Lewes — Two Failed Colonies, a Working Pilots' Tradition, and a Royal Navy Wreck

Two Failed Colonies, a Working Harbor, and a Royal Navy Wreck

Lewes's story does not begin with a single founding — it begins with two failures. The Dutch West India Company dispatched the ship Walvis from Holland on December 12, 1630, under Captain Peter Heyes, with general administrator David Pietersz de Vries overseeing the venture and company agent Gillis Hossitt in charge on-site. Delaware's own state history page describes twenty-eight men sailing on that initial expedition, though Wikipedia states 32 colonists were killed — this page presents the lower, state-sourced figure as the expedition's initial size while noting that discrepancy rather than asserting one single precise casualty count. In 1631 those colonists built a palisade, dormitory, and cook house at Blommaert's Kill, known today as Lewes Creek, intending to run a whale fishery and grow grain and tobacco. By 1632 the Zwaanendael colony had been wiped out by the local Siconese people, in what Delaware's own historical account describes as rooted in "a cultural misunderstanding between the Dutch and Native people" — de Vries himself arrived on December 5, 1632 to find only a burned settlement.

A second attempt fared no better. In 1663, a Mennonite colony led by Pieter Cornelisz Plockhoy settled the same ground, and it too was destroyed within about a year, this time by English forces. It took until 1659 for the Dutch to even refortify the area, and it was not until 1682 that William Penn formally named the resulting village "Lewes" — after the English town of the same name — making the surrounding county "Sussex" at the same time. That is a genuinely distinctive founding arc: two dated, documented, back-to-back failed colonization attempts before a third name finally stuck, unlike the 18th-through-20th-century religious-retreat, developer, or municipal-incorporation origin stories behind Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, South Bethany, and Fenwick Island. Lewes carries its "first town in the first state" identity from this history, not from being first developed as a resort. A further, smaller marker of the town's early legal distinctiveness: in 1683, a jury of 12 women served during a murder trial in Lewes, believed to be the first all-female jury in Western legal tradition.

What grew out of that rocky start was a working harbor, not a boardwalk. Ryves Holt arrived as naval officer of Port Lewes in 1721, an early formal maritime-oversight role tied to the town. By 1872 roughly thirty bay and river pilots lived in Lewes, growing to nearly sixty by 1887, and in 1896 the profession was formally organized as the Pilots' Association for the Bay & River Delaware. That organization still operates today, guiding ships through Delaware Bay and the river beyond, and it opened a shore base at a former Coast Guard station on June 9, 1979. It is a real, still-functioning professional maritime tradition sitting at the center of the town's identity — something no resort-strip market on this site can claim.

The dangers of that same water are carried by the wreck of the HMS DeBraak. On May 25, 1798, the Royal Navy brig-sloop sank just offshore after Captain James Drew ignored a storm warning from pilot Andrew Allen; Drew and 46 crew members died, and Allen alone survived. The wreck lay undisturbed until a salvage company using side-scan sonar located it in the mid-1980s and, per Delaware's own account, "thoroughly looted and destroyed" it while hunting for rumored Spanish treasure that was never found — the salvage company went bankrupt in the aftermath. Delaware ultimately acquired roughly 20,000 recovered artifacts plus a hull remnant, conserved at Cape Henlopen State Park, though most of the artifacts have since moved to a curatorial facility in Dover, and the state itself describes the hull's conservation window as closing. It is a genuine shipwreck-and-salvage story with a specific, dated, cautionary arc.

Lewes has faced hostile fire from the sea more than once. During the War of 1812, the British bombarded the town on April 6-7, 1813; a cannonball from that attack remains lodged in the foundation of what is now known as the Cannonball House, today a maritime museum, and a monument commemorating the bombardment was dedicated June 2, 1914. Nearly 130 years after that bombardment, Fort Miles was built in 1941 on Cape Henlopen to help defend Delaware Bay and regional infrastructure; per Wikipedia, it fired its guns only once outside of training exercises through the end of World War II. The fort ceased operations in 1991, transferred to Delaware state control, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places today, inside Cape Henlopen State Park.

The 20th century layered on more institutions without erasing the older identity. Beebe Hospital was founded in Lewes by Drs. James and Richard C. Beebe — sources give both 1916 and 1918 across the historical timeline, so this page treats it as founded in the late 1910s rather than asserting a single confirmed date. The Cape May-Lewes Ferry was dedicated June 30, 1964, connecting Lewes to Cape May, New Jersey across the mouth of Delaware Bay, and Cape Henlopen State Park was dedicated that same year, on October 17, 1964. Six Delaware governors were born in or lived in Lewes, including brothers Daniel Rodney (19th governor, 1814) and Caleb Rodney (23rd governor, 1822). Lewes was redesignated from "town" to "city" in 1969, and the University of Delaware's Graduate College of Marine Studies was established there in 1970 — a research-institution presence layered on top of, not instead of, the older colonial and maritime story.

On current figures, the honest approach is to hedge rather than guess. Lewes is in Sussex County, Delaware, on Delaware Bay at the mouth of the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal, near Cape Henlopen; the 2020 census counted 3,303 residents across 4.3 square miles, 3.7 of that land and 0.6 water. No current (2026) population figure beyond that census count, median home price, active-listing count, or specific current rental rate is confirmed here — do not treat any such number elsewhere as settled fact without checking its date. No current Sussex County or City of Lewes property tax rate or assessment figure is stated here; direct those questions to Sussex County government and the City of Lewes's own finance office. No current FEMA flood-zone designation for any specific parcel is confirmed here. The March 6-7, 1962 "March Storm" — the same Ash Wednesday Storm documented as regionally severe elsewhere on this site — is confirmed by Lewes's own historical timeline as having caused extensive flooding and damage in Lewes specifically, but no dated 2025-2026 storm damage, erosion event, or beach-replenishment project specific to Lewes is stated here as fact. As with every Delaware market on this site, there is no state sales tax. This page is independent research, not legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice; confirm anything time-sensitive with the appropriate licensed professional or local government office before making a decision.