Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Logs, Maps, and Charts Ship pilots kept meticulously detailed logs, recording descriptions of their trading routes and journeys. The oldest known navigational documents were the peripli of the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. These written sailing directions described, in geographic order, the ports and coastal landmarks that a seafarer could expect to encounter along a given shore. In 1295, the Italians published a harbor-finding manual, or portolano , in Genoa. That guide, Lo Compasso de Navigare , gave written sailing directions for the whole Mediterranean Sea and recorded the earliest mention of a buoy marking the approach to Seville in the Guadalquivir River in Spain. In 1323, the Dutch placed floating aids marking the Maas River near Rotterdam. 3 After Christopher Columbus’s 1492 discovery of a New World in the Western Hemisphere, Spanish ship pilots and captains relied on closely guarded maps and charts that showed the way to safer passage. Orientation of many early maps showed the west at the top of the map and the north to the right, mirroring the view of the coastline as seen from the deck of a ship. Maps from expeditions into North Carolina by English explorers and scientists in 1586 followed that same orientation.

Captain John Smith's shallop, 1608–1609. Art by Karla Smith

The location of the Chesapeake Bay, thought to be the gateway to a possible passage to the Pacific Ocean as well as a sea road to gold and other riches, appeared early on several primitive maps by the French, the Spanish, and the Portuguese. A 1562 map of America by Diego Gutierrez labeled the Chesapeake Bay as Bahia de Santa Maria. 4 By 1584 a new, revolutionary type of pilot book with modern nautical charts was invented by Dutchman Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer. Spieghel der Zeevaerdt ( The Mirror of the Sea ) was revolutionary, complete with depths, views of the coast as seen from offshore, aids to navigators, and significant features as seen from sea. 5 After the English gained control of the

The Trinity House flag

Chesapeake Bay and its vast river system at the beginning of the seventeenth century, they found the bay’s waters difficult to navigate. Native American tribes living along the bay and its tributaries had, for hundreds of years, traveled and fished in dugout canoes that rarely had a draft of over 12 inches. For them, shallow water was not a navigational obstacle. The draft of European ships, however, averaged 12 to 20 feet, making navigation through shallow water and shoals challenging. Captain John Smith arrived in the Chesapeake Bay in the spring of 1607 and noted oyster reefs piled up so high they broke the surface of the water and presented a navigational hazard. Smith was the first to map over 3,000 miles of the bay, and although his map included descriptions of shorelines, rivers, and inhabitants, he did

“Indians Fishing” by John White. Courtesy of the British Museum

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