Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Larry Saint Karla SMith

John H. Sheally II Phyllis Speidell

Restored Roanoke River screwpile lighthouse, Edenton, North Carolina

Image by Sheally

Nansemo screwpile vintage p Ballard F adjacent Image by Sh

Suffolk River Heritage, Inc. is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to the preservation of the cultural history and heritage of North Suffolk, Virginia. From its earliest residents—Nansemond Indians and colonial settlers—the area evolved into agricultural and watermen’s villages, and in recent years, it has developed into a popular suburban community. Through books and maps, as well as public forums, the foundation strives to share the area’s colorful history.

Suffolk River Heritage, Inc. PO Box 6007 Suffolk, VA 23433 http://suffolk-river-heritage.org

Image by Sheally

Madison Phillips, Honorary Lighthouse Keeper, Roanoke River screwpile lighthouse in Edenton, North Carolina

aint Mith lly II dell

Front cover: The painting of Point of Shoals Lighthouse was done by Will Haddon. He was a well-known Richmond, Virginia, marine artist who lived from 1933 to 1982. Courtesy of Suffolk River Heritage

The lighthouse keeper pictured here is Rufus E. Potter. Nansemond River Lighhouse Photograph by Major Jared A. Smith, May 1, 1885 Courtesy of the National Archives

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J. Robert Burnell

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Screwpiles The Forgotten Lighthouses

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John Robert Edwards, who spent 35 years as the lightkeeper at Deep Water Shoals, Point of Shoals, and White Shoal screwpile lighthouses.

Copyright © 2018 by Suffolk River Heritage, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review. For information, please write:

The Donning Company Publishers 731 South Brunswick Street Brookfield, MO 64628

Lex Cavanah, General Manager Nathan Stufflebean, Production Supervisor Philip Briscoe, Editor Chad Casey, Graphic Designer Katie Gardner, Marketing and Project Coordinator

Dennis Walton, Project Director

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Saint, Larry, author. | Smith, Karla, 1947- author. | Sheally, John H., II, author. | Speidell, Phyllis E., author. Title: Screwpiles : the forgotten lighthouses / Larry Saint, Karla Smith, John H. Sheally II, Phyllis Speidell. Other titles: Forgotten lighthouses Description: Brookfield, MO : Donning Company Publishers, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018005990 | ISBN 9781681841670 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Lighthouses--South Atlantic States. | Lighthouses--Virginia. | Lighthouses--North Carolina. | Lighthouses--Maryland. Classification: LCC VK1024.S52 S35 2018 | DDC 387.1/550975--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018005990 Printed in the United States of America at Walsworth

T able of C ontents

P reface

What is a screwpile? Screwpiles—the lesser-known, cottage variety of lighthouses—valiantly served mariners, keeping them safe in their travels along our coastal rivers and bays for a century, from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. Although not as celebrated—or romanticized—as the tall, masonry tower lighthouses perched on rocky cliffs overlooking the sea, screwpile lighthouses had a charm—and a fascination—all their own. Screwpile lighthouses were square, hexagonal, or even octagonal cottages mounted on platforms in coastal rivers and bays. The platforms rested firmly on wood, ironclad wood, or iron pilings augured like a screw and driven deep into the river and bay beds. Sitting solidly on their spindly looking foundations, screwpile lighthouses dotted the bays and rivers leading to the coast. The screwpiles’ low cost and ability to anchor in river and bay bottoms contributed to their popularity in numerous settings, including tidal Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, during the 1800s and early 1900s. Equipped with a light beacon and a fog bell, they were navigational aids that saved countless boats and mariners from a bad end on shoals and shallows. The cottages, however, were also home to a rugged breed of men—and women—who devoted their lives to tending the light and, occasionally, risked their lives to save mariners in distress. The screwpiles and their stories were immediately intriguing to us—us being an educator/foundation chairman, a photographer, a writer, and a financial services representative whose penchant for model building inspired this book. Larry Saint’s intricately detailed model of the Nansemond River screwpile lighthouse was the catalyst that encouraged the four of us to learn more about these little-known beacons. The more we learned about the screwpile lighthouses and those who staffed them, the more we knew it was time to share it all by combining our talents in Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses . We were fortunate to have found and interviewed descendants of lightkeepers as well as a single surviving lightkeeper. Their stories bring color and life to the historic accounts we’ve uncovered in a wide variety of places. As in much historic research, the facts are shaded by the perception of those who experienced the happenings, making the story of the screwpiles that much more interesting. Enjoy the history, technology, legends, and lore associated with the lighthouses. These are the screwpiles we’ve grown to know and love—and we hope you do, too!

Nansemond River Light 1878–1935 The Nansemond River Light was a hexagonal river lighthouse built in 1878 to guide river traffic into the Nansemond River towards Suffolk, Virginia. It was located at the confluence of the James and Nansemond Rivers south of the present-day Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel. It was replaced in 1935 with a steel tower and automated light built on the old screwpile foundation.

