Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Selected Lighthouses on Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina Waters There were over a hundred screwpile lighthouses built in the Chesapeake Bay and along the East Coast sounds and rivers between 1855 and 1900. The list below represents just a portion of masonry, screwpile, and caisson beacons built in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Hooper Strait , MD 1827 – Lightships 1867 – Square s crewpile built 1877 – Ice destroyed 1879 – Hexagonal Hooper Strait near entrance to Tangier Sound. Moved in 1960 and preserved , * * Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum , St. Michaels , MD .

Killock Shoals , VA 1886

1939 – Deactivated 1980s – F rame structure removed

North end of Chincoteague Channel, VA

1936 – Automated and dismantled 1917 – Ice collapsed iron legs and light deactivated 1893 – Hexagonal 1918 – Ice damage 1960 – Automated 1891 – Screwpile light built 8 miles east on Gull Shoal 1955 – Replaced with a utomated light 1866 – Square screwpile burned in 1885 and rebuilt 1884 – Ice floes broke off one of the iron pilings 1871 – Rebuilt

Screwpile light marked the east - side entrance to Nansemond River leading to Suffolk, VA Northerly side of Albemarle Sound south of Camden , NC . Lighthouse superstructure became schoolhouse in Rodanthe until 1951 . Currently Rodanthe-Waves-Salvo Community Center .

Nansemond River , VA

1878

1920 – Cottage sold to Dare County Schools

1866

North River , NC

Old Plantation Flats , VA Pages Rock , VA Pamlico Point Shoal , NC

1962 – House removed Near town of Cape Charles . Skeleton steel tower replaced house . 2004 r eplica built at Bay Creek Resort near Cape Charles .

1886 – Square screwpile

1899

1967 – Removed

York River west of Yorktown

1950 – L ight deactivated

The screwpile foundation remains today with a battery powered light marking Pamlico Point Shoal and Gu ll Shoal

1828 – Brick t ower on shore…crumbled

James River , Burwells Bay – House removed in the 1960s * * Replica l ighthouse on Roanoke Island in Manteo , NC , 2004 Offshore between the southern end of Roanoke Island and the mainland. It marked the southern entrance to Croatan Sound from Pamlico Sound. Now in Edenton , NC , as a h istoric s ite . Confluence of Chesapeake Bay and the Patapsco River . Seven Foot Knoll was moved in 1988 to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor as part of the Baltimore Maritime Museum (now Historic Ships in Baltimore). S outh e ntrance to Deltaville on the Rappahannock River. Point named by John Smith in 1608 when he was stung by a stingray on one of his explorations of the b ay . **Entrance to Hampton Roads marking the Horseshoe Shoal at the “tail of the horseshoe” once known as Willoughby Bank . Three lightships originally marked the shoal : 1821 – LV Willoughby Spit

1932 – Automated 1955 – Lost at sea off of a barge 1887 – Unique two - story lighthouse 194 1 – Decommissioned

Point of Shoals , VA 1855

Roanoke Marshes , NC

1877

1835 – Lightship w ith red, blu e, and green lenses

Roanoke River , NC

1856 – P refabricated i ron structure

Seven Foot Knoll , MD

1894 – R eplaced by caisson

Stingray Point , VA 1858 – Hexagonal s crewpile

1969 – Deactivated and replaced with skeleton tower 1914 – C aisson lighthouse replaced screwpile 1964 – L ight automated

Thimble Shoal , VA 1872 –

1880 – Fire destroyed house . Rammed by a steamer in 1891 and by a coal barge in 1898 . D estroyed by a s chooner in 1909.

Hexagonal s crewpile lighthouse replaced last lightship

1847 – F ormer Revenue Cutter Spencer 1867 – LV23 formerly LV Smith Point

217