The Lost Lights

Frustrated by the initial attempts at safeguarding the Carolina coast, the U.S. Congress appropriated funding for a survey of the state's shorelines in 1806 after a committee appointed to study the problem reported ''it is supposed there is no part of the American coast where vessels are more exposed to shipwreck then they are passing along the shores of North Carolina...'' In the same year, the federal government also began construction of a lighthouse at Cape Lookout; by the advent of the War of 1812, it had completed its designation of the three most prominent points along the coast.

In 1813, attention again turned to problems facing the Carolina lighthouses. Erosion had become so bad at Bald Head light that it was decided the tower should be dismantled before it fell down. Bricks from the first tower were used to build the second Bald Head Lighthouse which was lighted in 1817 and still stands as the state's oldest. At Ocracoke, the problem of what to do about the increasingly obsolete Shell Castle light was solved by an 1818 lightning strike that destroyed both the lighthouse and the keeper's quarters. After a lightship stationed in the inlet proved ineffective, the current Ocracoke Lighthouse was completed in 1823.

With new lighthouses at both Bald Head and Ocracoke, and coastal lights at Cape Lookout and Cape Hatteras, attention turned next to the broad sounds and rivers of eastern North Carolina. Beginning in the 1820s, a series of lightships were placed at key locations. The lights marked the mouths of major rivers such as the Neuse, Pamlico, Pasquotank, and Roanoke, and significant shoals such as Long Shoal near Engelhard, Harbor Island between Pamlico and Core sounds, and Nine-Foot Shoal near Ocracoke.

By the mid-1830s, a total of nine lightships and two small lighthouses -- at Pamlico Point at the mouth of the Pamlico River near Hobucken and Roanoke Marshes near Roanoke Island -- had been added to the navigation charts. The lightships were typically staffed with a four-man crew consisting of a captain, first mate, and two crewmen. The ships displayed lights ranging in height from twenty-eight feet to forty-six feet above the water and were painted to make them more visible during the day. Contemporary reports describe the variety of colors used to paint the ships including red, yellow, straw, white and gray.

With the principal promontories and navigation routes marked, federal officials next turned their attention to other problem areas. The portion of the Outer Banks from Cape Hatteras north to the Virginia border lacked any navigational aids. In 1836, a survey report recommended construction of a lighthouse on Bodie Island, south of Nags Head. Although it was agreed a light was needed, it took more than ten years before the tower was erected in 1848. Even then the lighthouse was beset by problems. Lacking a proper foundation, the tower soon began to tilt, fouling the delicate mechanism that rotated the beacon and rendering the light almost useless within ten years.

The 1850s witnessed even greater attention on North Carolina's lighthouses. Virtually all of the coastal lights were refitted with state-of-the-art Fresnel lenses and painted to increase their visibility. Two of the coastal towers -- Cape Lookout and Bodie Island -- were replaced with new lighthouses, and the Cape Hatteras light was boosted from ninety to one hundred and fifty feet above the ground. New, smaller lighthouses were erected on Beacon Island near Ocracoke and on Bogue Banks at Fort Macon near Beaufort. The Cape Fear River also was marked, answering decades of complaints from Wilmington merchants for a safer passage along the twenty-five mile route to the sea. Lights were added at Oak Island, Price's Creek, Orton's Point, Campbell's Island, and at Upper Jetty, just south of Wilmington. A lightship also was placed at Horseshoe Shoal.