Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Replica of Stingray Point screwpile lighthouse in Deltaville, Virginia

Stingray Point Marina, Deltaville, Virginia Stingray Point Marina, a sailboat marina in Deltaville, Virginia, sits near the fabled point of land where, according to his diaries, the seventeenth-century explorer Captain John Smith almost died from a nasty encounter with a stingray. Local Native Americans cured him, and the site went down in history as Stingray Point. The town of Deltaville developed there over the centuries as a center of workboat building and laid-back vacation cottages.

From 1853 to 1965, the original hexagonal Stingray Point Lighthouse stood watch there over the shoal that separates the Rappahannock and Piankatank Rivers. A skeleton tower rose on the old foundation in 1965. A local boatyard owner bought several sections of the old lighthouse with the idea of rebuilding it on land, but his plan never became reality.

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