Newsletter - Vol. I - Edition I

Local Events:

Summer Stage Calendar:

Wrecks dating back approximately 400 years lies off Delaware's coast. Here are four representing the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries:

China Wreck: There is a certain amount of confusion, if not controversy, about the positive identification of what is commonly called the China Wreck by local divers. What is certain is that some 10,000 pieces of pottery have been plucked from the wreck site, about a dozen miles off Cape Henlopen. Hence, its nickname, the China Wreck.

The Faithful Steward, bound from Londonderry, Ireland to Philadelphia with 249 passengers, ran aground near Indian River Inlet, Delaware on the night of September 1, 1785. When a sounding was taken, it was found the ship was only in 4 fathoms of water, though there was not the slightest appearance of land. Every exertion was used to run the vessel off shore but all failed.

On the morning of September 2, the ship was near Indian River, about four leagues to the southward of Cape Henlopen. Every effort was made to save the unhappy sufferers, who had remained on the deck during the night.

Ghostly apparitions of the ship under sail, a guardian water witch protecting the site from discovery, and the fabled wealth of millions of dollars of gold aboard are stories forming part of the many legends, traditions, and myths surrounding the ship and its tragic loss nearly 200 years ago in 1798. This is but a small part that has secured the DeBraak is prominent place in the Maritime history and lore of the Delaware Coast.

The origins of the cutter DeBraak (Dutch for "The Beagle") are obscure. Although it was long believed that she was Dutch-built, analysis of the hull suggests that she was probably built in Britain. During the 1780s, she sailed against England under the Dutch flag, operating with a Mediterranean squadron out of Toulon, France. In 1793, she took part in the defense of Willemstad, uraçao, against a French Revolutionary army, and at the end of 1794, De Braak was ordered to escort a convoy of East Indiamen to Batavia. Not realizing that their country was again at war with England, the Dutch put into Falmouth where the twenty-four merchantmen and six warships were seized.

Brought into the Royal Navy as HM Sloop-of-War Braak, the cutter was re-rigged as a brig and rearmed with sixteen 24-pound carronades. She entered service under Captain James Drew on June 13, 1797, and remained on duty until dismasted in a storm at the end of the year. Upon her return to service in February 1798, Braak joined a convoy bound for the Virginia Capes, but on April 2, off the Azores, she was separated from the other ships. At the end of the month, she captured a Spanish ship worth £160,000 in prize money and on May 25, Captain Drew put into Delaware Bay. Shortly after a pilot boarded off Cape Henlopen, "a sudden flaw of wind" capsized the DeBraak and she sank with the loss of thirty-five of her crew, including Drew, and twelve Spanish prisoners.

Over the years, De Braak's seven-week solo cruise and the certain fact that she had captured one valuable prize became encrusted with myth. Over the years more than a dozen individuals and groups attempted to find the ship, and by the 1980s estimates of the value of the treasure aboard the humble convoy escort exceeded $500 million. Success of a sort finally came in 1984 when Harvey Harrington's Sub-Sal, Inc., raised a cannon, an anchor, and a ship's bell bearing the name "La Patrocle." Sub-Sal became legal custodian of the wreck on behalf of the U.S. District Court and with a one-year lease began working round-the-clock to retrieve as much as possible from the site. With almost total disregard for archaeological practice, divers tagged a portion of what they recovered and disposed of anything they considered worthless, including human remains, a rare stove, and objects too small to warrant their consideration.

In 1985, Sub-Sal was taken over by a New Hampshire investment group led by L. John Davidson. The state of Delaware began to take a more active interest in the project and assigned State personnel to tag retrieved artifacts, which ultimately included 26,000 items ranging from ship fittings, weapons, and ammunition to toothbrushes, combs, dominoes, a syringe, compasses and dividers, a mahogany telescope, an octant, a sink, 150 shoes, a sailor's "Monmouth" hat, three anchors, storage vessels, and hundreds of specimens of organic foodstuffs including peas, corn, and beans. The DeBraak is now
owned by the State of Delaware.
 

The La Galga is the wreck from which legend says that the Chincoteague ponies came. Have you read Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry?

"La Galga (The Greyhound) was a 50-gun frigate commissioned into the Spanish navy in 1732. It left Havana on its last voyage on Aug. 18, 1750, in order to escort a convoy of merchant ships to Spain. On Aug. 25, 1750, the convoy encountered a hurricane near Bermuda that scattered the ships and forced them westward toward the American coast.

"La Galga eventually sank off the coast of the Maryland/Virginia border. Most of the crew and passengers reached land safely. Capt. Daniel Houny attempted to salvage items from the wreck, but his efforts ended when a second storm came and broke up what was left of the ship. La Galga remains undisturbed for the next 245 years. The ship was carrying horses, chests of silver, coinage of silver and gold and a large cargo of mahogany and tobacco. Reports say that the Spanish, with the help of local Indians, recovered some chests of silver.

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