Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Hudgins served 35 years in the Lighthouse Service at the York Spit, Smith Point, Windmill Point, Stingray Point, Craney Island, Newport News Middle Ground, Pig Point, and Wolf Trap Lighthouses. He was at Smith Point when the Chesapeake Bay froze. A large mass of floating ice knocked the lighthouse off its foundation and swept it six miles downstream with Hudgins aboard. He was proud of having once stayed awake for a week at Windmill Point, winding the bell like a clock every half hour to keep it ringing. In 1905, he was in the York Spit Lighthouse when he saw two men clinging to an overturned bugeye, half a mile off in the bay. He rescued the two exhausted men and put them ashore in nearby Mathews. He also is credited with saving another nine lives over his career. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage on a Sunday afternoon when he was 97. His obituary says that his nine surviving children were at his bedside when he died. Among them was his daughter, Gertrude, named after his wife. According to his great granddaughter, Cindy Hudgins Brizzolara, Gertrude was severely burned in a household accident in 1906 when she was a toddler. Her injuries were so critical that the attending doctor sent a telegram to Hudgins at his duty station on the Nansemond River Lighthouse. The message was terse: “Your daughter burned yesterday – no chance of recovery.” The anguish Hudgins must have felt—away from home with no way to leave his station in time to get to Mathews to see his dying child. Fortunately, the diagnosis was wrong and Gertrude lived to marry and have children of her own. She died in 1989 and was laid to rest just a few miles from where the doctor sent the cable to Hudgins. The Lighthouse Service was among the first government agencies to open nonclerical jobs to women, allowing females to fill lightkeeper positons. Usually, these women were the spouse or widow of an assistant keeper or head keeper, and assumed the husband’s duties when he died. Upwards of 125 women served as lightkeepers in the 1800s and early 1900s. Ella Edwards, who might have been from Nansemond County, Virginia, served as keeper of the Nansemond River Lighthouse from 1903 to 1906. Ella was 25 when she married the 40-ish keeper Eugene Edwards, from the Fox Hill section of Hampton, in 1894. When the assistant keeper, Solomon Forbes, brought charges against Eugene Edwards and requested a transfer, Edwards requested that Ella become his assistant. Records indicate that Eugene Edwards earned $575 annually and Ella, $435, the same salary as her male predecessor, Solomon Forbes.

Eugene Edwards, who was born on Christmas Day, died in 1912 at the age of 60 after surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was buried in Fox Hill.

Other married couples in the Lighthouse Service included Solomon Mister and Mrs. V. A. Mister, who were at Craney Island in 1869, and William F. Hatsel and Mrs. R. Hatsel at Point of Shoals in 1871. In addition, the Stingray Point Lighthouse records list, as an assistant lightkeeper, a Mrs. Columbia F. Cole from 1867 to 1869, while a Samuel Cole was the head lightkeeper, and a Mrs. Columbia F. Cole Crittenden from 1869 to 1872. 4 U.S. Treasury Department payroll documents list Pheby and Elisha Richards as keepers of the Craney Island Light in 1877 and 1879. The couple, who, in their 50s, were a bit older than most lightkeepers, lived aboard the lighthouse from 1873 to 1879. They bought land in Virginia Beach, apparently looking forward to retirement there. Those plans were scuttled, however, when Elisha suddenly died—of a probable stroke—in July 1879. The National Archives include the following letter from Pheby Richards.

Craney Island LH July 22nd 1879 Honorable Wm Sherman

Secretary of the Navy

Sir: I have been assistant keeper at this station for nearly six years my husband Elisha Richards being principal. But it has now pleased God to remove him by the hand of death. I still wish to retain my position here and I have a son (W.B. Wilder by name) 26 years old who is quite capable and with your permission will come to my assistance and fill the place now vacant. There are many applications already in & I come to you to say that if I can retain my position here it will be of great service to me and to ask you to favor me in this matter. This station is near Norfolk and not far from shore and for many years past (even before the war) one of the keepers has been a female. The next station to this also has a lady assistant.

Very respectfully your obedient servant,

P.D. Richards

The “next station” Pheby mentions was likely Lambert’s Point Lighthouse, staffed by William L. Clegg and Mrs. J. V. Clegg.

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