Slaughter Beach, DE

Slaughter Beach is a Sussex County town on the southwest shore of Delaware Bay, tucked between the Mispillion River, Cedar Creek, and the marshes south of Milford. The 2020 census counted 218 residents. The nearby Mispillion Lighthouse was Delaware’s last wooden-frame lighthouse, and Milford Neck Wildlife Area brings the bay’s shorebirds, marshes, and horseshoe crabs into the town’s daily geography. Slaughter Beach was founded in 1681 and incorporated in 1931.

ATTRFamartin / CC BY-SA 4.0

The name has several local explanations, including Slaughter Creek on early maps, the nearby area called Slaughter Neck, and a possible connection to a nineteenth-century postmaster. In its resort years, the town had hotels, a dance hall, and a boardwalk; as cars made the ocean beaches easier to reach, Slaughter Beach settled into a seasonal fishing-village rhythm. Today the horseshoe crab sanctuary is the signature, especially when crabs come ashore in spring and migrating birds gather to feed. Milford School District ties the small bay town back to its inland neighbor.