On the afternoon of May 25, 1798, the British warship DeBraak capsized and sank off Cape Henlopen. She had been escorting and protecting a convoy of British and American merchant ships bound for the United States when a sudden squall caught her.
The loss
DeBraak was commanded by James Drew of the Royal Navy, and he was among those lost. How many died with him is one of the details on which accounts disagree. A state historical marker gives thirty-three of an eighty-five-man crew. Other accounts put it at thirty-five crew plus a dozen Spanish prisoners on board, or at forty-seven lost in all. The local pilot, Andrew Allen, survived, according to the historical marker.
The disagreement is worth saying out loud rather than smoothing over. A wreck two and a quarter centuries old reaches us through records that do not always agree, and this one is no exception.
Raised in 1986
For nearly two hundred years the wreck stayed on the bottom off Lewes. In August 1986 a private salvage company raised the hull from the ocean floor. The raising was a commercial operation, and it badly damaged what was left of the ship.
Altogether more than 20,000 artifacts were recovered from the wreck site, along with roughly a third of the ship's lower hull.
Delaware's collection
The state held passive custody of the collection from 1986 and in 1992 bought it outright from the salvage company. Since then the remaining section of the hull and the artifact collection have been curated by the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs. The hull itself is kept at a conservation facility near Cape Henlopen State Park.
The Division's Zwaanendael Museum, at 102 Kings Highway in Lewes, has made the DeBraak a recurring subject of its exhibitions and programs over the years.
Seeing it
The Division runs free "Walk to the DeBraak" tours of the hull, for groups of up to 18 visitors ages 10 and up. Dates are set by the Division; the Zwaanendael Museum is the place to ask about the next one.
Sources: Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, "Remembering the HMS DeBraak 225 Years Later" (2023) and "Caring for the HMS DeBraak" (2022), for the convoy, the date, the 1986 salvage, the artifact count, the 1992 purchase and the Division's curation; State of Delaware News on the Zwaanendael Museum's DeBraak exhibitions; the Division's "Walk to the DeBraak" tour listing for the tour format; the H.M. Brig DeBraak historical marker and other accounts for the casualty figures, which disagree. Delaware Beach Finds has not toured the hull.