1888 REHOBOTH BEACH

HISTORY OF REHOBOTH BEACH

AN 1888 VIEW OF REHOBOTH

QUIET & RESTFUL

Friday, July 20, 1888, a Rehoboth correspondent of the Baltimore Sun writes:

To bid farewell to Lewes and it's quiet and within a short while find yourself looking

out upon a boisterous ocean from a hotel porch at Rehoboth is a sudden transition for

sure. This can happen in twenty minutes by railroad, or, one hour by team along the beach.

The beach drive is preferred . You drive three miles on the Delaware Bay shore passing the Life Saving Station on the bay shore, guarded by Henlopen, the cape with it's lighthouse dating back to Englands occupation, breakers sweeping up from the ocean covering your wheels, then another Life Saving Station on the ocean sea shore.

A sight worth the time of the drive are the sand dunes, built by winds of ages,

westward of the Henlopen Light. The sea sweeps the oceans sands to the shore and winds

carry if further inland. These sand dunes are a mile along the coast, sixty feet high, half a

mile in breadth. In time, a forest o f pine has been buried by shifting sand. Each year

these dunes move inland , sometimes up to fifty feet.

There is no better natural beach for the purpose of a summer resort than at Rehoboth..

Bathing is unsurpassed. It is isolated for rest with the ocean sweeping in one hundred feet or more.

A wooden boardwalk runs a mile, along Surf Avenue, fronts Rehoboth, a resort for

quite and rest. In the near back country around Rehoboth's beach there are lakes, bays,

uplands with shady trails in oak and pine forest, a camp ground, the abandon Methodist

Camp Meeting grounds. Rehoboth Bay to the south, a fresh water landlocked bay offers

fishing, crabbing, sailing, and striking scenery on its borders.

.

Rehoboth no longer has the restrictive features it had in 1873 as the Methodist Camp

Meeting Association with tight restriction on the amusements allowed.. The hotels now furnish

music for dancing, a great fad in the late 1800's, and restrictions removed.

Rehoboth before 1888 had no amusements, no carousal or attractions for the young and for a glass of anything other than water, it had to be brought with you from home.

Abstract: Newspapers.com, Wilmington Morning News , Friday, July 20, 1888