The entrance to the museum from Bethany Beach City Hall
The City Hall sign
The History of the Museum:
(from the museum website)
The museum is right in the hallway of the museum. Just go through the front door and the museum is to the right. The Bethany Beach History Museum is currently located in the foyer of the Town Hall at the intersection of Garfield Parkway and Route 1. The exhibits contain memorabilia and photographs from the Bethany Beach area
The front of the museum building
The museum is run by volunteers who work on the displays and set the exhibitions. The exhibits that were part of the museum display were the history of the Bethany Beach Lifeguards, the Bethany Beach Women’s Club and the history of Bethany Beach.
The inside of the museum
The first display was on the history of Bethany Beach as a religious community. This was a display on the Tabernacle and the religious services.
The history of the town as a Methodist community.
The history of worship in the community
There was also an interesting display on the Native American tribes and their using the community as a fishing and hunting spot during the summer months.
The Native American history of the community and the dedication of the Chief Little Owl statue
The Chief Little Owl statute outside of City Hall
Chief Little Owl
The display of natural disasters in the town including the 1962 flood
The museum has displays of various aspects of the community from the farming industry to
The displays of the town’s history
The town’s Methodist past
The town’s Religious past
The early farming industry of the town
The start of the family resort
The Storms of the past especially the 1962 storm
The development of the town as a community
The back part of the gallery
The back gallery displayed the history of all the clubs and organizations of the town. These included the Woman’s Club, Police and Fire Departments and many of the civic clubs in this small beach town.
The history of the Women’s Club
The history of the Native Americans in the area
The museum also had a wonderful display on their Life Guards in town and the history of search and rescue.
The history of the Life Guards in Bethany Beach
The Life Guard uniform
The history of the Civic organizations in town
For such a small town, the town has such a rich history and an interesting past. For a beach community, there has been and still is a lot to get involved in.
The museum does a nice job displaying these accomplishments and an interesting perspective on a small town.
The Zwaanendael Museum was inspired by the town hall in Hoorn, the Netherlands and commemorates the founding of Delaware’s first European settlement by the Dutch along Hoorn Kill (present day Lewes-Rehoboth Canal) in 1631. It’s programs showcase how the Lewes area’s Dutch and maritime histories unite.
The museum has limited hours but is free to the public.
Information signs
The inside of the museum explains the history of Lewes starting with the Dutch Colony. The growth of the Colony, the shipping industry and the shipwrecks off the coast line. There are many artifacts that the museum has either found or been donated to over the years. There is another display of the railroad industry and its growth in Lewes which lead to it becoming a seaside resort in the later half of the 19th century. The museum was created to honor the 300th Anniversary of the Dutch settlement of Zwaanendael. The museum represents the history of Sussex County in Delaware (Wiki).
The first floor gallery is filled with the history of the Railroads and the Shipping industry
The first floor galleries contain many artifacts that were recovered from the sea or donations that were made to the museum. This tells the story of early Lewes, DE. This gives a visitor a grasp of the importance of Lewes as a shipping port in the early days of the colonies. As the railroads replaced the shipping industry, you begin to see the growth and importance of Lewes as a trading port.
On the second floor there is a display on the Royal family of the Netherlands, a large display of ceramic Delftware and there is even the body of a mermaid. There were also displays of the local farming industry and the commercialization of the produce of the area.
The history of the Railroad industry in Lewes brought this sleepy farming community residents from far away that turned it into a resort town and a destination for summer tourism
The Railroad industry continued to grow and become more prosperous in Lewes
The railroads also help moved farming products out of the area and into urban markets
Lewes was also a big area for shipping with a busy port especially during the Revolutionary War.
The tale of the DeBraak, one of the shipping vessels of the war years
Life on the shipping vessels
Some of the recovered artifacts from shipwrecks off the coast of Lewes
The tales of the ship “DeBraak” and its story
The ship the “DeBraak”
The second floor of the museum has interesting displays on the aspects of life in Lewes and the influence of the Dutch on the community. It also offers many novelties such as a mermaid.
Display of the packing crates on the second floor
How items were shipped in the early days of the shipping industry
The Zwaanendael Mermaid is the most unique item in the collection. It makes you think it is real.
The Zwaanendael Mermaid
The Delftware collection
The history of Delftware
The lighthouses of Delaware
Display of the items that were canned in Lewes that were part of the growth of the farming industry in Lewes
The entrance of the Zwaanendael Museum in the winter months
Don’t miss this recently reopened and renovated museum by the shore. The Rehoboth Beach Museum is a treasure trove of artifacts on the history of the resort from a Methodist camp to modern times.
