Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Currier and Ives lithograph

concomitants – than that which occurred on board the United States Ship Princeton, yesterday afternoon, whilst under way, in the river Potomac, fourteen or fifteen miles below this city. Coastal Survey, 1852–1853 Fifteen years after Captain Kennon made his report, the U.S. Navy conducted coastal surveys of the Chesapeake Bay from New Point Comfort, northward to Wolf Trap, then across the bay, and farther north to beyond Sandy Point on the Potomac. Survey Map In 1854, when he conducted his own survey to ascertain sites for the lighthouses on the James, A. M. Pennock, U.S. Navy, used the Roberdeau Map of 1819 and the survey by Major Bache in 1853. He also made thousands of soundings and tidal observations, noting the position of the channel and the shoals. He confirmed that the lighthouses would be isolated from land, with the channel running between the lighthouse sites and the shore. 23

Kennon Catastrophe Seven years after Captain Beverley Kennon had made his recommendations, he lost his life in a catastrophic accident on board the U.S.S. Princeton when a cannon exploded during a demonstration. 22 The Baltimore Sun Friday, March 1, 1844 Instantaneous Death, by the Bursting of one of the large Guns on board the United States ship Princeton, of Secretary Upshur, Secretary Gilmer, Commodore Kennon and Virgil Maxcy Esq. In the whole course of our lives it has never fallen to our lot to announce to our readers a more shocking calamity – shocking in all its circumstances and [From the National Intelligencer of yesterday.] Most Awful And Most Lamentable Catastrophe!

James River Lights Finally, more than 15 years after Captain Beverly Kennon recommended locations for aids to navigation on the James River, the U.S. Lighthouse Board authorized the money to begin work. An act dated September 28, 1850, authorized $3,500 for the preliminary work of soundings and design for four beacons on the James: White Shoal, Glover’s Bluff Shoal, Point of Shoals, and Deep Water Shoals. 24 All three screwpile lighthouses—White Shoal, Point of Shoals, and Deep Water Shoals—and the light at Jordan Point first exhibited their lights on February 6, 1855. In 1859, Craney Island Light, another square lighthouse built near the confluence of the James and Elizabeth Rivers, exhibited its light for the first time. In just a few years, Craney Island Light would be center stage for the battles about to explode.

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