De Vries Palisade, also known as DeVries Palisade of 1631, is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

located at

Lewes Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. The town is the administrative centre of the wider Lewes (district), district of the same name. It lies on the River Ouse, Sussex, River Ouse at the point where the river cuts through the Sou ...

Sussex County, Delaware Sussex County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of Delaware, on the Delmarva Peninsula. As of the 2020 census, the population was 237,378, making it the state's second most populated county behind New Castle and ahead of Ke ...

. It is the site of the

Zwaanendael Colony or was a short-lived Dutch colonial settlement in Delaware. It was built in 1631. The name is archaic Dutch for "swan valley." The site of the settlement later became the town of Lewes, Delaware. History Two directors of the Amsterdam c ...

, the first permanent European presence on the

Delaware Bay Delaware Bay is the estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the northeast seaboard of the United States, lying between the states of Delaware and New Jersey. It is approximately in area, the bay's freshwater mixes for many miles with the saltw ...

in 1631, settled by a group of settlers under David Pietersz. de Vries. The settlers landed near this spot to form a whale hunting station and agricultural settlement. A monument was erected on the site; it was dedicated on September 22, 1909. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1972. Originally located on the grounds of the Zwaanendael Museum, the monument is now adjacent to the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

Lewes campus.

References

External links

"DeVries Monument in Lewes," by Hazel D. Brittingham, 1997
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Delaware Geography of Sussex County, Delaware Buildings and structures in Lewes, Delaware National Register of Historic Places in Sussex County, Delaware {{Delaware-NRHP-stub