The Cannonball House — and the two casualties of the battle that put the ball in its wall

Written August 2026 · Sources last checked 2 August 2026 · Corrections: hello@lewestown.com

Why a British commodore shelled a small Delaware port

In March 1813, in the second year of the War of 1812, British warships entered Delaware Bay to enforce the blockade of the American coast. On 4 April a squadron under Commodore John P. Beresford, aboard HMS Poictiers, anchored off Cape Henlopen and approached Lewes — then often written Lewistown — a working pilot town defended by a revolution-era battery west of the settlement and a fort hastily thrown up from pine logs in the town centre.

Beresford wanted provisions, not conquest. After his shore parties were rebuffed by the arriving Delaware militia, he sent a final letter addressed to “the first magistrate at Lewistown”. Its terms were commercial and its closing was not:

As soon as you receive this, I request you will send 20 live bullocks with a proportionate quantity of vegetables and hay to the Poictiers for the use of Britannic Majesty's squadron now at this anchorage, which will be immediately paid for at the Philadelphia prices. If you refuse to comply with this request I shall be under necessity of destroying your town.

The letter reached the Governor of Delaware, who had travelled down from Dover as the situation developed. He replied that supplying the squadron would break the laws of the United States, and declined. A copy of Beresford's demand is kept in the house today.

Twenty-two hours, and two casualties

The squadron opened fire on 6 April and kept it up for twenty-two hours, into 7 April, using both cannonballs and Congreve rockets. It achieved remarkably little. Several chimneys were knocked about and a number of houses and businesses took damage from naval fire, but the town held, and the American gunners ashore returned fire well enough to set one British gunboat alight. Beresford broke off on 7 April and withdrew to resume blockading the bay.

The American casualty return for the engagement is one of the more disarming documents of the war: one pig wounded, with a broken leg, and one chicken killed. The British recorded no casualties at all. The engagement is counted an American victory, and Lewes has been dining out on it ever since — with rather more grace than the numbers strictly require.

The house, and the ball

The building was there before the shooting started. The Delaware Public Archives marker at the site dates it to circa 1760, enlarged in the 1790s — which matches what the fabric shows, a smaller early section with a larger later wing, in the plain early Sussex County manner. In 1813 it was the home of the McCracken family. Gilbert McCracken and his son Henry were Delaware Bay and river pilots, and both served in the militia companies that defended the town: the house was not a bystander to the battle so much as a participant's address.

The cannonball is set in the brick of the foundation at the front of the house, marking where the damage was reported. Two large anchors flank the entrance, and the fenced yard holds a pilot skiff, a fog bell and guns of about 1810 — a large American naval piece and a matched British pair, representing the kinds of weapon both sides could have used in 1813. They are illustrative rather than excavated from the engagement, and worth reading that way.

The Lewes Historical Society bought the house in 1963, rescuing a building that by then had run through a thoroughly unromantic run of commercial tenants — a lace-and-ribbon shop and, at one point, a laundromat. By 1970 the Society had settled on its present use as a maritime museum, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

One unresolved point

Sources do not agree on whose house it was. The Delaware Public Archives marker names the McCracken family as the residents at the time of the bombardment. Mrs. Brittingham's 1997 page refers to the building as “then called the David Rowland house for an early owner” at the time of the Society's 1963 purchase. These are not necessarily in conflict — a house standing since about 1760 passes through many hands, and the name attached to it in the 1960s need not be the name attached to it in 1813. We have not traced the deed chain ourselves, and say so rather than smoothing it over.

One figure from the original page we have also left alone: Mrs. Brittingham gives the British squadron a total of 241 cannon. We could not confirm that number against a primary source, so we neither repeat it as fact nor contradict it. Her deed and local-record research was formidable, and the figure may well come from a source we have not seen.

From the original 1997 page at this address

“The house itself is a gem, but it can be likened to a jewel box containing a cache of small treasures. … The museum is open in the summertime during hours as posted. After each busy summer, the house is put to bed for a well-deserved slumber. It is aroused just once during its hibernation — that is on the first Saturday in December when the historical society stages its Annual Christmas House Tour.”

Hazel D. Brittingham, “The Cannonball House”, Lewestown Publishers, 1997. © Copyright 1997 Hazel D. Brittingham. Short extract quoted for commentary; the full original is at the Internet Archive.

Visiting

The house stands on Front Street near the canal and the War of 1812 Memorial Park, opposite the post office, and it is a short flat walk from the Ryves Holt House and the Zwaanendael Museum. Opening is seasonal and the Lewes Historical Society posts current hours — check with the Society before travelling rather than trusting any date you read here. If the museum is shut, the exterior, the ball, the anchors and the yard guns are all visible from the street and the open gate, which is more than most closed museums offer. Our historic Lewes walking guide has the practical detail for the wider circuit.