Crew of De Braak honored on Memorial Day weekend

Capt. James Drew and his DeBraak crew were honored with a wreath-laying ceremony May 28, during Lewes’ Maritime Festival. The British war ship capsized June 10, 1798, in the waters off Delaware’s Cape Henlopen after a sudden squall caught the crew off guard. Drew, 35 crew members and 12 Spanish prisoners drowned in the shipwreck. 

The ceremony May 28 honored Drew at his grave in the cemetery at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on Second Street. The crew was also honored with a brief ceremony at the DeBraak historic marker at the Zwaanendael Museum, where the recovered remains of crew members were placed in two caskets and interred in 1998. 

The state is in possession of more than 20,000 artifacts from the DeBraak, including an 85-foot long section of the 18th-century ship.