The first Thimble Shoal Lighthouse was a six-sided screwpile light erected in 1872. This light was first lit on October 15, 1872. This light replaced the last lightship in the bay. The light was listed as 3 ½ miles east of Old Point Comfort at Willoughby’s Spit and The Thimble entrance to Hampton Roads. On …
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Smith Point is located on the Southern side where the Potomac River enters the Bay. The first light at this point was erected in 1802. Erosion of the shoreline caused the light to be moved in 1807. In 1821 a lightship was stationed off the point. In 1828 erosion again forced the Light-House Board to …
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This light is the second oldest lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay. It was first lit in 1802 on the grounds of Fort George, the fort that was there prior to the current Fort Monroe. The 54 foot tall light was built by Elzy Burroughs who also built the New Point Comfort light located up the …
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The New Point Comfort light, the third oldest light on the Bay, was built in 1804. It is located at the entrance to Mobjack Bay and the mouth of the York River in Mathews County, Virginia. In 1865 the 63-foot tower was fitted with a new fourth-order Fresnel lens that allowed the light to be …
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This light station was established in 1857 at Fort Washington along the Potomac River south of Washington, D. C. The light was authorized by the United States Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who a few years later became the President of the Confederate States of America. The initial light was an illuminating apparatus on top …
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Fort Carroll Light was originally built on a parapet of Fort Carroll in 1854 with a sixth-order Fresnel lens. The lighthouse and fog bell were removed in 1898 to make room for the fort’s expansion. A new light was constructed in December of the same year; a square wooden tower with black cast iron …
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Fishing Battery Light was constructed as an integral one-story brick house with a wooden rooftop lantern built by John Donahoo in 1853 and contained a sixth-order Fresnel lens. This was the last lighthouse constructed by Donahoo on the Chesapeake Bay and one of the last lighthouses ordered by the Pleasonton administration. The light is …
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In 1871, the United States government established a light station to mark the underwater L-shaped shoal in the middle of the Hampton Roads shipping lanes. This caisson lighthouse was completed and first lighted in 1891 at a cost of $50,000. The lighthouse was fitted with a fourth-order Fresnel lens. The overall structure is 56 feet …
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In 1852 Congress approved $5,000 to acquire land and build a small lighthouse at Jones Point on the Potomac River just south of the city of Alexandra, Virginia. The land was purchased from the Manassas Gap Rail Road in 1855. The light was first lit on May 3, 1856. The builder of the light was …
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The Chesapeake Light Tower stands 13 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean off Virginia Beach. This steel, “Texas style” tower was built in 1965 and is 120 feet tall. The tower is supported by four 33 inch concrete filled steel pilings driven 180 feet into the ocean bottom. This so-called Texas tower was an adaptation …
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The U.S. Lighthouse Board received several requests for the establishment of a lighthouse on Kent Island. Bloody Point Bar was the final choice and a request was submitted in 1868 to mark both the bar and the northern entrance to the Eastern Bay. The request was repeated in 1869. In March of 1881, Congress finally …
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Hooper Island Lighthouse was constructed at a price of $60,000. Construction began on the lighthouse in 1901, and the construction was completed and the fourth-order Fresnel lens was first exhibited on June 1, 1902. Hooper Island Lighthouse is one of only five lights constructed in the Bay during the 1900’s. The Hooper Island Lighthouse is …
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Drum Point Lighthouse was originally located along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay at the northern side of the mouth of the Patuxent River. Efforts to place a light at this location began in the 1850s due to the need for a light to mark the location of shoals around the point. Disputes …
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Concord Point Light is a 36-foot tower that was built in 1827. It is the second oldest tower lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay and the oldest continuous lighthouse in Maryland. The tower is built at the point where the Susquehanna River meets the tidal flow of the Chesapeake Bay and navigation is very hazardous around …
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Cove Point Lighthouse is located in Calvert County along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay four miles north of the mouth of the Patuxent River. The lighthouse was built in 1828 to mark the shoal that extends outwards from the scenic point of land toward the shipping channel in the Bay. The tower is …
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The original Cape Henry Light was completed in 1792. By 1872 the old tower had developed cracks in the walls and it was decided to rebuild. It was not until 1875 that Congress appropriated $75,000 “for rebuilding and remodeling the lighthouse at Cape Henry.” The new cast iron 170-foot tower was completed in 1881. The …
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A provision for building a lighthouse at Cape Henry, at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, was made by Congress on March 26, 1790. The amount was for $24,076.66. The light was to be an octagonal structure with three windows in the east and four windows in the west rising 72 feet from the water …
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The first lighthouse at this site was completed in 1828. It was a 60-foot masonry tower that was painted white. In 1856 $35,000 was appropriated for a new tower. Work started in 1860 and at the start of the Civil War was only 83 feet tall. The Confederates raided the site and destroyed the light …
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In 1833, the original Assateague Lighthouse was established on Assateague Island at a cost of $55,000. In 1867, a new lighthouse was built on a land bluff that was thirty-one feet above mean low water and positioned on the southerly part of Assateague Island. The lighthouse replaced the original lighthouse whose tower’s height proved not …
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