Shipwreck History

For hundreds of years, the great ports of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays brought to the Delmarva Peninsula one of the highest concentrations of shipping in the early Americas. Today, through the use of proper archeology and recovery, you can experience Delmarva's forgotten maritime history. If the Delmarva coast could talk, its stories would be of pirates and privateers, of merchantmen and galleons, of the men who sailed their ships and the wreckers that waited for them on desolate shores.

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In its own way, our coast does talk to us, but only to those willing to listen. From time to time after northeasters, such as the ones that caused these tragedies, it teases us with bits and pieces of its grand history. It tells its story not in words, but rather in the artifacts that it gives up on its shores.

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Each time a ship sinks, time stands still. All of those artifacts aboard are frozen together in time. That means that by studying them, we can learn how people lived and worked centuries ago. By studying the past, we can better cope with the present; by educating about the past. we open doors to the future.