Larry Saint, researcher, model builder, and writer Karla Smith, educator, researcher, artist, and writer John H. Sheally II, photographer, editor Phyllis Speidell, writer, editor

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Replica of Hooper Strait screwpile lighthouse at Smithfield Station on the Pagan River

Image by Sheally

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A cknowledgements Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses is a unique blend of archival research and cultural journalism that tells the story of an almost forgotten era of coastal history. In addition to “The Screwpile Team” of Larry Saint, Karla Smith, John H. Sheally II, and Phyllis Speidell, scores of other people have shared their time, memories, expertise, and financial backing to see this book become a reality. We appreciate all their contributions and applaud their enthusiasm in wanting this story told. Our Sponsors Carolyn & Dick Barry Crofton Industries Jean Hodges Ron & Tina Pack Jane & Dwight Schaubach Smithfield Station Suffolk River Heritage, Inc. Jim & Elizabeth Turner Our Supporters Nancy Saint (Mrs. Larry Saint), Smithfield, Virginia, for her patient support, from the building of the Nansemond River Lighthouse model through the many hours of meetings, research, and writing. J. Robert Burnell, artist, Portsmouth, Virginia, for his support and his kind permission to include his art in the book. Harry Franklin, Jr., artist. Candice Clifford, U.S. Lighthouse Society Historian, and researchers at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Dorothy Davis, a reader, an advisor, and moral support from the inception of the project. Laura Gladden, Hampton Roads Giclée, who formatted the map and converted drawings and paintings into usable digital images. Suffolk River Heritage, Inc.

Our Storytellers Rick Andrews, Bayside Joinery, Mathews, Virginia John W. Ballard III, Gladstone, Virginia Becky Foster Barnhardt, Head of History & Genealogy, Mathews Memorial Library, Mathews, Virginia

Geneva Brooks Brandal, Phoebus, Virginia Cindy Hudgins Brizzolara, Honolulu, Hawaii Anne Jennings, Camden, North Carolina Gene Cooke, Richmond/Virginia Beach, Virginia

Sarah Downing, Archivist, Western Region, State Archives of North Carolina Thomas D. Edwards, Director of Gwynn’s Island Museum, Gwynn’s Island, Virginia

Willard and Thelma Forbes, Portsmouth, Virginia Richard “Dickie” Foster, Virginia Beach, Virginia Harry Franklin, Jr., Lansdale, Pennsylvania Megan Landry Gardner, Portsmouth, Virginia Margaret Gerard, Virginia Beach, Virginia Tim Harrison, Editor, Lighthouse Digest Gwynn Henderson, Mathews, Virginia James O. “Ollie” Hudgins, Deltaville, Virginia Norton Hurd, Deltaville, Virginia Anne Jennings, Camden, North Carolina

Alex and Sandra Leary, Shiloh, North Carolina Buddy Martin family, Chesapeake, Virginia Nancy Nicholls, Edenton-Chowan County Tourism Development Authority Ron and Tina Pack, Smithfield, Virginia Madison Phillips, Edenton, North Carolina Commander William “Bill” C. Remick (RET), Norfolk, Virginia Anne Rowe, Edenton, North Carolina Harry Thomas “Tom” Serres, Las Vegas, Nevada

Nancy Skinner, Virginia Beach, Virginia Tom Stevenson, Virginia Beach, Virginia Jim Yandle, Chesapeake, Virginia

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Hooper Strait restored screwpile lighthouse

Image by Sheally

Other Resources that Helped Tell the Story Camden County Heritage Museum, Camden, North Carolina Mathews Memorial Library, Mathews, Virginia The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum The Edenton Historical Commission Lighthouse Digest The Museum of the Albemarle

The Outer Banks History Center The Isle of Wight Museum The Mariners’ Museum The members of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, Friends of the Lighthouses, and Historic Ships, who were all helpful in sharing images and stories from their collections.

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I ntroduction For travelers of the mid-1800s to the earlier 1900s, steamboats were the way to go. Hundreds of ships plied the Chesapeake Bay as well as the rivers and sounds leading to it. Not only did the boats offer convenient and pleasurably scenic trips, but their fares were reasonable and the schedules, reliable. You could board the Virginia , the Alabama , or any of the other steamers of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company in Baltimore in the afternoon, travel overnight, and arrive in Norfolk the next day, refreshed and well fed. Known as the Old Bay Line, the packet company was renowned for its service. Walter Lord, who recounted the last hours of the ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic in his bestseller A Night to Remember , claimed that the Old Bay Line’s unique blend of Northern mechanical proficiency and punctuality with Southern gentility and grace earned the line its enviable reputation. Lord may have had an insider’s view since he was also the grandson of R. C. Hoffman, the line’s president in the 1890s. Once in Norfolk, passengers could continue on to any of the North Carolina coastal towns or connect to ships destined anywhere in the world, all with an ease and comfort possible only with safe navigation. Without reliable navigation, the steamship era of travel could never have flourished. Steamers could have traveled only during daylight. Their schedules would have been unreliable and more ships would have suffered accidents, groundings, or even loss. Screwpile lighthouses, the sometime stepchildren of pop lighthouse culture, were the saviors of steamboat travel. The cottage lighthouses were largely responsible for the navigational safety of the steamships and other vessels traveling the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Imagine a late June afternoon in 1879. We leave the dock in Norfolk, bound up the James River for Richmond aboard the steamer Mystic. We make our way to the weather deck to enjoy the balmy afternoon. As the light dims, we clear Craney Island Light and peer through the dusk to where the Nansemond River flows into the James River. Finally, we spot the Nansemond River Lighthouse standing high on its pilings just off Pig Point. The new, hexagonal screwpile lighthouse, commissioned only the year before, includes parts recycled from the old North Carolina Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse replaced just two years earlier. As the Mystic steams west, we watch the keeper in the lighthouse tower. As he works on the lamp, the beacon flares alive, radiating its distinctive red color.

