Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

A 1933 storm damaged the lighthouse, but it stood working until an automated flashing beacon replaced the then-dismantled structure in 1960. A flashing beacon on a single pile now marks York Spit. Tue Marshes Lighthouse (Originally Too’s Marshes) – 1875 The Tue Marshes screwpile light, built on the Goodwin Islands, marked the entrance of the York River. It was a square screwpile lighthouse, and its original lens was a sixth-order Fresnel fixed white with a red sector. Its distinctive feature was the gingerbread detail on the eves of the roof. Pages Rock Lighthouse – 1893 Pages Rock Lighthouse, located five miles north of Yorktown on the York River off Blundering Point, was a hexagonal, cottage-style screwpile structure. The lighthouse, assembled at the Lazaretto Depot in Maryland, used a fourth-order Fresnel lens. After the lighthouse structure was removed, an automated, steel skeletal tower replaced the lighthouse in 1967. Bells Rock Light – 1881 The lighthouse intended for Bells Rock on the York River, two miles downstream from West Point, Virginia, was another hexagonal lighthouse assembled by the Lazaretto Lighthouse Depot in Maryland in 1880. However, when the Thimble Shoal Lighthouse burned down, that newly built structure went to Thimble Shoal as a replacement. The Depot constructed a second light for Bells Rock.

Tue Marshes Light

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