Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Wade Point Lighthouse – 1855 From 1826 to 1855, a lightship marked this site until the Wade Point Lighthouse was built at Wade Point Shoal, Albemarle Sound, at the entrance to the Pasquotank River. The first lighthouse structure, heavily damaged in the Civil War, was restored in 1886 and stood until a similar structure built right next to the old lighthouse replaced it in 1899. A December 31, 1917, ice storm snapped the lighthouse’s iron pilings, but when the ice melted, the lighthouse still stood, doing a sort of balancing act on the bent, snapped, and cracked base of the pilings. The pilings, after being welded back together, supported the lighthouse as it continued to serve until it was decommissioned in the early 1950s. In 1955, the government sold Wade Point Lighthouse to Elijah Tate, a salvager who attempted to move the lighthouse to shore. However, during the process, the lighthouse slipped off its perch as it was being transferred onto a barge, fell apart, and sank. Locals recalled finding pieces of the old light washed up on shore.

Roanoke Marshes Light

Roanoke Marshes Light – 1831 The first Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse, built in 1831, stood on land near the southern entrance to Croatan Sound between Wanchese and the mainland until it was abandoned in 1839. In 1858, a wooden, cottage-style screwpile lighthouse was built in the narrow channel connecting Pamlico and Croatan Sounds. In 1877, a smaller, square screwpile lighthouse structure replaced the old screwpile at a site approximately 100 yards south-southwest. Veteran lighthouse keeper Unaka Benjamin Jennette, noted for his years of service at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, served the last four years of his lighthouse service at Roanoke Marshes, retiring in 1943. By the 1950s, the lighthouse was obsolete. Elijah Tate bought the structure as salvage and planned to move it ashore. In 1955, as Tate floated the lighthouse on a barge, rough seas came up and the structure slipped off the barge and sank. In September of 2004, the Town of Manteo, North Carolina, dedicated a replica of the lighthouse on the town’s waterfront.

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