The Lost Lights

Lighthouses played a significant role in the early development of eastern North Carolina. Unlike her colonial counterparts, the state lacked a safe deepwater harbor. Instead, ships had to negotiate the constantly changing inlets and a maze of shifting shoals and sandbars. As early as 1715, state officials had already begun to mark the channels at Ocracoke Inlet in an effort to improve commerce, but it was clear much more needed to be done.

Shortly after the American Revolution, the N.C. General Assembly moved to construct lighthouses marking the inlet at Ocracoke and the mouth of the Cape Fear River, the two principal ports at the time. In 1789, work began on a lighthouse at Smith Island, also known as Bald Head Island, at the mouth of the river, and plans were also underway to build an Ocracoke lighthouse. The same year, the federal government assumed control of all maritime aids to navigation in the country. North Carolina officials readily agreed to pass to another governing body the daunting task of marking more than three hundred miles of ocean coastline and thousands of miles of inland shores. Building lighthouses was an expensive proposition for new states and the problems soon became a federal concern.

Federal officials finished the Bald Head light in 1795 and the light at Ocracoke Inlet in 1798. Work was also underway to mark the treacherous waters off Cape Hatteras, although the Hatteras tower would not be lighted until 1803. Despite the best intentions of federal engineers, all three lighthouses were disappointments. The beacons were deemed too weak to be of much use to mariners, especially during bad weather when they were most needed. Fires sparked by the open flame of whale oil lanterns were common, forcing unscheduled outages and increasing the risk to ship captains who assumed the lights would be displayed.

Each of the three first lights, however, soon faced even more serious problems. It was soon apparent the Bald Head Lighthouse had been built too close to the island's shore. By 1810,officials were required to place wooden breakwaters near the base of the brick lighthouse in an effort to stem the tide, but to no avail. The lights at Ocracoke and Hatteras fared little better. Winds began to erode the sandhill on which the Hatteras tower was built almost as soon as it was completed, and the channel the Ocracoke light was designed to mark was slowly migrating away from the tower, threatening to render it useless.