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Published: December 2nd 2007
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Obfuscator writes: We awoke to a fairly nice morning in Ocean City. I trust that it had rained in the night, since we got the motel on that assumption, but by morning, it was only a bit cloudy. We took a short walk to Ocean City's Boardwalk, to see their beach. The waves were crashing in pretty large, and we could see surfers further down the shore. The beach was much cleaner and nicer looking than we had seen in Atlantic City. It actually looked like a place you might want to take a swim, you know, if it wasn't late November. Ocean City didn't have much that would keep our attention long. Like I said, if it were a nicer time of year, perhaps. In November Ocean City looks like a long strip full of hotels with no attractions.
Just across the Delaware border, but still effectively in Ocean City, we were looking for something called DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum. We were definitely disappointed to find that not only was it closed (only open on weekends), but that it didn't really seem to be much of a museum at all, so much as a way to sucker stooges into the
seashell shop where they sell seashells down by the seashore, by which of course I mean, next door. Needless to say, this was not terribly amusing to us, so we didn't even go in, and left Ocean City and its beaches behind.
We decided to seek out the Old Sussex County Courthouse, which we were hoping to find in Georgetown, Delaware. We eventually got there, and found that Georgetown's Old County Courthouse was fairly old, but actually wasn't the first one, which had been in Lewes, where the county seat had originally been located. We walked around Georgetown a bit, and read some interesting signs around their town square. We discovered, for instance. that Georgetown had a bar called the Union Tavern, which “was popular among Union sympathizers.” That strange turn of phrase definitely caught our eye, but we didn't really get an explanation until the following day, which basically explained that Delaware's three counties were split on the question of Union or Confederacy, with the southernmost (Sussex) being pretty strongly in favor of the South.
Lewes is a prettier town. The first town to be settled in Delaware, Lewes was established by the Dutch as early as
1631. It was also a site of a British bombardment in the War of 1812. Apparently the British had set up a blockade of the Delaware River, and when their provisions ran low, they requested a resupply from the local American public. We imagine the conversation went something like this:
British Commander: Hey, we're running low on supplies. We need you to give us all those cattle, and all that grain. And throw in some wenches too. Otherwise we'll have to stop blockading you.
Americans: . . . so you want us to help you so you can keep hurting us?
British Commander: Yeah. Well, 'cause if you don't, we'll have to hurt you even more as punishment.
Americans: You never really got that carrot and stick thing, did you?
Needless to say, the Americans didn't comply, and the British decided to bombard them. Unfortunately for their plan, they couldn't pull their deep-hulled ships in close enough, and all their shots landed well short of anything serious. Legend has it that the only casualty of the bombardment was a chicken. There is still at least one building in the town though (called the Cannon
House), that took damage. The town had quite a bit of other interesting history as well, and we learned all about it in a nice, free museum that was designed to look like the townhall of some little town in Holland. We also were able to talk to a woman who works in the museum as an archaeological illustrator, drawing artifacts in exquisite detail. She was specifically working on artifacts salvaged from a shipwreck of a British merchant ship, including metal objects and a whole lot of pottery. I had never appreciated how much skill and time went into those illustrations you sometimes see in museums.
We were directed to a local ice cream parlor that was supposed to be quite good, but found that it was closed for a few days. Disappointed, we wandered across the street and checked out an historic Episcopal Church and its surrounding cemetery. The cemetery literally abutted the church, and some of the headstones were in surprisingly good condition for their age. Lewes has a whole slew of museums, which looked pretty interesting, but they seemed to be closed, so we drove on.
We saw something labeled L. Cannon Museum on the
map near Milton, Delaware. It turned out to be named for Lizzie Cannon, who established the museum in an old Church. The museum is small, but nice, and more or less catalogs the history of Milton, which isn't very big. The town used to be a shipbuilding powerhouse, floating the ships they built down the Broadkill River to the Delaware, and from there to the ocean. When the shipbuilding industry dried up, the town turned to various other endeavors, including button making, and seemed to be a nice little place now. The button making has ended, so it wasn't entirely clear what keeps it going, but we suspect it is the placement of a Cannon Museum on atlases.
On our way toward our campground for the night, we tried to stop at Barratt's Chapel, but found it closed. We honestly had no idea what it was, until we got there and the sign told us. Apparently it was an important early site of Methodism. Finding nothing else in the immediate area, we headed out to find our camping site. We got to Killen's Pond State Park, and selected a site a bit before dusk, and so were able to
find a lot of wood for a fire while we still had light. We were about to start our fire when I heard a “meow,” and turned to see a nice kitty cat near our camp. The cat seemed to be really friendly, and didn't want to leave us alone, but it didn't have a collar or anything. Eventually, we determined that we should try to get it to a shelter, so after making some calls, I put the cat in the car, and drove it into one near Dover. I got back just in time for dinner, which Onaxthiel had continued cooking while I went on my errand.
We were done with dinner early, but it was already quite dark, so we watched a movie, and went to bed under a clear sky.
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