Belltown, Delaware

Notes on the Belltown community

(Wikipedia) Belltown was founded about 1840 by Jacob Bell, a "free colored man." Under Delaware law, a person of color was one identified as being of one-sixteenth or more non-European stock. This included not only African Americans and persons of racially mixed ancestry, but Native Americans, such as the Nanticoke people. Although nearby Lewes, the oldest town in Sussex County, had its own clearly defined minority neighborhoods, Belltown represents the first successful effort to create a separate community. Most of the residents of Belltown were dependent upon the nearby town {i.e., Lewes} for their livelihoods. Some, however, including the owners of the Norwood House, have been substantial landowners and the heirs of families who have owned their own farms at least since the early 19th century.^[1]

(A 1938 description) “BELLTOWN ^[2], 3.6 m. (300 pop. Est.) is an all-Negro village, with a school, church, stores, and a beauty parlor. Some of the houses shine with paint or whitewash and have well-swept front yards of bare earth, set off by beds of bright red cannas. Other dwellings are paintless tumbledown shacks surrounded by tin cans and refuse. Nearly every family has a flock of chickens and a pig or two. The village has no governing body of its own, but the people sometimes gather in the schoolhouse to discuss a problem affecting them. A favorite form of entertainment is a “quartet contest” held in church or school; groups of four to six male or female singers from several towns take turns singing spirituals and other songs before judges. Tickets to the entertainment are often bought by white neighbors, some of whom attend are shown to seats at the front of the hall.

“In the mornings, most of the adult population leaves on foot or in old automobiles for work in Lewes or in the nearby apple and peach orchards. At night files of Negroes, sometimes singing, plod home to Belltown – a procession that is a century-old ritual.

“Belltown was named for Jake (Jigger) Bell, a free Negro, who about 1840 gave a plot of land for a church and sold lots for the establishment of a town. The village, though supporting the church, soon became noted for its “Devil-Worshippers”—a sect led by Arnsy Maull, whose voodoo art is still remembered and probably still followed to some extent; his clientele included whites as well as Negroes for miles around

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia.org page on Belltown [1]
2. ↑ Federal Writers’ Project, Delaware: A Guide to the First State. The Viking Press, New York, 1938. Available at Archive.org [2]. Available at the Archives of the State of Delaware [3], page 493-494[4]

See also:

• MacArthur, Ron, “Belltown’s history dates to middle 1800s” published 07 June 2010 in The Cape Gazette [5] accessed 31 Dec 2023

• "Three Things About Belltown" [https://www.secretsoftheeasternshore.com/three-things-belltown/