Delaware Bay

Delaware Bay is the wide estuary of the Delaware River, its entrance framed by Cape May and Cape Henlopen. Salt marshes and mudflats line its shores, where river water mingles with the Atlantic. The Lenape lived around the bay before European settlement and called it Poutaxat. Dutch settlers established posts on its shores, while a Swedish colony was founded upriver in 1638. In 1655 a Dutch force under Peter Stuyvesant took control of New Sweden, ending the rival colony's rule along the river.