Lewes Historical Society Campus · Late 18th-Century Sussex County Home · Colonial Lewes Heritage
The Burton-Ingram House is a frame dwelling built circa 1785 and now standing on the Lewes Historical Society's campus, a cluster of relocated and preserved historic buildings in the colonial port town of Lewes. The society uses the house as part of its interpretation of early Sussex County domestic life.
The house was at one point intended to provide lodging for the society's visitors. According to the Cape Gazette, that plan changed because guests repeatedly reported feeling uncomfortable inside, and the building shifted from lodging to tour attraction. It now appears among the structures the society opens for both daytime history tours and its seasonal evening paranormal program.
Lewes, founded in 1631 as the first European settlement in Delaware, gives the campus its deep historical backdrop, and the Burton-Ingram House is one of several 18th- and 19th-century buildings the society maintains there. Its dual life, as a documented historic home and as a focus of ghost interest, is what brings it onto this list.
Sources
- https://www.historiclewes.org/events/historic-haunts-lewes-1
- https://www.capegazette.com/article/ghost-hunters-find-lewes-phantoms/17874
Sensed presenceGuests feeling watched or uneasyInvestigation readings
The Burton-Ingram House sits at the center of the Lewes Historical Society's ghost programming. The Cape Gazette reported that investigators with Delmarva Historic Haunts, the group founded by Rick Coherd, worked the house during the society's October tours, and that investigator Wendy Robinson led efforts that the group described as contact with a woman of the Ingram family.
The building's reputation grew from a practical problem: it had been meant to house visitors, but enough of them reported feeling watched or uneasy that the society repurposed it as a tour attraction rather than lodging. On the seasonal Historic Haunts program, run with Delmarva Historic Haunts, the Burton-Ingram House is investigated alongside the nearby Cannonball House, with participants using meters and recorders to gather their own readings.
The accounts come from amateur paranormal investigation and the society's own programming rather than from documented events, and the named Ingram-family contact should be read as investigation lore. What is reliable is that the discomfort guests described was consistent enough to change how the society used the building.
Notable Entities
A woman of the Ingram family
