Craighill Channel Lower Range Light Rear (also known by locals as Miller’s Island) was originally to be a screw-pile light. The lighthouse was constructed in 1873 on 9 granite piers with a pyramidal iron skeletal tower with a square central cylinder with a fourth-order Fresnel lens. It is a unique style for the Chesapeake …
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Craighill Channel Lower Range Light Front (Craighill Light) is the second oldest cast iron, “spark plug” and caisson type lighthouse in the United States. Its design with a single-story keeper’s quarters is unique. Built in 1873, it had a fourth-order Fresnel lens with a red lantern. T he light was automated in 1964 with …
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Craighill Channel Upper Range Light Front Light was built on the foundation of the old North Point Light. It is a small red and white brick octagonal tower. The original keeper’s quarters were located onshore with a wooden bridge connecting the light to the shore. After the bridge was destroyed in 1893 the keeper …
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Craighill Channel Upper Range Light Rear (Cutoff Channel Range Rear) was built in 1886 and consists of an iron frame supporting a wooden tower that is covered with corrugated iron. A locomotive headlight was used as the original lantern and the keeper lived in a house next to the tower. The light was automated in …
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The Lighthouse Board’s original request for $60,000 to build a lighthouse was made in 1890 to mark the entrance to the Baltimore channel at the mouth of the Magothy River. Those funds were approved by Congress in 1894, but after extensive testing which revealed a layer of soft mud 55 feet below the surface of …
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Perhaps the most photographed lighthouse in The Chesapeake Bay, The Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse is the last screwpile structure left on its original site in the bay. It went into service on November 27, 1875, to replace a light on the shore at Thomas Point at the entrance to the South River. The Lighthouse Board …
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The first lighthouse erected here in 1875 was a square cottage style screwpile design. It replaced a light at Fog Point on Cherry Island about a mile to the south that was built in 1827. The screwpile lasted for 18 years until January of 1893 when ice build-up caused the structure to be bent over …
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The Sharps Island lighthouse is a cast-iron caisson filled with concrete with a brick-lined cast iron tower built on top. The tower is 37 feet tall which sets the light 54 feet above the mean water level. This structure was constructed in 1881-2 and first lit on February 1, 1882. This is the third light …
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In 1883 the Sandy Point Shoal caisson with a 37-foot Empire-style eight-sided, red-brick tower with a white roof and black lantern housing a 4th order Fresnel lens was built. This caisson replaced an earlier Sandy Point Light that had been built on land where Sandy Point State Park is located now. It was an onshore …
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NOTE: This light is off-limits to the general public because the island was used for bombing and shelling practice from 1918 through the early 1960’s. There are many unexploded bombs and shells all over the island. The light on Pooles Island was authorized by Congress in May of 1824. John Donahoo was the low bidder …
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The first requests for placing a light at this location were sent to Congress in 1891. Congress took no action and the requests were made each year until finally in 1901 $65,000 was granted for the building of the light. Contracts were let for the fabrication of the caisson and the ironwork in 1902. …
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The Wolf Trap light is located in 16 feet of water on the eastern end of the Wolf Trap Spit south of where the Rappahannock River enters the Chesapeake Bay. It is a caisson tower with its light 52 feet above mean high water. Congress first appropriated funds for a light at Windmill Point or …
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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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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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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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