Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Lightships Burned Report: Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances, the Year Ending June 30, 1861 Thornton A. Jenkins: Secretary Light-house Board. Hon. S.P. Cruse Secretary of the Themry [sic] Between the 19 th and 24 th April, 1861, two light-vessels in the Potomac were wantonly burned, and four in the Chesapeake between the mouth of the Potomac and Hampton Roads were removed and their apparatus carried off or destroyed. Two of these light vessels were subsequently recaptured but they had been stripped of everything that could be removed. The lights were extinguished without notice to mariners, and in many, if not all, cases the Fresnel illuminating apparatus was destroyed or removed. The extinguishment of light from light-houses, removal of light-vessels, and the destruction or removal of all other aids to navigation existing from the northern boundary of Virginia to the Rio Grande was complete by April 24 th . 39 According to the Richmond Times Dispatch , May 21, 1861, “Secessionists removed the Smith Point Lightship and hid it in Mill Creek off the Great Wicomico River. The propeller (propeller driven steamship) William Woodward later retrieved the lightship.” Escaping Slaves Used Lighthouses as Stepping Stones to Fort Monroe 40 On July 15, 1861, Commander O. S. Glisson, U.S. Navy, filed the following report about escaped slaves removed from the Stingray Point Lighthouse.

Nathaniel F. Gray family documents are the only original documents that we have recording an attack on a James River lighthouse.

July 15, 1861 Slaves Rescued from Stingray Point Light-House

U.S.S. MOUNT VERNON Rappahannock [River] July 15, 1861

White Shoal Light Station on the James River – Overcome by Armed Men There are very few records remaining from lightkeepers on the James River during the first few months of the war. However, documents from the family of Nathaniel F. Gray, “Tobe,” formerly of the Gray family homeplace, Indian Point Farms in Nansemond County (now Suffolk), Virginia, help recall a story of the White Shoal Light coming under attack on August 1, 1861. 37 Application for back pay by Nathaniel Gray’s family in 1873 and testimony from W. A. Hines, the station keeper at the time, found in the National Archives, showed that Nathaniel Gray was assistant keeper under W. A. Hines when they were both “forcibly taken from his station by armed men and by them prevented from longer exhibiting his light.” 38

SIR: I have to report that this morning at daylight we observed a boat adrift near Stingray light-house, and soon after discovered a man in the light-house. We manned a boat, armed her, and sent her with an officer to pick up the boat and to ascertain who was in the light-house. At 8:30 the boat returned, bringing with her six negroes who had deserted from the shore during the night and taken shelter in the light-house, casting their boat adrift to avoid detection.

They appear to be very much frightened and state that the people on shore are about arming the negroes, with the intention of placing them in the front of the

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