Helm’s Tavern

Helms Tavern, also known as Helms Cove Tavern, stands just a short walk from the Delaware River in present-day Penns Grove and began welcoming travelers as early as 1732. Operated by Andrew Helms and later his family, the tavern and adjoining ferry linked Upper Penns Neck to Wilmington across the river, making this a busy colonial crossroads of trade and news. In May 1776, that quiet shoreline became a front-row seat to one of the first naval clashes on the Delaware, when British warships Roebuck and Liverpool exchanged heavy cannon fire with Pennsylvania row galleys off Helms Cove. Local tradition holds that a British cannonball from Roebuck struck the tavern’s brick west wall—supposedly to scatter onlookers jeering from the shore—leaving a scar still remembered in community lore. Today, the former tavern is a private residence, but its survival offers a rare glimpse of an 18th‑century riverside inn that literally felt the shock of the Revolution.