Marine archaeology update Lewes shipwreck, the Severn, gives up her secrets

Sometime during early May 1774, Capt. James Hawthorn made a decision to run the 200-ton cargo ship Severn aground just off Lewes Beach. A nor’easter was lashing the Cape Region, threatening the vessel and its crew of 20 or so men.

“They all made it to shore alive,” says Dan Griffith, director of the Lewes Maritime Archaeological Project.

Griffith, Secretary of State Harriet Smith Windsor and Tim Slavin, director of the state’s Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, gathered at the University of Delaware’s College of Marine Studies in Lewes Wednesday, Oct., 11, eager to talk about the Severn and what’s been learned during the past several months.