Delaware’s oldest town has a cannonball stuck in its wall, and it’s still standing

Delaware’s oldest town still has its scars

Lewes sits at the tip of Delaware, where the bay slides into the Atlantic, and it has been here longer than the United States has. The Dutch came in 1631.

The British shelled it in 1813. A lighthouse ship spent decades warning sailors away from the coast before retiring here.

Walk the downtown and you’ll pass colonial homes, a cannonball still lodged in the wall of a cypress house, and a 17th-century building that outlasted everything. The oldest part is also the most interesting part.

Where the Delaware Bay runs into the Atlantic

Cape Henlopen sits at the exact point where the Delaware Bay stops being the Delaware Bay and becomes the Atlantic Ocean. Lewes grew up on that edge, and the geography shaped everything about it.

The town is about 120 miles southeast of Philadelphia and roughly 125 miles east of Washington, D.C., which means it’s close enough to draw visitors but far enough to feel removed.

The entire walkable core packs museums, shops, waterfront, and four centuries of history into about half a square mile.

Dutch colonists named it the Valley of the Swans

The first Europeans here were Dutch whalers who arrived in 1631 and named their settlement Zwaanendael, which translates to “Valley of the Swans.”

The colony was gone within a year, but the Dutch came back, and the settlement eventually passed to William Penn, who renamed it Lewes around 1685 after a town in Sussex, England.

By the 18th century, Lewes was a working port, home to generations of Delaware River and Bay pilots who guided ships through the tricky coastal waters.

A Dutch town hall replica marks where it all started

The Zwaanendael Museum on Kings Highway went up in 1931, exactly 300 years after the Dutch arrived, and it was built to look like the town hall in Hoorn, the Netherlands. Step-shaped facade, carved stonework, decorated shutters.

Inside, the exhibits cover maritime history, military history, and social history of the Lewes area, including artifacts pulled from local shipwrecks.

One display focuses on the DeBraak, a British warship that went down off the Delaware coast in 1798. Admission is free, and the museum stays open year-round.

Delaware’s oldest house has been standing since the 1680s

The Ryves Holt House on Second Street has been standing on its original foundation since the 1680s, which makes it the oldest building of its kind in all of Delaware.

Quaker immigrants built it first, using it as both a home and a tavern. Ryves Holt, the first Chief Justice of Sussex County, bought the house in 1723, and his name stuck.

In 2014, it was added to the First State National Historical Park. Today it functions as a museum and serves as the visitor center for Historic Lewes.

The house that still carries a British cannonball

During the War of 1812, the British Royal Navy bombarded Lewes for about 22 hours in April 1813. Most of the town survived without a mark.

One cypress-shingled building didn’t. A British cannonball struck it during the attack, and the damage is still visible today.

Historic Lewes acquired the Cannonball House in 1963 and turned it into a maritime museum. Inside, you’ll find navigational instruments, maritime art, and a Fresnel lens from the Fourteen Foot Bank Light.

The backyard holds cannons from the era and a lightship fog bell.

A real lighthouse ship docked right along the canal

The Lightship Overfalls spent decades anchored in open water, guiding ships along the East Coast with what has been described as the second most powerful foghorn ever put on a lightship.

The U.S. Coast Guard decommissioned it in 1972, and it came to Lewes the following year. Now it sits along the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal, and you can walk aboard it.

Guided tours take you above and below decks to see how the crew actually lived out there. The adjacent American Lightship Museum covers the broader history of the service.

Nine historic buildings gathered onto one campus

At 110 Shipcarpenter Street, Historic Lewes pulled nine old buildings from around the region and reassembled them on a single campus. The anchor is the Hiram Rodney Burton House, dating to about 1720.

Walk the grounds and you’ll move through a one-room schoolhouse from 1898, a doctor’s office from 1836, a country store from around 1800, and a recreated colonial-era coffeehouse.

On Fridays and Saturdays, the Sussex Tavern on the grounds pours colonial-era drinks as part of the living history program. The campus is free to explore.

WWII bunkers and a climbable fire tower at Fort Miles

In 1941, the Army built Fort Miles at Cape Henlopen to defend the Delaware Bay, the Delaware River, and Philadelphia from a potential attack. The installation is still there.

You can tour the Artillery Park, climb a restored concrete fire control tower for a long view of the coastline, and go underground into Battery 519’s bunker museum.

Exhibits cover military hardware and daily life for the servicemen stationed there.

Many parts of the fort are free to visit, though guided Battery 519 tours run $6 per person, and the state park entrance fee applies.

Flat trails through salt marshes and migratory flyways

The Gordons Pond Trail runs 3.2 miles one way through Cape Henlopen State Park, following a crushed-gravel path with elevated boardwalks above a 900-acre saltwater lagoon.

Eagles, ospreys, and great blue herons move through here during migration.

The Junction and Breakwater Trail takes a former Penn Central railroad bed for about six miles between Lewes and Rehoboth Beach, passing through hardwood forests, fields, and coastal marshes.

Both trails are flat and easy, and neither requires any special gear. Cape Henlopen also runs a free bike lending program if you’d rather ride.

Horseshoe crabs, dolphins, and a canal through the marsh

The Lewes-Rehoboth Canal runs straight through town and out into the marshes of Cape Henlopen State Park. The Army Corps of Engineers dug it between 1913 and 1916.

Along the canal, Canalfront Park has floating docks, a fishing pier, a kayak and canoe launch, and a cedar boardwalk.

Dolphin-watching cruises run from the Lewes harbor into the Delaware Bay, where bottlenose dolphins turn up regularly.

In May and June, horseshoe crabs come ashore along the bay beaches to spawn, pulling thousands of migrating shorebirds, including the threatened red knot, that feed on the eggs.

Tax-free shopping and a ferry across the bay

Delaware charges no sales tax, so everything you buy in Lewes costs exactly what the price tag says.

Second Street and Front Street form the shopping core, connected by small alleys and lined with independent boutiques, antique stores, art galleries, bookstores, and gift shops.

When you’re ready to leave, or arrive, the Cape May-Lewes Ferry crosses 17 miles of Delaware Bay in about 85 minutes.

It runs daily year-round, carries vehicles and bikes alongside foot passengers, and has been making the crossing since 1964. Dolphins and historic lighthouses come with the ride.

Visit the Lewes Historic District in Delaware

To get to Lewes, plan for about two hours from Philadelphia and a little over two from Washington. The Zwaanendael Museum is free and open year-round.

The Historic Lewes museums, including the Cannonball House and Ryves Holt House, run on seasonal hours, so check the Historic Lewes official website before you go.

Cape Henlopen State Park charges a daily vehicle entrance fee with rates varying by season.

If you’re taking the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, book your reservation ahead of time, especially on summer weekends, as spots fill up fast.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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