The Thimble Shoal
Lighthouse
or
The Lighthouse That
Became a Ship Magnet
I'm
still hanging around The old Dominion for this one...specifically,
the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, about three and a half miles off of
both Fort Monroe and Buckroe Beach, where seagulls ride the
sea-breezes, bluefish the size of a small boat occasionally run, and
a big dark red can-shaped lighthouse protects the hard left turn that
the Thimble Shoal Channel...the primary channel for ocean going ships
entering and leaving Hampton Roads...makes as it enters Hampton
Roads..
Thimble
Shoal channel itself actually starts several miles east and south, a
few miles off Virginia Beach, then cuts across the mouth of the bay at
a slight diagonal before making that hard left into Hampton Roads.
There's a reason for that sharp turn, by the way, and that
reason is named Thimble Shoal. When the channel hangs that left turn
to make the run into Hampton Roads it passes between a pair of long
narrow sandbars that come to within a few feet of the surface of the
bay....Willoughby Spit to the south, and The Horseshoe to the north,
with The Horseshoe's six or so mile length extending the furthest
into the bay by far.
That
sandy bit of shoal water's been a hazard for as long as ships have
been entering Hampton Roads. Back in 1608 the trio of ships that
brought The Jamestown Colonists over managed to both miss Thimble
Shoal and navigate the
natural channel between The Horseshoe and Willougby Spit without
grounding, but since then a long list of ships, both famous
and not so famous, have spent time grounded on one or the other of
the bars. (Just ask the Captain of the USS Missouri about that one! )
The
Horseshoe's shallowest point, which coincidentally is also the point
nearest the channel's hard-left-turn, is covered by about eleven feet
of water at low tide. Any decent sized commercial vessel or warship
draws, at the very least, two to three times that in ballast...loaded, of course, she'll draw even more water. This, of course, means that any large ship that cuts
that corner too short or strays from the channel after making the
turn, is going to find herself a part of the bay bottom until a bunch of big tugs and a good bit of concerted effort can muscle
her off of 'The Thimble' as this little stretch of submerged sandbar
has been know for over a century and a half.
Just how it got that name has been lost forever to history, but this shallowest, trickiest to navigate, easternmost point of The Horseshoe is, together with Willoughby Spit, known as 'Thimble Shoals' to this day, and the lighthouses that guarded it were and are known as Thimble Shoals Light. And that's where we get to our story...
Just how it got that name has been lost forever to history, but this shallowest, trickiest to navigate, easternmost point of The Horseshoe is, together with Willoughby Spit, known as 'Thimble Shoals' to this day, and the lighthouses that guarded it were and are known as Thimble Shoals Light. And that's where we get to our story...
If
you've ever driven across The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel you've
dived beneath Thimble Shoals Channel as you entered the
Bridge-Tunnel's southernmost tunnel. The south end of the
Bridge-Tunnel bisects Chesapeake Beach as it begins it's trip across
the bay, and Thimble Shoal Channel runs three and a half miles off of
and roughly parallel to the beach at that point, giving beach goers
and visitors to the restaurant and fishing pier on the CBBT's first
island spectacular views of ships entering and leaving Hampton Roads.
The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel...Tidewater's and the world's first
bridge-tunnel complex, now part of I-64...also dives beneath
the Thimble Shoal Channel. Thimble Shoal Light sits just about smack
dab dead center between the two spans. At night you can see the
lighthouse throwing a white beam across the night sky from both the
Chesapeake Bay and the
Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnels...off to the west and north from
the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, and to the east
of the Hampton Roads B-T. If you know exactly where to look on a
clear day you can catch a glimpse of the light house itself from both
spans (Though it's a little easier to see from the Hampton Roads
B-T) as well as from both Fort Monroe and Buckroe Beach.
The
big, cylindrical steel lighthouse that warns incoming ships clear of
Thimble Shoal has been in place since 1914, but it's not the first
lighthouse that's been in place there...it's actually the third. The
lighthouse that it replaced is the apparently jinxed subject of this
post.
