Lewes donates Gen. Miles portrait to museum
City of Lewes, Lewes Public Library and Fort Miles Historical Association officials gathered in the upstairs meeting room of Lewes Public Library last week for a fitting send-off to an oil painting of Army General Nelson Appleton Miles. Owned by the city and displayed by the library for more than 20 years, the painting is being donated to the Fort Miles Historical Association for display in the World War II museum planned for Battery 519 in Cape Henlopen State Park.
The painting hung previously in Lewes City Hall, in the commissioners’ meeting room. Major Arthur C. Harris, in his last official act as commander of Fort Miles, presented it to the city when the fort was being deactivated. The painting is a copy of the original which at one time hung in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. Mary McCartin Marshall of Lewes painted the copy, using a photograph made by famed Lewes photographer Col. Riley McGarraugh.
The U.S. Army originally designated Fort Miles as Camp Henlopen in 1941 but it’s said that the name was changed to Fort Miles at the insistence of the Army’s Asst. Adjutant General at the time who was General Miles’s son.
Mayor Jim Ford said donation of the painting is a continuation of a partnership with the Fort Miles Historical Association that is helping preserve history in the community.
Gary Wray, president of the historical association, said the group had also partnered with the city to receive energy conservation funding for a $175,000 geothermal heating and air conditioning system for climate control in the Battery 519 museum. Wray said the painting would be displayed in an area of the facility where the humidity can be controlled.
