Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

William Gunter, one of the few African Americans to serve as a lightkeeper, previously had been assistant keeper at the Cherrystone Bar Light in 1891. In January 1893, he was the head keeper at Old Plantation Flats when an ice floe struck the lighthouse, knocking it somewhat askew on its pilings and sending the Fresnel lens crashing to the floor. The concerned Gunter sent a telegram to the district inspector, saying, “Last night, twenty minutes after one, the light fell from the stand and broke, the tanks have started off. I fastened them best I could. House near wrecked, what shall I do?” Granted permission to leave, Gunter went home. The light remained dark for two weeks until a light tender brought a spare fifth-order lens. When the inspector checked the lighthouse, he discovered that the structure, which had righted itself since the incident, actually suffered only minimal damage. He asked for Gunter’s resignation, saying that while Gunter may have been justified in leaving the lighthouse, his refusal to return warranted his dismissal. He also terminated the assistant keeper for failing to find a substitute when he came down with pneumonia just prior to the storm. Ironically, two years later, Keeper John Thomas, who had narrowly survived the loss of Wolf Trap Lighthouse in 1893, waited too long to leave the Old Plantation Flats Lighthouse. When the bay froze over, preventing his escape, he ran out of food and almost starved during the five days before help—and food—arrived. Stevenson also recalled an undocumented story about an anonymous lightkeeper who faced peril of a different nature. The keeper enjoyed visits from his girlfriend, who often rowed out to the lighthouse to spend time with him. One day when the keeper’s wife surprised him by also rowing out to visit, he realized there were limited places in which to hide the girlfriend. Desperate, he stashed her in the water cistern, where she hid until the wife rowed back home. Charles Edwin Respess had been a lighthouse keeper for about 30 years when he froze to death or drowned near Gwynn’s Island on March 5, 1915. He had served as a keeper at numerous stations, from a lightship at Cape Hatteras to Old Plantation Flats (1894) and many stations in between until his request to be closer to home brought him to the job of keeper of the Windmill Point screwpile lighthouse at the mouth of the Rappahannock River. Three separate lightships had been stationed there from 1834 to 1869 before a hexagonal screwpile lighthouse first lit its fifth-order lens. Riprap protected the base of the pilings from ice floes. Respess, born in 1862, married a woman, Annie Lovie Grimstead, from Mathews, Virginia. The couple settled on Gwynn’s Island, An electronic beacon replaced the Old Plantation Flats screwpile in 1962.

where they raised their two daughters.

He had apparently been rowing his way home from the lighthouse on a Friday evening in March 1915 when his yawl boat capsized. News accounts at the time reported, “It is the opinion of some that the boat capsized and that Capt. Respess stayed on the bottom until near the shore and then tried to get ashore but was knocked down by the breakers.” According to his wife’s niece, who lived directly across the creek, Respess’s big black dog howled all night long, waiting for his master to come home. The next morning, would-be rescuers found Respess’s body on the beach, 50 feet from

C. E. Respess

his boat that lay bottom up with its mast broken. Searchers found his basket, sailor’s bag, dress coat, overcoat, and water jug within 50 yards of the boat. Windmill Point Lighthouse was severely damaged by ice two years later, repaired, and served until it was automated in 1954. The lighthouse declined over the following years until an automatic beacon on a skeleton tower replaced it in 1965. Fortunately, many of the lightkeepers’ days were routine, filled with numerous housekeeping tasks, such as painting, cleaning the roof, and maintaining the light and the bells or horns.

Elsie Virginia Respess, daughter of C. E Respess

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