De Vries Palisade in Lewes, Delaware, marks the site of the Zwaanendael Colony, established in 1631 as the first permanent European presence on Delaware Bay. Settlers under David Pietersz. de Vries came ashore here to create both a whale-hunting station and an agricultural settlement, tying the place to the earliest European colonizing efforts on the bay. Its historical importance in Delaware’s early past was formally recognized when the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.