The mouth of the James River at Hampton Roads spans a wide expanse of water, creating a beautiful deepwater harbor. The river, just past Newport News Point, is about five miles wide and holds that width upstream to Burwells Bay. The river breadth, however, is misleading. Pilots know that you have to mind the channel or you will run aground on one of the many shoals. From Burwells Bay, the James winds its way to Richmond, narrowing to a channel barely wide enough for ship traffic. We will pass three other screwpile lighthouses that mark vital points of navigation on the trip to Richmond, each with its own story and each vital to the steamer’s safe navigation. We keep White Shoal Lighthouse on our right as we near the mouth of the Pagan River and then head for the next light upriver. We pass close by the Point of Shoals Lighthouse in Burwells Bay. The cottage doors and windows stand open, seemingly inviting us to stop in for a visit, and we can see the potbelly stove, comfortable chairs, and shelves stacked with books. The lighthouse’s lantern shoves its light out into the dark night, illuminating the shoreline and much of the river as we steam by. Then our captain makes a hard-right turn, heading for his next point, the light at Deep Water Shoals. Without these radiant points of light, the captain would have to anchor at dusk. The screwpile lighthouses, an innovation in lighthouse design, were built to safeguard the nineteenth century’s increasing commercial traffic on rivers and bays. Who decided where the lighthouses should be located? How did they decide on a location? Secure the land? Obtain the funding? Who issued the specifications and contracts and placed the light stations into service? Who were the lightkeepers and how were they selected? What was their life like aboard a screwpile lighthouse? Finally, why did the all screwpile lighthouses disappear? To find answers, we dug into archives and collected documents, letters, news stories, and official records. We talked with a former lightkeeper and the descendants of other lightkeepers. The research materials mounted and we realized we had more information than we could fit into this book. From that realization, our project evolved to include,

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J. Robert Burnell

in addition to a book, a plan for a digital archive of what we found—a searchable site where anyone interested could follow the stories of the screwpiles. The screwpile lighthouses were invaluable navigational aids during a remarkable 100 year period in our nation’s history. Many of the lighthouses came alive in 1855, and by the mid-1950s nearly all cottage lighthouses were razed or abandoned. Most were replaced with automated light towers except Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse near

Annapolis, Maryland. During that century, the United States endured three major wars, steamboats became obsolete, commerce expanded dramatically, air, highway, and rail travel became routine, and technological advances came along more rapidly than the lightkeepers of old could have imagined.

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Above: Early John White map of the North Carolina sounds and Chesapeake Bay. Courtesy of the National Park Service Top left: Diego Gutierre map portion, Bahia de Santa Maria Right: Portion of John Smith map

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CHAPTER ONE HISTORY OF THE SCREWPILE LIGHTHOUSES

Seamarks – A seamark is an aid to navigation and can be buoys and beacons in the water or on land.

On moonless or overcast nights, with no guidance from the stars or moon, a ship’s captain might hear waves crashing on shore but be in the dark, literally, as to how far he was from landfall or from dangerous shoals. Locating and safely entering a harbor without lighted beacons was a challenging and often treacherous maneuver. Fires on raised platforms were probably the earliest signals marking the entrances to ancient trading ports. As trade expanded, increasing numbers of ships and mariners required help navigating through dangerous reefs and avoiding submerged hazards. Their need for more visible warnings prompted the development of taller structures and lighthouses. 1

Maritime navigation evolved over thousands of years as ancient seafarers from Europe, Asia, and the Polynesian Islands of the Pacific ventured out onto the seas and oceans. Skilled pilots and captains honed their knowledge and passed it down along with their tools of navigation from generation to generation.

Pharos, the Egyptian lighthouse of Alexandria built by the Greeks in the third century B.C., was one of the earliest documented beacons on the Mediterranean Sea. After three damaging earthquakes beginning in 956 A.D., Pharos finally collapsed in 1323. From the first century A.D., when the Romans controlled Europe’s coasts, they built and maintained a system of lights to guide mariners safely into ports. One of Rome’s oldest working lighthouses, La Coruña, built in the second century A.D., still shines on the coast of Spain. 2

Maplin Sands Lighthouse, the first English screwpile lighthouse. It was built by Alexander Mitchell in 1838.

Pharos, the Egyptian lighthouse at Alexandria, third century B.C.

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Logs, Maps, and Charts Ship pilots kept meticulously detailed logs, recording descriptions of their trading routes and journeys. The oldest known navigational documents were the peripli of the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. These written sailing directions described, in geographic order, the ports and coastal landmarks that a seafarer could expect to encounter along a given shore. In 1295, the Italians published a harbor-finding manual, or portolano , in Genoa. That guide, Lo Compasso de Navigare , gave written sailing directions for the whole Mediterranean Sea and recorded the earliest mention of a buoy marking the approach to Seville in the Guadalquivir River in Spain. In 1323, the Dutch placed floating aids marking the Maas River near Rotterdam. 3 After Christopher Columbus’s 1492 discovery of a New World in the Western Hemisphere, Spanish ship pilots and captains relied on closely guarded maps and charts that showed the way to safer passage. Orientation of many early maps showed the west at the top of the map and the north to the right, mirroring the view of the coastline as seen from the deck of a ship. Maps from expeditions into North Carolina by English explorers and scientists in 1586 followed that same orientation.

