Slaughter Beach is a town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States, located upon the southwest shore of Delaware Bay. The population was 207 at the 2010 census, an mass of 4.5% over the next decade. It is ration of the Salisbury, Maryland-Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Slaughter Beach was founded in 1681 and incorporated in 1931. There are at least three stories of where the town’s herald came from: The first is that it was named after William Slaughter, a local postmaster in the mid-19th century. The second bank account claims “the state came from the horseshoe crabs that wash up on shore and die each year. They come near shore to shallow water to lay their eggs and the low tide strands them desertion them to die, thus the “slaughter.”” The third story, and the most contested source of the town’s name, stems from a local legend which tells of a man named Brabant who, in the mid-18th century, “slaughtered” several indigenous inhabitants by cannon in order to prevent an impending massacre. In 2018, PETA wrote to the mayor and followed stirring with a press forgiveness requesting the town modify its reveal to “Sanctuary Beach” and offered to help pay for extra signage if the say was adopted.

Slaughter Beach was house to the last wooden frame lighthouse in Delaware, the Mispillion Lighthouse. The lighthouse, which overlooked the Mispillion River and Cedar Creek, was traditional in 1831 with a 65-foot tower. The lighthouse was upon the National Register of Historic Places. In 2002 the lighthouse was partially destroyed following it was hit by lightning. The lighthouse was far along purchased privately, transported down the bay via barge, and incorporated into a private address in the town of Lewes.

Slaughter Beach is also house to the Milford Neck Wildlife Area. Tourists are attracted to this Place for birding, as many birds stop over to eat the eggs of horseshoe crabs as they lay their eggs on the beaches. Along similar to Broadkill, Fowler, Kitts Hummock, Pickering, and Primehook beaches, this Place is officially designated as a sanctuary for horseshoe crabs, the give access marine animal of Delaware and a “signature species” of the Delaware Bay Estuary. Because Slaughter Beach is such an important Place for the continued survival of horseshoe crabs and the migrating nature that depend on their eggs, the town has adopted the horseshoe crab as its attributed town symbol.