Thimble
Shoals was protected by lightships for decades before a permanent
lighthouse was built, with the last lightship stationed there being
the iron hulled LV23, built in 1857 and reassigned in 1872 when the
first Thimble Shoal Light was built...interesting little factoid
here. The lightship was officially called 'The Willoughby Spit
Lightship...the name 'Thimble Shoals Light' wasn't used to identify
the light until the first permanent structure was built.
 |
| LV-23...the former Willoughby Spit Lightship...around 1892, after she was reassigned to Ram Island Reef, off of the Connecticut coast. |
There
were two reasons that the lightships were replaced in the bay (And
all along The East Coast, ultimately) and both are very familiar even
today. Their names are Money and New Technology. Lightships required
far more maintenance than permanent structures, had to be dry-docked
for maintenance at regular intervals, and ultimately, had to be replaced.
Staffing costs also factored heavily in the decision. Lightships
needed larger crews than a lighthouse (Most off-shore lighthouses had
two to three guys on duty while a lightship required a crew of
10-12)..
Then
there was the newer technology of the screw-pile...iron pilings that
were very literally screwed down deep into the bottom to support the
spidery iron framework that supported the lighthouse. Screw Piles
were supposedly quick to build, fairly inexpensive, and would,
theoretically, weather the worst that Mother Nature and the whims of
the Bay's weather could throw at it. If you've ever been in the
middle of a Chesapeake Bay Nor'easter and watched the normally
tranquil bay get whipped into a wind blown, frothy-topped cauldron
of 6-8 foot...and even higher...seas, you know what the crew of an
anchored 120 or so foot lightship would be subjected to. It would not
have been a fun ride.
A screw-pile lighthouse on the other hand could be
built well above all but the very worst seas, and the open iron
framework of the screw-pile foundation would let most of the waves'
momentum and force just pass through without even jiggling a cup of
coffee in the lighthouse kitchen.
So
the powers that be had meetings, formed committees, and decided that
a screw-pile lighthouse would be built astride 'The Thimble'. The
new light would be out in the open bay and subject to wind and seas
from all sides so it's foundation would have to redefine 'robust.
It'd also have to be screwed deeply into the bottom
to find a solid footing...bottom sand wouldn't cut it. And that
actually became a problem, because the crew building the screw pile
foundation almost didn't cut
it. The sand, that is...it was fine and tightly compacted, forming a
dense, mud like obstacle to the screw-piles, which had a
rage-inducing tendency to snap off at the screw as they were being
screwed down into the bottom. Construction was halted a couple of times
when this happened so the broken piling and the guide beams that were
used to keep the screw-pile properly aligned as it was driven into
the bottom were backed out and replaced. OH...did I mention that a
couple of the guide beams broke as well? Being seasoned Watermen, the
guys building the foundation probably had extremely colorful and
descriptive things to say about each occurrence as they backed the
broken piling out and started over.
 |
| Thimble Shoal Light, possibly as it originally appeared. The first and second screw pile lights were all but identical, right down to their fate. |
But
ultimately they got the foundation built and prepared for the new
lighthouse (The lighthouses themselves, BTW, were built in sections
on shore, barged in, and installed using a big...make that huge,
especially for that era...steam powered derrick.) During that era,
any and all construction, be it single family home, commercial
building, or government building, was a work of art loaded down with
ginger bread woodworking, graceful balconies and roof-lines, and
decorative molding and woodwork and the new lighthouse was no
exception. It was described as a 'Hexagonal gingerbread cottage with
the lantern protruding from it's roof'. It was built in eleven feet
of water, and displayed a fixed white light that was broken by a
series of red and white flashes. The new light quickly became a
landmark and...was destroyed by a fire if unknown origin on October
30th,
1880, in full view of the citizens of the then small village of
Buckroe Beach, as well as the personnel of Fort Monroe, none of whom
could do a whole heck of a lot about it. The lighthouse keepers
escaped using the structure's lifeboat and the burning lighthouse
collapsed into the bay with a huge, roiling cloud of steam and the
sizzling hiss of a million eggs frying, sending the lighthouse board
back to Square One. This, by the way, was the first
of a series of disasters that were to befall Thimble Shoal Light.
The lighthouse board hired a crew to make a trip out to
survey the ruins, a diver was sent down using one of that era's bulky
diving suits...the kind with the iconic port-holed metal helmet portrayed in
dozens of cartoons...and they found that much of the metal structure
of the lighthouse was singed but intact, including the fresh water
tanks and parts of the lantern. The screw-pile foundation itself was
damaged slightly but repairable. And low and behold, a new lighthouse
that was slated to be installed at Bells Rock was ready to go.