Captain John Smith's shallop, 1608–1609. Art by Karla Smith

The location of the Chesapeake Bay, thought to be the gateway to a possible passage to the Pacific Ocean as well as a sea road to gold and other riches, appeared early on several primitive maps by the French, the Spanish, and the Portuguese. A 1562 map of America by Diego Gutierrez labeled the Chesapeake Bay as Bahia de Santa Maria. 4 By 1584 a new, revolutionary type of pilot book with modern nautical charts was invented by Dutchman Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer. Spieghel der Zeevaerdt ( The Mirror of the Sea ) was revolutionary, complete with depths, views of the coast as seen from offshore, aids to navigators, and significant features as seen from sea. 5 After the English gained control of the

The Trinity House flag

Chesapeake Bay and its vast river system at the beginning of the seventeenth century, they found the bay’s waters difficult to navigate. Native American tribes living along the bay and its tributaries had, for hundreds of years, traveled and fished in dugout canoes that rarely had a draft of over 12 inches. For them, shallow water was not a navigational obstacle. The draft of European ships, however, averaged 12 to 20 feet, making navigation through shallow water and shoals challenging. Captain John Smith arrived in the Chesapeake Bay in the spring of 1607 and noted oyster reefs piled up so high they broke the surface of the water and presented a navigational hazard. Smith was the first to map over 3,000 miles of the bay, and although his map included descriptions of shorelines, rivers, and inhabitants, he did

“Indians Fishing” by John White. Courtesy of the British Museum

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not intend it for navigation. His later, 1612 map of the Chesapeake Bay charted the bay and rivers as approached from the sea, with the north shown to the right.

During the first two centuries of colonial settlement and growth, major seaports along the Atlantic coasts were fairly close to the open ocean with primitive beacons marking harbor and port entrances. Ship captains and pilots recorded depths and shallows as well as bottom sediments as they traveled into the rivers and harbors. Walter Hoxton’s map of the Chesapeake Bay, drawn in 1735, was one of the first to include soundings and shoals of the bay. Hoxton was a British tobacco ship captain who made 23 voyages into Maryland. His map and written sailing instructions were vital navigation tools. Part of the sailing directions from Love Point into the Patapsco River were, “When abreast of the rocks then edge southward.” 6 Anthony Smith, a ship’s pilot out of St. Mary’s on the Potomac, contributed to A New and Accurate Chart of the Bay of the Chesapeake (published in 1776), which included shoals, channels, islands, entrances, soundings, and sailing-mark details and augmented Hoxton’s soundings and bottom conditions. 7 These early maps and charts fell under the auspices of Trinity House, the English authority of maritime law, navigation, and shipping that King Henry VIII had chartered in 1514. Trinity House’s prime concerns were the safety of shipping and the well-being of seafarers. It created Admiralty Charts (maps) with written directions to ports in all of its colonies, established lighthouses, and maintained aids to navigation. 8 Not quite three centuries later, in 1796, Edmund M. Blunt published The American Coast Pilot , which included sailing directions and tide tables, as well as tables of latitude and longitudes of principal harbors and navigational landmarks. The guide also included information on maritime law, tariff regulations, and customhouse procedures. Almost immediately, The American Coast Pilot was one of the most popular pilot guides with both American and foreign seamen and preferred over the Admiralty Charts of the Trinity House. The Blunt family would later work with the U.S. Coast Survey, who provided hydrographic survey information for incorporation into the charts and The American Coast Pilot . 9 Publishers in London in 1882 were still printing sailing directions, however, for principal ports on the East Coast of the United States of America. Details included directions for Chesapeake Bay and all of its tributaries. 10

Dutch William Blaeu version of the John Smith map, 1618/1662. The Library of Virginia

Aids to Navigation Import taxes collected by customhouse officials in each colony provided funds for the local contractors who maintained the scarce aids to navigation that existed. Records from the customhouse along the Pagan River detail one example: “Up the hill, a custom house built in the 1780s still stands overlooking the James River. Two shillings per hog head was the duty paid in Colonial times on the two- and three-masted schooners that docked and stocked here.” Local customs officials hired private contractors to build and maintain early buoys that were merely wooden casks and barrels. Later, small, riveted, rectangular topped cans and cone-topped nuns replaced the wooden buoys. Spar buoys were primarily cedar or juniper logs anchored by lengths of chain secured to stones. Private contractors in small schooners struggled to manage buoys close to shoals. The schooners were not easily maneuverable and could not hold a triangulated position as easily as later steam-powered vessels.

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Traditional masonry tower lighthouses dotted New England’s rocky coastline, lighting the way for the great clippers and schooners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Deep harbors and port towns were just a short distance inside the lights. However, farther south, along the Atlantic Coast, the coastal plain becomes wider. Port towns grew on shallower rivers and bays at a greater distance from the ocean. Navigating those inland waters required an additional system of lights and beacons marking miles of waterways to major port cities. The Chesapeake Bay – A Navigational Challenge Wind, Tide, and Shoals Ship pilots and captains entering the James River, Chesapeake Bay, and Carolina sounds used time-tested lead-line methods to measure water depths and then record and map shallows and channels. They used outstanding landmarks, such as prominent trees, bluffs, rocks, and houses, to obtain bearings. Because sailing crafts were at the mercy of tides and wind, riverboat captains and pilots also depended on local knowledge to make safe passage. Oyster rocks as well as shifting shoals of sand and mud made travel up and down river an art.

