Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Roanoke River Light – 1867 Roanoke River Light once stood in the Albemarle Sound at the mouth of the Roanoke River. In 1835, a lightship designated MM was stationed at that location. Interestingly, the ship shows red, blue, and green lenses. Early in the Civil War, Confederate forces captured the MM , took it up the Roanoke River, and scuttled it. A square screwpile lighthouse, erected in 1866 as one of five screwpiles built in North Carolina at that time, lasted until it burned in March 1885. Since a navigational light was considered critical at that site, a screwpile cottage already built for the Croatan Lighthouse was redirected to the Roanoke River and first shone its fourth-order light five months after the fire. Two years later, yet another new screwpile lighthouse rose at the same site, this one with an unusual, two-story design and a lantern tower at the corner, rather than the center, of the roof. The lighthouse served until its deactivation in 1941. Later moved to Edenton, North Carolina, the lighthouse became a private home. In May 2007, the Town of Edenton bought the then dilapidated structure and began a year-long project to restore the lighthouse as the centerpiece of the town’s waterfront where it now stands. Laurel Point Lighthouse – 1880 Laurel Point Lighthouse, built in Albemarle Sound in 1880, was lighted with a fourth order Fresnel lens that gave off a white flash every 30 seconds. Veteran lighthouse keeper Benjamin Cox was the keeper here for an amazing 26 years. Interestingly, this small station was important enough to have an assistant keeper as well. In addition to being a lighthouse keeper, Benjamin Cox also owned a general store and a house on the mainland where he spent much of his time. However, one winter when the food supply ran dangerously low at the lighthouse, he walked across the frozen sound in a blinding blizzard from the lighthouse to the mainland. The walk took him one full day, one full night, and a part of the next day. He retired in 1926 after 35 years of lighthouse service. In the 1950s, the lighthouse was discontinued and demolished. Surprisingly, for a lighthouse that stood until the 1950s, very few photographs of the lighthouse seem to exist. 24 The next year, however, moving ice floes snapped two of the pilings and the new cottage dropped into the water.

Roanoke River Lighthouse. Photograph by Larry Saint

Laurel Point Lighthouse

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