{"id":1638,"slug":"cannonball-house-lewes-delaware","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Cannonball House is the house the Royal Navy hit — April 6-7, 1813, the twenty-two-hour bombardment of Lewes when Commodore Beresford's squadron shelled the town for refusing supplies. The McCracken family's house took a ball in the foundation — the only surviving Lewes structure still marked by the bombardment, the cannonball that stayed in the wall for two centuries.","The town held — the hastily built pine-log fort, the militia Gilbert McCracken and his son served in, the governor who came from Dover to refuse the requisition. The British damaged a gunboat and left; Lewes had no casualties. The house became everything else — sewing shop, bank, taxi stand — before the Historical Society bought it in 1963 for the Maritime Museum. The replica ball in the foundation now is a replacement; the patched hole is the original wound.","The file keeps the Cannonball House: the 1813 bombardment, the lodged ball, the museum, and the replaced cannonball.","Cannonball House is the archive's War-of-1812 file — the house that kept the hit."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Cannonball House is the archive's War-of-1812 file — the building that still shows the bombardment.","A house keeps its scar — the file's suggestion being that the Cannonball House's hold is the patch: the foundation hole where the British ball struck, the town that refused to surrender, and the only surviving structure that bears the mark."]}],"name":"Cannonball House","aliases":["Cannonball House Maritime Museum","Lewes Maritime Museum"],"type":"MUSEUM","type_label":"Museum","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Maritime museum associated with an unnamed-woman ghost story.","full_desc":"Cannonball House is a museum in Lewes, Delaware. Maritime museum associated with an unnamed-woman ghost story. The house was damaged in the War of 1812 bombardment; Historic Lewes acquired it in 1963 for preservation and museum use. Local lore holds that The Archives exhibit recounts a woman allegedly haunting the house after a fireplace accident.","address":"118 Front Street","city":"Lewes","county":null,"state":"Delaware","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":38.778644,"lon":-75.143689,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"RESTRICTED","access_notes":"Operator announces closure beginning September 9 for renovation, without year or reopening date. Verify before visiting; routine seasonal hours may be superseded.","ownership":null,"website":"https://www.historiclewes.org/locations/maritime-museum-at-the-cannonball-house/","phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Archives folklore caption gives 1743 construction;2016 city survey index gives circa 1765; current operator says mid-eighteenth century. Exact year left null.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":69.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":850,"type":"APPARITION","description":"The Archives exhibit recounts a woman allegedly haunting the house after a fireplace accident. Cannonball House in Lewes, Delaware curates the past professionally; the reports suggest some of the past curates back. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.75,"conflict_notes":"Accident and identity unverified.","source":{"name":"Cannonball House — Haunted Delaware exhibit","url":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/delawarepublicarchives/52377219830/in/album-72177720302319003","publisher":"Delaware Public Archives","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The house was damaged in the War of 1812 bombardment; Historic Lewes acquired it in 1963 for preservation and museum use. Cannonball House's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. 'Cannonball House Maritime Museum' documents the entry. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Cannonball House Maritime Museum","url":"https://www.historiclewes.org/locations/maritime-museum-at-the-cannonball-house/","publisher":"Historic Lewes","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"The Archives exhibit recounts a woman allegedly haunting the house after a fireplace accident. A site full of other people's belongings gives the reports an unusually well-documented inventory to haunt. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. The account appears in 'Cannonball House — Haunted Delaware exhibit'. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Cannonball House — Haunted Delaware exhibit","url":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/delawarepublicarchives/52377219830/in/album-72177720302319003","publisher":"Delaware Public Archives","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"opening_hours":"Closure notice takes priority; routine hours Wed–Sat 10–4 April–October, Thu–Sat 10–4 November 1–December 20.","admission_fee":"No required admission fee; suggested donation$5.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-14T10:36:21+00:00","source":{"name":"Cannonball House Maritime Museum","url":"https://www.historiclewes.org/locations/maritime-museum-at-the-cannonball-house/","publisher":"Historic Lewes","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Cannonball House Maritime Museum","url":"https://www.historiclewes.org/locations/maritime-museum-at-the-cannonball-house/","publisher":"Historic Lewes","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2},{"name":"Cannonball House — Haunted Delaware exhibit","url":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/delawarepublicarchives/52377219830/in/album-72177720302319003","publisher":"Delaware Public Archives","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Lewes historic property survey: Phase II final 2016","url":"https://www.ci.lewes.de.us/DocumentCenter/View/3708/Phase-II-Final-2016","publisher":"City of Lewes","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":3}}