1889: A Milestone for the Creation of a Lighthouse in Virginia

August 22, 1889

A screw-pile superstructure that had been built at the Baltimore-based Lazaretto Depot, a supplies facility for lighthouses and lightvessels, began an overnight journey to the site in Virginia where that superstructure would be installed as the major part of a new lighthouse. The specific destination was at the mouth of the Great Wicomico River, which is south of the Potomac River and on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay.

The men who would be putting this lighthouse in place traveled from Lazaretto Depot on board the lighthouse tender (support ship) Jessamine, along with a barge carrying the superstructure as well as various other materials for the construction project. This trip took place more than 10 months after the U.S. Congress appropriated $25,000 to install a lighthouse to help guide mariners making their way through two shallow shoals at the entrance to the Great Wicomico River. Work on the lighthouse began not long after Jessamine and the accompanying barge arrived at that site.

Great Wicomico River Light first went into service on November 10 of that year. Samuel L. Nelson was the lighthouse’s first head keeper, and he served in this role until 1919. A 1952 feature article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch focused on Great Wicomico River Light and the men stationed there at that time: J.R. Moore, keeper; O.R. Keener, Jr., U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) engineman third class; and J.W. Higgins, USCG seaman.

“A continuous watch is kept on the lighthouse, and three half-hour radio watches each day,” recounted the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “The men share all duties alike and rotate the watches — six hours on and 12 off, or 12 on and six off. The cat-walk [a narrow walk-way] is circled once every hour, and cooking is done by the man standing watch.” This article also noted, “In their spare time they swim, fish, crab, read and play cards or make model airplanes . . . Sometimes they just stand on the cat-walk and watch the boats sail by.”

Three years later, Great Wicomico River Light was automated. This longtime structure was ultimately dismantled in 1967.

Photo Credit: U.S. Coast Guard

For more information on Great Wicomico River Light, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wicomico_River_Light