Newbolds Lake Battle in 1813

BATTLE OF NEWBOLDS LAKE

DELAWARE IN THE WAR OF 1812

The battle of Newbolds Lake took place by Delaware troops on Delaware soil on May 10,

1813. A British squadron had entered the Delaware Bay in March last, bombarded Lewestowne the 6^th of April, because the town residents would not furnish food stuff and water to the command of the ships offiers and repulsed by Colonel Samuel Davis of the Delaware Militia. They then appeared in

the Atlantic Ocean, seven miles below Lewestowne, just off of Newbolds Point which had a fresh water lake, Newbold Lake.

Newbold Lake is now known as Silver Lake and continues to be a fresh water lake.

The Sussex County Atlantic coast has four such  ponds or lakes, two are fresh water and two are salt

water, two of them are in Rehoboth Lewes Hundred and two are in Baltimore Hundred. The two in Rehoboth Lewes Hundred are Gardiners (Gordons) , which is very salt and has a salt works in operation. Newbolds is a pretty space of fresh water a mile long and quarter mile wide. The two ponds in Baltimore Hunderd are Fresh Pond and Salt Pond, about a mile of each other.

At Newbold Lake the British fleet had expected to to supply itself with fresh water since the Lewestowne people would not do so, and the”Poictiers” and “Pass”, ships of the line with 74 guns, under command of Captain Byron, set armed boats of British soldiers to approach the shore.

Colonel Davis had sent Major George Hunter, with 150 militia men, and when the British  boats were near the surf, Hunters men  opened fire and drove the British back to their ships, which then sailed away toward the Bermudas.

This was the Battle of Newbolds Lake.

Jay Stevenson has added source:Field Book of 1812 War by Benson J. Lossing  1869

Source: Abstract of a Francis Vincent article which appeared in the Wilmington New Journal,

Saturday May 10, 1879. Abstract July 2017, Harrison H.