Old Isle of May Lighthouse

Replica of an early English coal brazier

St. Agnes Brazier circa 1680–1809

Images courtesy of Thomas Tag, U.S. Lighthouse Society

Early Colonial Beacon The first recorded light signal in colonial America was at Nantasket (now Hull), Massachusetts, in 1673. The beacon was a small stone tower on Point Allerton, a promontory guarding the south approach to Boston Harbor. The citizens of that community provided funds to furnish “fier-bales of pitch and ocum” to burn in an iron basket on the top of the tower. 11 First Lighthouses Colonial coastal ports adopted the English system of buoyage and lights as early as 1716. The first lighthouse in the Colonies, on Little Brewster Island near the Boston Harbor, first exhibited its light on September 14, 1716. The British continued to erect a system of lighthouses, along with a few beacons and several cask buoys, and those remained the bulk of American navigational aids until the inception of the Lighthouse Service in 1789. 12

Map of the Chesapeake Bay, 1758. Library of Congress

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The tidal James River below the fall line, between Richmond and the mouth of the James at Hampton Roads, was full of obstructions, shoals, dangerous turns, and strong tides and currents. For many years, stakes that pilots and captains placed each spring to mark shoals and channels were the only aids to navigation on the river. The stakes helped the mariners, who combined their skill and local knowledge with the markers to navigate the river during the day. However, they dared not risk night travel. With their independence from England, the responsibility for navigational lights, buoys, and beacons fell to the new government. The U.S. Congress established the U.S. Lighthouse Service in 1789 to become keepers of the lights. Trinity House’s legacy of maintaining aids to navigation continued, and the Lighthouse Service’s projects included the “necessary support, maintenance, and repairs of all light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers erected, placed, or sunk, before the passing of this act at the entrance of or within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States, for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe, shall be defrayed out of the Treasury of the United States.” This Ninth Act of Congress established federal funding for lighthouses in the entire country and transferred the existing twelve lighthouses built by the British from the individual states to the federal government. By 1800, there were 24 lighthouses in the new nation, all along the Atlantic Coast. 13

Boston Light in a photograph from 1884. Constructed in 1716, it was the first lighthouse built in the Thirteen Colonies. National Archives

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Art by Karla Smith

Masonry Tower Lighthouses The very first public works project under the new United States government was the construction of the Cape Henry Lighthouse marking the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay in 1792. Ten years later, Old Point Comfort Light first displayed its light and remains today as an active navigational aid, marking the entrance to the James River and Hampton Roads. Old Point Comfort was the first lighthouse built inside the bay, but more were to follow. New Point Comfort, built in 1805, marked the northern entrance to the York River at Mobjack Bay, and in 1829, Back River Lighthouse rose near the mouth of the York River. Cape Charles, built in 1828, marked the northern approach from the Atlantic into the Chesapeake Bay. The masonry towers marking the entrances to the Chesapeake Bay and its major rivers were important, but as populations settled farther up navigable rivers and sail turned to steam power, inland bays and rivers required their own guiding beacons. Steamships, Shoals, and Surveys Steam power and its application to both railroads and steamboats was a transportation game changer as Richmond connected the Atlantic Coast to the interior via the James River. Ship captains had been sailing up and down the 100 miles of the James River for almost two centuries, and travel time was dependent on tide and wind. The trip could take days. By 1775, farmers were floating tobacco and other farm products from the upper James River to the growing port of Richmond. Return trips to the interior were difficult, and soon a plan developed for a canal.

The Lighthouse Service became a part of the Treasury Department and the secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, became its first administrator. Responsibility for aids to navigation changed hands several times from Treasury to Commissioner of Revenue and back until 1820 when the Fifth Auditor of Treasury, Stephen Pleasanton, took command of the Lighthouse Service until 1851. The Lighthouse Service reorganized as the U.S. Lighthouse Board in 1851 and remained as a quasi military organization until 1910. Congress terminated the Lighthouse Board in 1910 and established the Lighthouse Bureau under the Department of Commerce with George Putnam as chief from 1910 to 1935. Change came again when the U.S. Coast Guard incorporated the Lighthouse Bureau in 1939. 14 Coastal Lighthouses under the United States Jurisdiction The correct positioning of all lighthouses took into consideration the safety of mariners, their ships, passengers, and cargo. Ship pilots and captains played a major role in deciding the optimal place for the lights. In a letter dated December 20, 1797, a group of pilots and ship captains signed a petition to have the Commonwealth of Virginia cede land at Old Point Comfort for the erection of a lighthouse. They opened their petition with, “Sundry merchants, members of pilots and other mariner humbly showeth that the want of a light on Old Point Comfort during dark and boisterous weather in a very eminent degree exposes lives and property of many persons to hazards and destruction.” 15 Funding Internal Improvements for Transportation Needs Various acts for internal improvements passed at both the federal and state legislative levels. The power to improve their own harbors and rivers was clearly reserved to the states, aided by tonnage duties levied and collected by them with the consent of Congress. The state-funded improvements were limited to dredging, clearing channels, and the construction of roads and canals. Federal improvements were the establishment and maintenance of aids to navigation.

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George Washington had surveyed and planned for a canal running from Richmond to the west in 1785. By 1790, seven miles of the James River Company canal paralleled the James from Richmond to Westham, Virginia. By 1840, it was complete from Lynchburg, Virginia, to Richmond, and commerce at the port of Richmond expanded just as steam power was replacing sail. 16 At the same time, trade grew and flourished between ports on the Chesapeake Bay and the West Indies. The Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads, and the James River became even busier thoroughfares for travel, trade, and commerce as steamships connected Norfolk to Baltimore and Richmond. The first steamboats to run on the Chesapeake Bay were out of Baltimore in 1813. The Baltimore Steam Packet Company— nicknamed the Old Bay Line—operated from Baltimore to Philadelphia and, by 1817, was making runs to Norfolk. Steamboats Patrick Henry , Hampton , and Old Dominion were just a few of the dozens of passenger and freight steamboats making their way up and down the James River between Richmond and Norfolk by the 1830s. 17 Steam power doubled and even tripled the speed that sailing vessels could make on inland bays and rivers. Steamboats and even ocean-going steamships could travel between 15 and 22 knots. Between 1813 and 1963, some 300 steamboats ran out of Baltimore, as many as 140 out of Washington and up to 150 out of Norfolk. Early on, groundings were an issue on the bay and its many rivers and creeks. As steamboat traffic increased, so did the need for accurate aids to navigation. 18

