Not sure where to put this as I don't have any pictures, and it's not exactly travel. So if you want to move the topic to somewhere else, feel free.

In two places recently, I found reference to screwpile lighthouses that had been demolished. One was the Great Wicomico light which was in the Labor Day boat trip thread , and one was Mathias Point.



And the question was asked

I was told that it was because the screwpile lighthouses were too hard to maintain. Apparently the winds, ice and tides of the Chesapeake are too much for them. In so many cases, the current ATON is on the old foundations of the original lighthouse that I don't think it can be opening up any bigger shipping lanes.

I found a reference to there having been at one time 42 screwpile lighthouses in the Chesapeake watershed. Screwpile lighthouses were relatively inexpensive, easy to construct, and comparatively quick to build. They became especially popular after the Civil War when the Lighthouse Board adopted a policy to replace inside (bays, sounds, and rivers) light vessels with screwpile lighthouses.

I started looking to see where they had been.

Because only Thomas Point is left at the original location AFAIK. Drum Point, Hooper Strait and Seven Foot Knoll are all in museums.

I was doing research on this and suddenly when I clicked on a link my browser said it had to close and I lost all of what I had written. So I'm going to start a new thread on this, save it, and then add the defunct lighthouses as I find them.

List of former screwpile lighthouses

Eastern Shore.

1) Jane's Island - a screwpile lighthouse. The lighthouse was destroyed by moving ice on January 20, 1879. Another lighthouse was built, but it also was destroyed by moving ice, in 1935. Current structure at this location is a caisson.

2) Tangier Sound Lighthouse was a square screwpile lighthouse built in 1890. A wrecked schooner which was lifted and carried by moving ice collided into the lighthouse on February 13, 1905. the replacement was built on the original foundation. This is a very far away photo of it as it is now.



3) Pungoteague River Lighthouse was the first screwpile lighthouse built in the Chesapeake Bay. It was overturned by moving ice on February 2, 1856. Of any lighthouses on the Bay, it had the shortest recorded existence.

4) Cherrystone Bar Lighthouse was a hexagonal screwpile. In 1964, it was dismantled.

5) Old Plantation Flats Lighthouse was a white rectangular lighthouse with a combination foundation. It was hit by ice and damaged twice (1893 and 1918). The lighthouse was demolished in 1962 and the modern replacement is on the ruins of the foundation.

6) Killock Shoal Lighthouse was a rectangular screwpile which was dismantled in 1939.
The current structure is an unlighted steel tower erected on the original foundation.

Potomac

7) Ragged Point Lighthouse was the last lighthouse built in the Chesapeake Bay area. It was a hexagonal screwpile type. It was one of the first to be dismantled. The current light is on the original foundation.



8) Cobb Point Bar Lighthouse was a square wooden house on five iron screwpiles. The house had caught fire in 1939 and was dismantled in 1940 but a small 18-foot automatic beacon was erected on the original foundation

9) Lower Cedar Point Lighthouse was a square screwpile lighthouse which was destroyed by fire on Christmas of 1893 and then rebuilt. It was dismantled in 1951, and a light on a skeleton tower was built on the same foundation.

10) Mathias Point Shoal Lighthouse - a hexagonal lighthouse which was dismantled in 1963.
The current light is a steel tower on the original screwpile supports. I think I have seen this lighthouse, but I don't think I took a picture. It is marked on the charts as the birthday cake or wedding cake.

11) Upper Cedar Point Lighthouse - square screwpile lighthouse was dismantled in 1963.
The current light was installed on the original foundation

12) Maryland Point Lighthouse- a small white 42-foot high hexagonal screwpile lighthouse. The cottage was disassembled and transported to the Portsmouth Depot in 1963. The current light is on the original foundation.

Rappahannock

13) Bowlers Rock Lighthouse -a rectangular screwpile lighthouse In 1920, the lighthouse was dismantled.

14)Stingray Point Lighthouse was a hexagonal screwpile that was dismantled in 1965. The current light is an automatic beacon that was erected on the original screwpile foundation.

15) Windmill Point Lighthouse a white hexagonal screwpile lighthouse was discontinued in 1954 and dismantled in 1965. The current light is a simple modern beacon at the ruins of the original screwpile foundation.

Great Wicomico River Lighthouse was a hexagonal screwpile. It was dismantled in 1967.
The current light was built on the original screwpile foundation.

York River:

17) Tue Marshes Lighthouse was a square screwpile. The house was removed in 1960.
The current light is an automatic beacon installed in 1960 on the original foundation.

18) Bells Rock Lighthouse was a 40-foot high hexagonal screwpile. The intended cottage was assembled in 1880 at the Lazaretto Depot in Maryland, but was sent to Thimble Shoal after that lighthouse burned down. A second cottage was built in February 1881 for Bells Rock. In June 1884, it was hit by a schooner and three support columns were broken. It was dismantled in 1928.
The current light has an automatic 4-second light on a 40-foot high steel tower built on the original foundation.

James River

19) White Shoal Lighthouse was a hexagonal screwpile. The lighthouse outlasted (as a derelict) all other lighthouses in the James River by several decades. It survived until the 1970s when is was carried off by moving ice.