Hampton
Roads' heavy traffic and the severe hazard posed by Thimble Shoals
moved replacing Thimble Shoal Light to the top of the priority list
so the Bells Rock lighthouse was reassigned to Thimble Shoal, loaded
on a barge, and delivered. The lighthouse tender Tulip
delivered the construction crew
and divers to the site on December 6th,
and most likely also shuttled building materials out as needed, as
well as shuttling the crew back and forth daily. Over the course of
the next eighteen days the
divers recovered the usable portions of the burned structure, and the
new lighthouse was installed on the old screw-pile foundation. They
were hustling, bigtime...the new thimble Shoal Light was lit for the
first time on Christmas Eve of 1880, just a week shy of two months
after the original burned..
 |
| This was probably the photograph was used as a model for the above painting (OK, that means that the painting is of the second Thimble Shoals Light). Note the fog bells at the roof dormers, and the lifeboats. The flag would denote weather warnings as well as wind and sea conditions. |
I
have a sneaking suspicion that all of these off-shore
lighthouses were built using a common set of blueprints with
modifications made as needed...it's a practice that's used by Local,
State, and the Federal Government to this very day and then as now
would have been the most efficient and economical way to go. The many
paintings and photos of the 2nd
Thimble Shoal Light pretty much prove that theory. Like the first
light it was an hexagonal frame structure with the lantern and it's
tower protruding from the center of a hip roof. A frame porch
surrounded the structure, and decorative trim set it off beautifully.
The lighthouse wasn't just functional and efficient, it was pretty.
Artists loved painting it, photographers loved getting pictures of
it, and postcards by the hundreds were printed using one of the
paintings or photos of the lighthouse. Thimble Shoal Light became a
showpiece of the lower Chesapeake Bay. Only problem was, it would
soon be discovered that the new light apparently attracted ships the
way a toy magnet attracts paper clips
 |
| A James Milton Sessions painting featuring Thimble Shoal Light...the light was a favorite for artists and photographers, both as a main subject and as a background for seascapes. James Sessions was a master at this type of painting, and from what I've seen regularly used Thimble Shoal Light in his works. Unfortunately for Thimble Shoal lighthouse lovers and lighthouse keepers, a couple of ships got way closer than any of the craft depicted in Mr Sessions' painting |
Admittedly
Thimble Shoals Light sits at a turn on one of the busiest channels on
the East Coast, and dozens of ships passed it daily both inbound and
outbound, but the lighthouse didn't...and doesn't... sit in the
middle of the channel. It sits astride The Horseshoe, in eleven feet
of water at low tide, several hundred yards from the center of the
channel. The light's surrounded by The Horseshoe's shoal water.
Theoretically, any ship of any size...even back at the turn of the
20th
Century..should have grounded before it reached the lighthouse.
Guess what gang...it didn't happen that way!
That
turn into the channel was not easy to navigate in clear
weather, a good, rockin' Nor'easter or even a heavy fog made it into
a iffy proposition to put it mildly.. The lighthouse also featured a
pair of fog bells that were automatically rung at five second
intervals during low visibility, and the lighthouse was built to
be...well, seen. That big
Fresnel lens sent out a white beam visible for 12 miles every other
second, and it took a serious bit of pea soup fog to completely mask
it, but none of this helped if there was a mechanical failure or
human error involved.
The close calls probably started soon after the first
lighthouse went in service, but through sheer luck, the first Thimble
Shoal Light wasn't ever hit before it burned. The second light wasn't
so lucky. A steamer got a piece of it eleven years after it was
built, but that apparently wasn't a major collision.
Then, in 1898, a tug lost a coal barge which apparently
ran up underneath the southeastern side of the screw-pile foundation
and knocked it out of true, managing to carry away a large hunk of
that wraparound porch while it was at it. It also cracked two or
three of the octagonal walls, splintered floor joists, and actually
lifted the lighthouse about an inch off of the foundation.
Repairs
took a month or so most likely...A temporary light may have been
utilized while this was going on, and I'm assuming that this
collision occurred during warm weather...we'll get to why
I'm making that assumption in a bit.
Everything
went fairly smoothly for the next 11 years and change. In January
1903, the distinctive fog bells were replaced by a far less charming
and melodic but far more audible and efficient air-powered fog horn. There were
storms, nasty weather, lots of really epic morning sunrises witnessed
by lighthouse keepers as they leaned on the rail of that wrap-around
porch with the morning's first cup of coffee in hand...and then came
the oh-not-so-lovely morning of December 27th,
1909. Two days after Christmas and just more than 19 years after the
light was first shown.