Courtesy of The Mariners’ Museum

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Lightships to the Rescue Mariners needed over-the-water, lighted navigational aids, and lightships seemed to be the answer. In 1819, Congress made appropriations for the first lightships, which were wooden schooners anchored to mark dangerous shoals from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay to major river ports. Between 1820 and 1965, 16 lightships marked hazards in the bay, most in Virginia’s waters. Records for the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation list the steamboat Chesapeak e, built in Baltimore in 1813, as the first lightship, or “light vessel.” The Chesapeake , a small wooden schooner, moored off Willoughby Spit in 1820 and later moved to Craney Island. Lightships also anchored near Wolf Trap, York River Spit, Stingray Point, Smith Point on the Potomac, and Thimble Shoal near the mouth of the James. 19 The high cost of building and maintaining lightships, however, prompted a search for a more economical but equally effective navigational aid. That search ended in England, where a new type of light—the over-the-water screwpile lighthouse—was under development.

National Archives RG 26

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Where to Place New Navigational Aids? Surveys of the James River for the purposes of improving navigation began in 1818. Among the earliest maps was one by T. Roberdeau, a major in the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, compiled in 1819. He used the original soundings from a Chesapeake Bay reconnoitering made in 1818. The soundings, all in feet, show a continuous, natural deep channel from Newport News to Hog Island. In April 1853, when Major Hartman Bache of the Corps of Topographical Engineers made his survey, he used the Roberdeau map. Bache’s survey shows the major points of the river: Day’s Point, White Shoal, Deep Water Shoals, Glover’s Bluff, and Point of Shoals. 20

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Captain Beverly Kennon – James River In April 1837, when the Board of Navy Commissioners ordered Captain Beverly Kennon, U.S. Navy, to ascertain whether “the safety of navigation…requires any additional facilities,” Kennon wisely solicited recommendations from James River steamboat captains and river pilots. 21

lighthouse at Day’s Point would allow vessels to pass safely at night. He recommended a light at the end of the spit at Day’s Point, rather than on the shore. Traveling up river, the river widens but the channel narrows, creating difficulty for mariners to confidently navigate without a reference point. The recommendations to Captain Kennon differed on the need for a lighthouse, a lightboat, or a floating beacon, particularly at Day’s Point. James Hicks, Board of Pilots at Hampton, Virginia, suggested: “On the rock lump off Berkeley below Harrison’s bar and from Harrison’s bar to City Point the channel is very narrow and crooked and the soundings very bad and in order that vessels may run up with safety the pilots themselves have to stake the channel regularly every spring as during the winter they are carried away by ice when it breaks up- there should therefore be buoys placed from Harrison’s bar up to city point.” Captain Kennon, referencing the recommendations given to him, summarized his thoughts in his May 9, 1837, letter to the president of the Board of U.S. Navy Commissioners: “From the mouth of the James River to the head of navigation, there is a not a light of any sort, or a buoy laid down…its channel is particularly intricate and the shoals and bars numerous. All vessels of any draught are therefore obliged to anchor at night.” He recommended “the erection of three lights, one at Days Point, one at the Point of Shoals, and the other at Deepwater & Lyons Creek Shoals. With a light at each of these points, the heaviest ships could run at night up to Hog Island, about forty miles and ships of lighter draft might go as high as Harrison’s Bar, about eighty or ninety miles from Hampton Roads.” He went on to say, “But if it be intended to erect one light, and only one, there I would, in that case, recommend its being placed on the Point of Shoals as it is the most dangerous situation on James River.” Why was—and is—that point so dangerous? The river channel follows the shoreline at Burwells Bay. Captain Chapman states in his April 1837 letter, “After passing Days Point, the navigation is difficult and dangerous at night by reason of shoals on both hands, the increased width of the river and the contraction of the channel.” The river channel goes “to an acute point terminating abruptly at the channel which turns suddenly almost at right angles, this point is a hard oyster bed and nearly up and down and dry at low water.” Captain Geo. C. Gary, who had sailed out of the James River from 1815 to 1833 in ships from 300 to 500 tons, agreed with Kennon’s assessment of the need for lighthouses.

William Chapman, captain of the steamboat Patrick Henry, responded in a letter dated April 29, 1837, saying that a

Captain Beverly Kennon

Despite the specific recommendations about putting aids to navigation in place, it would be 18 years before lighthouses were established in the James River.

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Currier and Ives lithograph

concomitants – than that which occurred on board the United States Ship Princeton, yesterday afternoon, whilst under way, in the river Potomac, fourteen or fifteen miles below this city. Coastal Survey, 1852–1853 Fifteen years after Captain Kennon made his report, the U.S. Navy conducted coastal surveys of the Chesapeake Bay from New Point Comfort, northward to Wolf Trap, then across the bay, and farther north to beyond Sandy Point on the Potomac. Survey Map In 1854, when he conducted his own survey to ascertain sites for the lighthouses on the James, A. M. Pennock, U.S. Navy, used the Roberdeau Map of 1819 and the survey by Major Bache in 1853. He also made thousands of soundings and tidal observations, noting the position of the channel and the shoals. He confirmed that the lighthouses would be isolated from land, with the channel running between the lighthouse sites and the shore. 23

Kennon Catastrophe Seven years after Captain Beverley Kennon had made his recommendations, he lost his life in a catastrophic accident on board the U.S.S. Princeton when a cannon exploded during a demonstration. 22 The Baltimore Sun Friday, March 1, 1844 Instantaneous Death, by the Bursting of one of the large Guns on board the United States ship Princeton, of Secretary Upshur, Secretary Gilmer, Commodore Kennon and Virgil Maxcy Esq. In the whole course of our lives it has never fallen to our lot to announce to our readers a more shocking calamity – shocking in all its circumstances and [From the National Intelligencer of yesterday.] Most Awful And Most Lamentable Catastrophe!

