Qualla: Lewes (Delaware)

Lewes (Delaware): Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dough4872, CC BY-SA 3.0. On June 3, 1631, the Dutch captain David Pieterszoon de Vries founded a whaling colony called Zwaanendael on the south bank of the Delaware Bay. Within a year, every settler was dead - killed by the Lenape in a dispute that began with a stolen tin coat of arms. The Dutch came back, the English came after them, and the town that grew up on the bones of the failed colony eventually took the name Lewes, after Lord De La Warr's English ancestral home in Sussex. Delaware calls itself the First State because it was the first to ratify the Constitution in 1787. Lewes calls itself the First Town because it was the first place Europeans tried to settle in the state. The two firsts are 156 years apart. The town has been there for all of them.

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Image: Dough4872 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lewes (Delaware): Zwaanendael and the Coat of Arms

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0. The Zwaanendael colony lasted barely a year. Captain de Vries had sailed from the Netherlands with twenty-eight men to harvest right whales from the Delaware Bay and ship the oil back to Amsterdam. The settlement included a small fort, a brick smokehouse, and a tin coat of arms h...

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Image: Harrison Keely | CC BY 4.0

Lewes (Delaware): Cannonball House and the War of 1812

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nolabob, CC BY-SA 4.0. During the War of 1812, a British squadron blockaded Delaware Bay, demanding that the town of Lewes supply provisions. The town refused. On April 6 and 7, 1813, the British bombarded Lewes for twenty-two hours. The town held. One British cannonball lodged in the brick wall of the...

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Image: Nolabob | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lewes (Delaware): Cape Henlopen and the Ferry

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jennifer Boyer from Maryland, USA, CC BY 2.0. Cape Henlopen, the headland just east of Lewes, marks the south side of the Delaware Bay entrance. The cape was crucial to colonial navigation - the first American lighthouse south of the Delaware River stood here from 1765 until it was destroyed by erosion in 1926. Cape Henlopen...

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Image: Jennifer Boyer from Maryland, USA | CC BY 2.0

Lewes (Delaware): Second Street and the Beaches

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0. Downtown Lewes is organized around Second Street, the main commercial corridor that runs parallel to the historic harbor. The street holds small specialty stores, restaurants, ice cream parlors, the Zwaanendael Inn (built in 1926 and renovated multiple times since), and the Dogfi...

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Image: Harrison Keely | CC BY 4.0

Lewes (Delaware): The Great Kite Festival and the Lightship Party

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dough4872, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewes runs on small-town annual rituals. The Great Delaware Kite Festival, held on Easter weekend at Cape Henlopen, has drawn kite enthusiasts and stunt-kite demonstrations to the Bay shore for over forty years. The Overfalls Lightship Opening Party, held the Friday before Memori...

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Image: Dough4872 | CC BY-SA 4.0