National Harbor of Refuge and Delaware Breakwater Harbor Historic District

The National Harbor of Refuge and Delaware Breakwater Historic District encompasses a series of seacoast breakwaters behind Cape Henlopen, Delaware that were built in a program to establish a shipping haven on a coastline that lacked safe harbors. The Harbor of Refuge is at the mouth of the Delaware Bay estuary where it opens into the Atlantic Ocean, at Lewes. The district is almost entirely offshore, only touching land at the former United States Coast Guard station. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. An 1822 study authorized by the United States Congress investigated the possibility of a haven at Cape Henlopen, led by General Simon Bernard, Major Joseph Gilbert Totten and Commodore William Bainbridge. The committee recommended that a permanent harbor be created.