James River Lights Finally, more than 15 years after Captain Beverly Kennon recommended locations for aids to navigation on the James River, the U.S. Lighthouse Board authorized the money to begin work. An act dated September 28, 1850, authorized $3,500 for the preliminary work of soundings and design for four beacons on the James: White Shoal, Glover’s Bluff Shoal, Point of Shoals, and Deep Water Shoals. 24 All three screwpile lighthouses—White Shoal, Point of Shoals, and Deep Water Shoals—and the light at Jordan Point first exhibited their lights on February 6, 1855. In 1859, Craney Island Light, another square lighthouse built near the confluence of the James and Elizabeth Rivers, exhibited its light for the first time. In just a few years, Craney Island Light would be center stage for the battles about to explode.

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Rocketts Landing, Confederate Naval Academy. Photograph by Andrew J. Russell, 1864. Library of Congress

The Civil War Comes to the James River – The Battle for the Lights In 1855, navigation aids were functioning in place just as a political storm was brewing that would sweep through the U.S. Lighthouse Service as well as the entire country. By the mid-1800s, the South’s river systems reached hundreds of miles inland and connected two-thirds of the United States to ports on the Gulf of Mexico. In 1860, cotton exports generated over half of the U. S. federal income while the South’s foreign trade supplied three-fourths of the federal budget. Control of navigational aids into ports and rivers was critical to economic survival. By 1859, screwpile lighthouses had replaced almost all of the lightships and lighthouses and Fresnel lenses had replaced all of the reflector lights. 25

South Carolina adopted her Ordinance of Secession on December 20, 1860. The lighthouses and lightships in Charleston went dark shortly after that. On January 22, 1861, the National Republican newspaper in Washington posted an article impugning Charleston for its actions. “The crowning act, however, of diabolicity and world-wide contempt and dishonor on the part of South Carolina, is the extinction of the lights at the lighthouses on her coast; an act which will inevitably bring upon her the execration of every nation and individual on the face of the earth, except a mad secessionist.” 26 By the spring of 1861, tensions between Southern and Northern states reached the breaking point. On April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries fired upon Fort Sumter in the Charleston Harbor, and on April 19, 1861, President Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Blockade Against Southern Ports . 27

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Confederates Seize U.S. Lighthouse Tender Buchanan The screwpile lighthouses on the James River had only been in place since 1855 and marked the channel to Richmond. One day before Lincoln issued the blockade proclamation, a Confederate steamer captured a U.S. lighthouse tender on the James River below Richmond. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies include communications between ship commanders and the secretary of the navy. The following letters and reports come from Record Group hard copy collections and newspaper articles of the time. 28 Report: April 19, 1861 – Lighthouse Tender Buchanan seized! Commanding a company of Virginia troops, of the light-house tender (schooner) Buchanan under his command. 29 SIR: I have the painful duty to inform you that on Thursday morning, 18 th instant, while in execution of my duty as light-house inspector of the Fifth district, I was unexpectedly boarded in James River by a steamer from Richmond with a military company on board, and being unprepared for an attack I was compelled to surrender myself and vessel to Major Bridgford, acting under the authority of the State of Virginia. On being taken to Richmond I was sent for by the governor of the State, who directed Major Bridgford to give me a receipt for the vessel and released me on parole not to serve in arms against the State of Virginia. As it was very important that I should get to Norfolk immediately. I complied with his demand. Report of Commander McIntosh, U.S. Navy, of the seizure by Major Bridgford,

Very respectfully, your obedient servant Charles F. McIntosh Commander, U.S. Navy

Extinguishing the Lights The strategy of extinguishing southern coastal and river lighthouses proved effective. The Union Navy lost more boats and ships to groundings than in actual battle. “April 1861, the lights of Cape Henry and Cape Charles and all those on the seaward side of Hampton Roads were extinguished by volunteers from the seaside counties of Virginia except for the Willoughby Spit light-ship, which was only kept burning under a guard from the sloop-of-war Cumberland.” 30

1861 map Library of Congress

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Original author: J. B. Elliott, 1861 Courtesy of the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division

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Putting out the navigation beacons on coastal ports was not a new tactic in war. Colonists fighting England during the Revolutionary War doused the beacons as did the United States during the War of 1812. So it would be again in Southern waters. Locals knew the waterways and Union ship captains did not. The Fifth Lighthouse District of the U.S. Lighthouse Service was caught in the chaos. The James River led directly to the capital of the Confederacy and the Chesapeake Bay led to both the Potomac and Washington, D.C. Lightships and the newly completed lighthouses on the James River—as well as the Chesapeake Bay—were in the crossfire of both Union and Confederate Armies and Navies. Lighthouses became pawns in the competition for control of these waterways. Strategies on both sides included extinguishing and relighting these aids to navigation. 31 In the Civil War nearly all the lighthouses on the southern coasts were seized, and as a result, one-third of all the lights previously maintained by the United States were discontinued. Nearly all the light vessels in Chesapeake Bay and to the southward were taken (by Confederates), and a number of them were sunk for the purpose of obstructing channels. Special buoys, lights, and lightships were placed in many instances to facilitate military operations, as, for example, at the entrances to the York River, to the Chesapeake Bay, to Charleston, and on the James River. The U.S. Lighthouse Board cooperated with the Union Army and Navy in many ways. Illuminating apparatus and supplies deemed necessary for temporary purposes were furnished to the Navy. Additional supplies of buoys and apparatus were purchased and kept available for prompt replacements and for special use. A number of light vessels were built for use as needed. Blockade of the James Began at the Outset – April 1861 The first victory for the U.S. Navy during the early phases of the blockade occurred on April 24, 1861, when the sloop Cumberland and a small flotilla of support ships began seizing Confederate ships and privateers near Fort Monroe off the Virginia coastline. Within the next two weeks, Flag Officer Garrett J. Pendergrast had captured 16 Confederate vessels, serving early notice to the Confederate War Department that the blockade would be effective if extended. 32 The Department of Commerce published a report on the Lighthouse Service in 1923. A summary of lighthouse actions during the Civil War were listed:

The blockade of southern rivers and ports created a dilemma for many southern lighthouse keepers. Keepers were part of the U.S. Lighthouse Service when Southern states seceded from the Union and had to make a difficult choice. The governors of the secession states invited U.S. government employees to continue their duties under state control. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States, acted quickly to establish a Lighthouse Establishment and “the newly independent states moved to seize forts, arsenals, custom houses and lighthouses.” 33 On March 6, 1861, the Confederate Congress passed an act establishing a Confederate States Lighthouse Bureau; its chief officer was Commander Ebenezer Farrand, who had resigned from the U.S. Navy to join the Confederate Navy in January 1861. 34 Blockade Standoff The U.S. Army and Navy controlled the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads, and the Elizabeth and James Rivers from Fort Monroe. Confederate troops controlled Norfolk and the Elizabeth River from Craney Island to the Navy Yard at Gosport in Portsmouth as well as the southern shoreline of the James River from the Nansemond River to Richmond. Confederate snipers constantly harassed Union patrol boats traveling west on the James River. Blockade Runners Confederate blockade runners and gunboats depended on night operations to subvert the Union stranglehold on the James and Hampton Rivers. The Confederates had the “home court” advantage of local knowledge of river channels and hazards. Without lighted aids to navigation, the Union boats and ships could not run at night. The Coast Falls Dark Some, but not all, of the Confederate states obeyed the instructions given by Commander Farrand to extinguish lights and to remove their apparatus to safety. Some seem to have taken his command as permission to go beyond dismantling lighthouses and proceed with their destruction. Confederates removed the lights, beacons, and buoys between Hampton Roads and the York River, hoping to hamper Union boats struggling with shallow waters and sand bars. Confederates attacked all of the James River lighthouses and the lighthouse lenses and other apparatus were dismantled and destroyed. 35 The Union perceived the Confederates as vandals in the dismantling of navigational lights. It was, however, common sense for the lighthouse keepers to remove and care for the lenses and buoys. They were expensive and would have to be set back up after the war for river traffic and trade to resume. Nonetheless, there were many instances of lighthouse and lightship destruction by secessionists. 36

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Lightships Burned Report: Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances, the Year Ending June 30, 1861 Thornton A. Jenkins: Secretary Light-house Board. Hon. S.P. Cruse Secretary of the Themry [sic] Between the 19 th and 24 th April, 1861, two light-vessels in the Potomac were wantonly burned, and four in the Chesapeake between the mouth of the Potomac and Hampton Roads were removed and their apparatus carried off or destroyed. Two of these light vessels were subsequently recaptured but they had been stripped of everything that could be removed. The lights were extinguished without notice to mariners, and in many, if not all, cases the Fresnel illuminating apparatus was destroyed or removed. The extinguishment of light from light-houses, removal of light-vessels, and the destruction or removal of all other aids to navigation existing from the northern boundary of Virginia to the Rio Grande was complete by April 24 th . 39 According to the Richmond Times Dispatch , May 21, 1861, “Secessionists removed the Smith Point Lightship and hid it in Mill Creek off the Great Wicomico River. The propeller (propeller driven steamship) William Woodward later retrieved the lightship.” Escaping Slaves Used Lighthouses as Stepping Stones to Fort Monroe 40 On July 15, 1861, Commander O. S. Glisson, U.S. Navy, filed the following report about escaped slaves removed from the Stingray Point Lighthouse.

Nathaniel F. Gray family documents are the only original documents that we have recording an attack on a James River lighthouse.

July 15, 1861 Slaves Rescued from Stingray Point Light-House

U.S.S. MOUNT VERNON Rappahannock [River] July 15, 1861

White Shoal Light Station on the James River – Overcome by Armed Men There are very few records remaining from lightkeepers on the James River during the first few months of the war. However, documents from the family of Nathaniel F. Gray, “Tobe,” formerly of the Gray family homeplace, Indian Point Farms in Nansemond County (now Suffolk), Virginia, help recall a story of the White Shoal Light coming under attack on August 1, 1861. 37 Application for back pay by Nathaniel Gray’s family in 1873 and testimony from W. A. Hines, the station keeper at the time, found in the National Archives, showed that Nathaniel Gray was assistant keeper under W. A. Hines when they were both “forcibly taken from his station by armed men and by them prevented from longer exhibiting his light.” 38

SIR: I have to report that this morning at daylight we observed a boat adrift near Stingray light-house, and soon after discovered a man in the light-house. We manned a boat, armed her, and sent her with an officer to pick up the boat and to ascertain who was in the light-house. At 8:30 the boat returned, bringing with her six negroes who had deserted from the shore during the night and taken shelter in the light-house, casting their boat adrift to avoid detection.

They appear to be very much frightened and state that the people on shore are about arming the negroes, with the intention of placing them in the front of the

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