From
what I've been able to gather from readin' and reasearchin' and the
like, 12-27-1909 dawned as a dreary, cold, windy morning on the bay,
and then the weather got worse. It started spitting snow, then
snowing in earnest, and then the wind started to really
howl. The light
house keepers probably made sure the light was working properly, set
the fog horn to belting out it's pregnant-cow-in-labor
'BawOOOOONNNNNK' every five seconds, then stoked the stove up and got
a never ending pot of coffee going. It was gonna be a long day...
...And
they didn't know the half of it. Enter the tug John
Twohy, towing
the schooner Malcomb
Baxter, Jr. The
John
Twohy came
into the picture sometime during mid-morning, and when she approached
The Thimble, the weather had gone from nasty to brutal. There was a
good solid Nor'easter blowing with the added fun of snow squalls
dropping visibility to, at times, just about zilch. Seas were
probably running eight to ten feet or there-abouts, and the wind was
easily a sustained thirty knots with gusts hitting the 45-50 knot
range. Just not
a good day to be out on the bay.
So
in the finest tradition of mechanical bad timing, just about the time
the Twohy
started
to make that corner at Thimble Shoals, her tow...the Malcomb
Baxter...lost
her steering. Now, if a ship being towed is using her steering to
assist the tug or ship towing them, and she looses
her steering, it can make for a long long
day in good
weather. (This is why, generally, the helms of ships under tow are
locked with the rudder dead center). Now, throw in the kind of blow
that the area around Thimble Shoals was experiencing on that
exceptionally nasty Dec 27th
105
or so years ago
and the tow not only quickly becomes unmanageable, it puts the tug
and her crew in jeopardy when it does so.
The
wind and waves were slewing the Baxter
around
and pushing her sideways, pulling her towline as taut as a guitar
string as it tried to pull the Twohy's
stern around, and the Twohy's
crew
knew exactly what had happened the very first time that the towline
suddenly gave a violent sideways yank to their stern and tried to
swing them broadside to the wind...and more importantly to the seas.
The
Baxter's
crew signaled to the Twohy
that they had lost their steering (Probably using lights or flags as
the schooner most likely didn't have wireless...in fact it's highly
likely that neither vessel had wireless as it was still an extremely
new and all but experimental technology in 1909.) Even as this message was
being sent via whatever method was used, the Twohy's
captain
sent a couple of crew members aft to release the towline before the
tug got pulled broadside to the waves, potentially swamping or
capsizing her.
The
relief was immediate aboard the Twohy
as
her captain rang for all ahead full, and gave rudder orders to bring
her about...it was probably almost the same as steering a car into a skid
as, relieved of the several hundred tons trying to drag her stern
around, the
Twohy's bow
snapped back around so she was perpendicular to wind and waves...but
there was another problem.
The
Baxter
was now just an expensive piece of driftwood, her course and final
destination at the will of the weather. They were approaching that
corner between Willoughby Spit and The Horseshoe when the Baxter's
steering called it quits...and after the Twohy
cut her loose, instead of making the corner, she made a wind and wave
driven beeline for the lighthouse.
Her
crew could see exactly where they were heading, and could do
absolutely nothing about it...the two lighthouse keepers who were on
duty may or may not have seen the Baxter
coming their way, but they were even more helpless than the
Schooner's crew, lighthouses being pretty permanent and thus highly
unmaneuverable fixtures. The lighthouse
keepers, whether aware or unaware of what was coming, were suddenly and violently knocked off of their feet when
the Baxter
was
slammed hard against the southeastern corner of the screw-pile
foundation...it bounced clear, then a another sea...this one a bit
higher...slammed her against the foundation and the lighthouse
itself, carrying away some of that wraparound porch. Inside, dishes
and instruments hurtled from shelves, desks, and tables and
shattered, sending pieces skittering across the floor.. Then she came
up with another trick as the wind swung her broadside, then slewed
her, and her jib boom slashed across one wall of the lighthouse,
shattering windows, tearing away sideboards, and tearing the
stovepipe loose...the waves pulled her back. then again slammed her...hard...against
the lighthouse.