The Rehoboth Beach Museum 511 Rehoboth Avenue
On the first floor, there are displays of early Native American artifacts with the history of the Native tribes that lived in the area. Take some time to look over how the tribes lived in the area and the influence they had before Rehoboth Beach became a Methodist Camp.
The entrance of the museum
There is the history of the Methodist camps and as an early Victorian resort.
The front gallery of the Rehoboth Beach Museum and its various displays
There are maps of the set up of the camps, how the resort developed from a Methodist Camp to the growth of the hotels and amusement areas. They also describe the growth of the Boardwalk and how storms over the years shaped the resort and rebuilding period.
Bathing Suits from the turn of the last century
There are all sorts of items such as old post cards, bathing suits, beach items like shovels and pails, amusement items, historical items from all eras of the resorts including hotel and restaurant information and even the history of the LGBT community with the history of Camp Rehoboth.
Rehoboth Beach started as a Mormon Retreat
Camp Rehoboth has shown how much the resort has changed to include everyone
The museum also showcased the restaurants that once dotted the town, hotels that have since disappeared but left their dinnerware, menus and the events that once happened there. The development from a Methodist Camp to resort for the Philly and Washington DC crowd grew very quickly with the popularity of sunbathing and ocean swimming. As the hotels came, so did the restaurants and amusement areas. Rehoboth Beach morphed from a religious colony to one of family please and recreation.
Sand buckets at the Rehoboth Beach Museum
The growth of hotels in the area
The restaurant and food service industry grew as well to cater to the hungry crowds
There was also a nice display and video on the Rehoboth Beach Rescue Squad and the development of the lifeguards that watch over the beaches. They showed the various squads over the last fifty years and it was interesting to see how many of them came back year after year.
The top floor is for special exhibits and when I was visiting there, the museum was displaying a needle point exhibition on early works and ‘starter kits’, which young girls would do to practice their needlepoint. There is a current exhibition on ‘Sea life by the Shore’.
On recent visit, the museum displayed businesses of ‘Rehoboth Beach Past and Present’. It had a lot of old signs from businesses that have been in the resort for years.
The signs of the businesses in Rehoboth Beach DE
The second floor displays
A recent exhibition showed the disastrous “1962 Nor’easter” that destroyed most of the shoreline, all the boardwalk businesses including the Boardwalk and how the town rebuilt quickly to open by Memorial Day that year. Anything that had been along the coastline had been destroyed in this three day period in March of 1962. The Boardwalk looked like matchsticks.
The storms that have hit the resort
The museum also discusses the people who make Rehoboth Beach their home. This covers regular citizens who live here on a daily basis and tells their story. With the growth of the community so did civic minded people and people who represented the town during the wars. It has a nice display on the high school students and their participation in Rehoboth Beach.
The Military display
The High School display
They offer exhibits, walking and bus tours, programs for adults and children, membership benefits and a gift shop.
One of the newest displays that the museum is promoting is the diorama of Downtown Rehoboth Beach during the turn of the last century complete with lights and sounds and props moving.
The diorama at the Rehoboth Beach Historical Society
The details of the old beach community
The old homes that used to line the downtown
The very end of the road that faced the ocean
The diorama is a very nice addition to the museum collection
Several long time businesses closed in the downtown, Royal Treat Restaurant and Carlton Clothing and both businesses donated a lot of artifacts and family items from their establishments.
Royal Treatment Restaurant menu
Items from the now closed family restaurant
Carlton Clothing had been downtown since the 1960’s and they donated a lot of items to the collection. The bear costume was a promotional prop for the holiday season that Carlton’s used for families.
The Carlton Bear costume
The ‘Bear that Cares’ button on the bear
The sign for the display
Some new toys, games and prizes from the Boardwalk
There was also a lot of new family donations to the museum from families who lived in Rehoboth Beach. These items were part of local life in the area.
The new family donation display
The gift shop has a nice variety of items for sale that are beach themed. They sponsor the Annual Museum Beach Ball, a beach party on the first Saturday of August (Rehoboth Beach Museum).
The Gift Shop at the Rehoboth Beach Museum
The museum, founded in 1975, collects, preserves and displays artifacts and memorabilia tracing the history of the town’s 19th century Camp Meeting origins through its development into today’s popular summer resort (Rehoboth Beach Museum).
The museum also has a nice gift shop to buy gifts from Rehoboth Beach as well as a selection of beach magazines and books. Check it out.
Think of becoming a Friend of the Rehoboth Beach Museum.
Outside the museum, there is an interesting park along the canal with walking paths and a small dock to walk down. On a nice to it is a great way to cool off.
Grove Park Dock
The path that leads to the dock
The view of the canal behind the museum
The iconic Dolles sign was moved here when the store closed on the Boardwalk
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 