Zwaanendael Museum voted Best of Delaware

Readers of Delaware Today have spoken. The award for Best Downstate Museum is Zwaanendael Museum! 

The annual Delaware Today Best of Delaware Awards is a survey of readers and critics, and winners will be highlighted in the July edition.

The Zwaanendael Museum was built in commemoration of Delaware’s first European colony established by the Dutch in 1632. Modeled after the former City Hall in Hoorn, Netherlands, it is an ornate building in downtown Lewes with Dutch elements such as terracotta roof tiles, carved stonework and decorative shutters. Crowning the building in front is a statue of David Piertersen de Vries, leader of the expedition that founded the early colony.

Ongoing exhibits at the museum include local history, the famous H.M.S. DeBraak shipwreck and other maritime history. Facts about the bombardment of Lewes by the British in the War of 1812 are a theme throughout the two-story museum as is life on the water illustrated in the stories of mariners, shipping in colonial times and fishing industries. 

The grounds also are a perfect backdrop for Lewes’s annual Tulip Celebration. Recent award-winning projects bring to the forefront the history and stories of the Black American experience at segregated beaches during the Jim Crow era, stories that are being memorialized through an oral history initiative. Learn more about the Zwaanendael Museum by visiting it at 102 Kings Highway in Lewes. For more information, go to history.delaware.gov/zwaanendael-museum.