Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Today, the Thimble Shoal Light sits at the entrance to Hampton Roads. The caisson cast-iron and concrete lighthouse has a fourth-order Fresnel lens that was automated in 1964. Ice was a major screwpile nemesis, especially when the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries froze over in deep winter. Giant ice floes threatened the screwpile supports that suddenly seemed very fragile in the face of constant assault by the frozen shards. When the supports gave way, the cottages generally toppled over into the water, but in some cases, they started to move downstream with the ice floes. That was the case on January 8, 1877, when ice snatched the Hooper Strait Lighthouse from its screwpile base. Hooper Strait Lighthouse was then located in Dorchester County, Maryland, at the entrance to Tangier Sound. Lighthouse Keeper John S. Cornwell and his assistant, Alexander S. Conway, were aboard the 10-year-old square lighthouse when the cottage parted company with its screwpile base and began to float among the ice floes. The men managed to escape, pulling a lifeboat several miles toward shore across the unstable ice. It was a 24-hour trek, with exhaustion and frostbite adding to their ordeal. Finally rescued, the men sheltered on a nearby island but had no way to communicate beyond the island. They remained stranded for two weeks before they could contact the authorities and their families.

Remarkably, when the new Hooper Strait Lighthouse opened two years later, Cornwell was back aboard at his post. Conway, however, disappeared from the Lighthouse Service with no record of his fate. In 1893, Keeper John William Thomas was aboard Wolf Trap Lighthouse, a 23-year-old screwpile lighthouse with wooden pilings sleeved in cast iron. After watching ice build for several days, he knew the lighthouse was in jeopardy. While he might have been wondering if his $440 annual salary was worth the hazards, Thomas managed to escape shortly before the lighthouse left its foundation and floated several miles south, with only its roof and light tower above water.

In the distance, Thomas saw smoke from a steamer and walked across the ice to the tug, which was trapped in the ice as well. Reportedly, he rode the boat up into the bay and then attempted to cross the ice again, this time toward land. The ice was unstable, however, and Thomas fell through, almost drowning, before he reached the safety of the shore. Thomas likely was also aware of the Wolf Trap Lighthouse’s reputation for being haunted by at least one playful spirit. A decade earlier, Lightkeeper John L. Burroughs saw his lighthouse assistant staff turn over frequently. The Baltimore Sun reported that the sixth keeper resigned at the end of 1882 because of “ghostly visitations” by a seemingly happy apparition that whistled and danced on command. 8 Tom Stevenson, amateur historian, golf pro, and builder of the 2004 replica of the Old Plantation Flats Lighthouse in Cape Charles, Virginia, recalled stories about the original lighthouse. Leonard F. Godwin had served as the light’s first keeper, with Labian T. Lewis as the assistant keeper. The men earned $540 and $420 a year respectively when the light opened in 1886. The living quarters were cramped, however, and the turnover rate was rapid in the lighthouse. In its first 16 years, the light had 13 head keepers and 34 assistant keepers.

Wolf Trap Lighhouse ghost?

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