Cape Henlopen: Only Yesterday

In 1788 Benjamin Franklin, President of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, appointed a Committee of Wardens to investigate the condition of the Cape Henlopen light station, located in the State of Delaware. The tower was virtually built upon shifting sands and from its early days caused uneasiness as to its preservation. It was near the eastern end of a long ridge of sand dunes, from the top of which one could see a living forest being buried in sand on one side and on the other side the stripped trunks of trees of long ago emerging as the sand moved away.