20) Point of Shoals Lighthouse was a small hexagonal screwpile lighthouse. The lighthouse became unnecessary and was dismantled when the channel was moved towards the opposite side of the river.

21) Deep Water Shoals Lighthouse was a small screwpile lighthouse which was completely destroyed by moving ice in 1867. A replacement was built a year later on wood piles. The light was decommissioned in 1936. It was torn down in 1966. The current light is built on the original foundation.

Hampton Roads

22) Lamberts Point Lighthouse was a brown house built on five piles (six were planned). The square screwpile foundation settled unevenly and the lighthouse sat for years at a crazy tilt. The building finally collapsed. The pier that it sat on no longer exists

23) Craney Island Lighthouse - a square-shaped screwpile lighthouse which survived until the mid 1930s when it was replaced by a simple light on the same screwpile foundation. Nothing of this light remains today.

24) Killock Shoal Light Rectangular screwpile lighthouse.

Maryland

25) Thomas Point

26) Hawkins Point Light aka Brewerton Range Front Light was a cottage screwpile lighthouse.

27)Love Point - Steel skeletal tower replacing a hexagonal cottage screwpile lighthouse demolished in 1964.

28) Hooper Strait (now in a museum)

29) Seven Foot Knoll (now in a museum) - the only round screwpile lighthouse.

30) Choptank River - The original lighthouse, a cottage screwpile, was destroyed by ice in 1917.

31) Great Shoals- Skeletal tower on a screwpile platform. This light replaced a cottage lighthouse demolished in 1966.

32) Sharkfin Shoal- Square cylindrical skeletal tower centered on the screwpile platform of the original screwpile lighthouse, which was demolished in 1964.

33) Holland Island Bar - The original lighthouse, another cottage screwpile, was demolished after being bombed accidentally by the Navy in 1957. The current light is a steel skeletal tower built on the original screwpile foundation.

34) Somers Cove - cottage screwpile lighthouse; part of the foundation remains.



This picture was taken in 2004 when it was still an ATON



This was 2007


35) Drum Point - now in a museum


36) Sharps Point- Replica of a cottage screwpile lighthouse (similar to Thomas Point Shoal Light)

37) Greenbury Point Shoal- a hexagonal cottage screwpile, was replaced in 1934 by a steel skeletal tower built on the original screwpile foundation.

I'm missing 5 of them to come up to 42 total. Should I include the woodpile lighthouses in this list.

Rosalie, if you don't have it you may be interested in a book called Forgotten Beacons, The Lost Lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay by Patrick Hornberger & Linda Turbyville. I've had it a while, most likely got it from Amazon. It features many of the former screwpile lighthouses as well as other lighthouses, lightships and lighthouse tenders.

I think I've seen it when I was thinking about painting lighthouse pictures, but no I don't have it. It didn't have the one or two photos I needed so I didn't buy it.

I was surprised that there were so many screwpile lighthouses in the Chesapeake, and I think I've seen quite a few of the remains without knowing it.

Rosalie, Thanks for all the info on the lost screwpile lighthouses in the Chesapeake.

I favor the gone but not forgotten lighthouses.

You can go the the Chesapeake Chapter, USLHS website and we have a list of all the lighthouse that have "crossed the bar".

LOST AND FORGOTTEN LIGHTHOUSES

Hope this helps your search.

Joyce

Don't forget there were screwpile lighthouses in North Carolina that no longer exist.

Yes, I know there were others, but in this particular instance, I was interested mainly in the Chesapeake.

Yes it does. One problem though with that website is that there are two Wicomico Rivers in Maryland, and the Great Shoals Light doesn't say which one it was at.

Using the information provided and the process of elimination, "Great Shoals Lighthouse was constructed in 1884 at the entrance to Wicomico River, Chesapeake Bay" would seem to indicate Great Shoals Light was at the mouth of the Wicomico River that starts around Salisbury on the Eastern Shore of MD. The other Wicomico River in MD feeds into the Potomac River which would appear to rule that one out.

The information for Great Shoals contained in the CG Light List would appear to support this:
23700 GREAT SHOALS LIGHT 38 12 52 N 75 52 46 W
Fl W 6s 37 8 NB on white skeleton tower on
piles.
BELL: 1 stroke ev 15s.
Operates continuously from
Sept. 15 to June 1.

Interstingly, the information in the LH Depot database indicates the other Wicomico River (one that flows into Potomac). Unless there are also multiple lights of the same name on rivers of the same name, I would tend to go with the CG's placement.

I wasn't actually thinking of the Wicomico on the Eastern Shore when I read about Great Shoals, but about the Wicomico in Virginia which does flow into the Bay and not the Potomac. Of course that one is technically called the Great Wicomico. And the Little Wicomico is just north of it. I don't usually bother with the adjectives, and just say Wicomico since the Great Wicomico is the one that I've been to and fairly often.

Since the (Great) Wicomico is the one that I use the most, I tend to regard the other three as minor rivers.

It's almost as confusing as Back Creek/River or Mill Creek