memorial Building at Lewes on May 7.

“The mutual interests of New York and Delaware, historical, cultural, commercial have been advanced to the fullest degree by reason of their colonial fraternity, both states profiting immensely by that bond of brotherhood rooted in what might well be termed common ancestry.

“The Dutch colonists were indeed sagaciously selective in choosing Manhattan and vicinity and the shores of the Delaware River as spheres of development. The growth of these colonies attests to that sagacity and foresight.

“Dedication and maintenance of the Dutch Memorial Building at Lewes represents the sustentation of an ideal that cannot fail to promote an even greater cordiality between our states by serving ever as a remainder of the aims, the hopes, the resolution of the colonists who laid the groundwork, the very foundations upon which our states stand.

“New York State again extends the hand of good will to the State of Delaware upon this auspicious occasion.”

The dedication ceremony was quite the event, featuring speeches by U.S. Sen. Daniel O. Hastings, Gov. Clayton Douglass Buck, former Gov. Robert P. Robinson, Maryland Secretary of State David C. Winebrenner III and a message from Jan Herman Van Royen, the Netherlands’ minister to the United States.

The Zwaanendael Museum is named after the original settlement in Delaware. It was erected by the State of Delaware to commemorate the landing of the Dutch settlers in Lewes in 1631. The building is an adaptation of the town hall in Hoorn, Holland, birthplace of David Pietersz de Vries, the leader of the expedition. The building was designed by architect E. William Martin, who visited Holland to see the town hall firsthand. Martin was also one of two architects who designed Legislative Hall in Dover. The museum building was constructed by A.L. Lauritsen, a Lewes native.