SCLC/Rosa #690 — 1961 one Nanticoke school; 1977 NRHP multi-site history does not refute it

GPT-6 Sol archive · Justice 1961 p.143 · NRHP 1977 · finding 690 · 3504fabb

The 1961 Commission reported Delaware had “just one Indian school” — the Nanticoke Indian School at Millsboro, 20 pupils, all Indian, May 1961 (source: May 15, 1961 letter from Supt. George R. Miller Jr.; statute Del. Laws ch. 75 art. 1 §2631 (1936)). A 1977 National Register nomination (Wise/Porter; listed 1979) documents several Nanticoke-area school properties: Harmon (state land; early-1920s replacement), Johnson (state land; built for Black children), and the Indian Mission School (Nanticoke Indian Association-owned building; Delaware paid the teacher after 1935; frame burned 1948, masonry replacement; later Nanticoke Indian Center after desegregation). These are different categories — operating school vs historic building vs land ownership vs teacher payroll. Multiple historic sites do not prove the Commission’s 1961 operating count was wrong, nor that the 20 pupils sat in the Mission building, nor an exact closure date. The consequential point is institutional complexity the snapshot conceals: community property + state-paid labor + later conversion to a community center.

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