Lewes Seafaring Days to set sail June 26
The Lewes Historical Society invites the public to join in the nautical fun for the Third Annual Lewes Seafaring Days Clambake to be held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Friday, June 26, under a tent at the Historic Complex in downtown Lewes.
Freshly steamed clams and mussels, crab cakes, oysters and fresh seasonal produce will be available for guests along with beer and wine and a rum sampling bar.
The Seafaring Days Clambake is a fundraiser for the Lewes Historical Society.
Tickets for the evening are $50 per person or $90 per couple; patron sponsorships are available for $100.
The evening will include food, drinks and live entertainment by the Press Gang, a maritime sea chantey trio sure to recall the days of sail on Delaware Bay.
Seafaring Days will continue from 10 am to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 27, with free events, demonstrations and lectures. Visit the newly renovated Cannonball House Lewes Maritime Museum where new exhibits focus on the Delaware River & Bay pilots, the menhaden fishing industry and the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse.
The newly restored Lightship Overfalls will be available for tours by the Overfalls Maritime Museum Foundation and provides a glimpse of life aboard a lightship (entrance fee applies; visit overfalls.org for more information).
Tours of the Harbor of Refuge and Delaware Breakwater East End Lighthouses will be conducted by the Delaware River & Bay Lighthouse Foundation (tour fee applies; visit delawarebaylights.org for more information). The tour takes visitors to two of Delaware’s most iconic structures, both located off Lewes’s coast.
A Seafaring Cemetery Tour will be conducted to see the graves of some of Lewes’s renowned captains and hear their stories of maritime adventure and tragedy. The tour will depart from 110 Shipcarpenter St. at 10:30 am.
Three lectures will be given throughout the day ranging from pirates on the Delaware to contemporary efforts to preserve maritime heritage and life ways. Noted local historian Mike Morgan will discuss Captain Kidd’s and other pirates’ visit to Lewes in the late 1600s and early 1700s.
Michael Vlahovich, president of Coastal Heritage Alliance and the recipient of the Washington State Governor’s Art and Heritage Award for preservation of commercial fishing heritage and folklore, and for maintaining the traditional craft of wooden boat building, will discuss his group’s efforts in preserving traditional maritime skills, crafts and arts. Archaeologist Dan Griffith will shed light on recent discoveries at Avery’s Rest, a 1600s homestead site near Rehoboth that is providing new clues to early Colonial life in Lewes. John Avery was an important figure in Colonial Lewes and was the “President Judge of the Whorekill,” as Lewes was then known. The Press Gang will perform all day Saturday on the grounds of the society.
Demonstrations, arts and crafts, and fresh seafood vendors will round out the festivities.
To order a ticket for the clambake or for more a detailed schedule and information about Seafaring Days or the Lewes Historical Society, call 302-645-7670 or visit Lewes Historical Society: historiclewes.org
