Editing Bethel, Delaware (section)

==History==
Bethel is a small, well-preserved 19th century shipbuilding and trading community. Wooden sailing vessels were constructed by Bethel's skilled ship carpenters until the early-20th century. The most significant class of Bethel craft were the Chesapeake sailing rams, which originated from this Broad Creek port.<ref name=NRHPnom>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=75000544}} |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Bethel Historic District|author=Madeline Dunn|date=March 1974}}</ref>

The town of Bethel was formerly known as both Lewis' Wharf and Lewisville. The site was originally part of five hundred acres granted by the province of Maryland to James Caldwell in 1728. Settlement of this area was inhibited by the continuous boundary disputes between Maryland and the Penn family.
In 1795, Kendal Major Lewis, the founder of Bethel, acquired much of James Caldwell's original grant as well as a smaller tract on Broad Creek, known as Mitchell's Harbor. Here he established a landing that grew to become a prosperous trading center. In the 1840s, Lewis' Wharf developed into a thriving community known as Lewisville.<ref name=NRHPnom/>

Within the next 20 years, Lewisville was to become an important shipbuilding center. The extensive forests along the Nanticoke provided abundant supplies of virgin pine, oak and cypress. In 1869, Jonathan Moore of Lewisville established the most important marine railway on the peninsula south of [[Wilmington, Delaware|Wilmington]]. John M. C. Moore, superintendent of Lewisville's Marine Railway Company, originated the well-known Chesapeake sailing ram. This class of sailing vessel was designed as an economical, flatbottom, three masted schooner; its operation required only a small crew. Rams were used for coastal freight primarily on the [[Chesapeake Bay]]. Between 1871 and 1918, as many as thirty rams were built in Lewisville shipyards.<ref name=NRHPnom/>

In 1880, when the village applied for a [[post office]], its name was changed to Bethel, since another [[Lewisville, Delaware]], post office already existed.<ref name=NRHPnom/>

Bethel's population was 400 in 1890,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cram |first=George Franklin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CPAwAQAAMAAJ&dq=cram%2527s+1885+atlas&pg=PA330 |title=Cram's Universal Atlas: Geographical, Astronomical and Historical, Containing a Complete Series of Maps of Modern Geography, Illustrated by Numerous Views and Charts ; the Whole Supplemented with Valuable Statistics, Diagrams, and a Complete Gazetteer of the United States |date=1887 |publisher=G.F. Cram |pages=356 |language=en}}</ref> and was 387 in 1900.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9AzrWecxN1wC |title=Cram's Modern Atlas: The New Unrivaled New Census Edition |date=1902 |publisher=J. R. Gray & Company |page=84 |language=en}}</ref>

The [[Bethel Historic District (Bethel, Delaware)|Bethel Historic District]] was added to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1975.<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>