The lighthouse keepers were having enough trouble just
staying on their feet and clear of flying wreckage when one of them
saw an ominous strip of daylight beneath one of the six
sidewalls, probably one of the walls on the southeastern side of the
lighthouse...the floor of the lighthouse was separating from the
sidewalls. The two men ducked, rolled, and dodged flying debris as
the boom slashed through, and over them, and the lighthouse started
filling with coal smoke as the stove spewed acrid smoke straight into
the building. Something else they noticed...the stove had been
knocked away from the metal floor plate that kept it away from the
wooden floor...
WHAMMMM!!!!
This
was the hardest hit yet, sending both men tumbling. At the same time
they hit the floor, the stove slammed over on it's side and blazing
coal rolled and tumbled in all directions.. In less than a minute ten
or twelve incipient blazes were flickering and flaring, and climbing
the walls towards the ceiling. Now the lighthouse had fire
extinguishers...probably soda acid extinguishers...and the guys may
have even grabbed a couple of them before realizing that they'd be of
little use against multiple, fast spreading fires. On top of that,
the schooner slammed into the lighthouse once again,scattering the
burning coal to other corners of the building, at the same time
widening the gap between floor and wall. Not only was the place on
fire, it was coming apart around them.
The
time to un-ass the building had arrived. The Lighthouse had two
lifeboats...thankfully on opposite sides of the lighthouse so one was on the opposite side from the schooner that was
pummeling them...and the two men quickly grabbed foul weather gear,
made their way to the lifeboat, uncovered it and, as heavy smoke
pushed from the damaged lighthouse, lowered themselves to the
churning surface of the bay. They released the falls and pulled hard on
the oars as flames cooked through windows and walls, boosting a
dirty-gray smoke column skyward and adding a bright but definitely
unwelcome splash of color to a gray, dreary day.
Back then even though there were fire boats wireless was, again,
a rare item so there was no way to call for help. On top of that, the majority of fireboats are not designed
to take on the seas generated by a good, kickin' nor'easter so the
flames quickly took full possession of the damaged lighthouse
which ultimately collapsed into the bay, hissing and
sizzling as it did so, just like it's predecessor, .
The
lighthouse keepers spent a cold, wet, and seriously miserable couple
of hours riding out the storm until the Twohy
managed to pick them and the lifeboat up, after which she chased down
the errant and destructive Baxter
and, after a very likely major bit of maneuvering and difficulty, got
another towline established. I have to assume that either the
Baxter's
crew...who
weathered the pounding their vessel gave and got from the lighthouse
without injury...managed to somehow either repair the steering or tie
the rudder amidships, because they continued their interrupted trip
into Hampton Roads without further mishap.
Now
the light was only about three and a half miles off of Fort Monroe
and Buckroe Beach, and though visibility was, at best, suckish I have
a feeling that the glow was visible, so there were likely people who
figured out that there was something
not quite right out in the bay. This, of course, was quickly
confirmed when the Twohy
docked
and the lighthouse keepers appeared in the district office of the
U.S. Coast Guard.
That
conversation would have been worth time traveling back 105 or so
years to eavesdrop on.
The only thing that could be done was begin the
voluminous report that, even back then, likely had to be filled out
and send a crew out to size up the damage and get some kind of light
operating as soon as possible...the latter done as soon as the weather
cleared up. The damage size-up was easy...there basically was
no more Thimble Shoal Light. The only thing left was the somewhat
warped screw-pile foundation with a few charred pieces of wood
hanging on to it.
A small temporary beacon...probably battery
powered...was installed on a hastily built platform on top of the
damaged screw-pile foundation within a few days. Within a month or
so, repairs had been made to the screw-pile foundation and a more
substantial tower had been built, along with a small frame structure
that served as quarters for the lighthouse keeper. Then the planning
for the light's permanent replacement began in earnest.
 |
| The temporary beacon atop the damaged screw pile foundation. This was taken just four days after the collision and fire that destroyed the second lighthouse. Take a look at the piling closest to the camera, and note both the way it's bent and the fact that the two horizontal structural members close to the water are detached from it...probably damage from the pounding that the Baxter gave it. Ditto the two beams that form a bent 'V' just to the right of the same piling. A crew probably had to go out nightly to light the beacon...not a fun job in heavy weather. The Bay's almost like a sheet of glass in this pic, a far cry from the seas that had been running four days earlier. |
It would be five years before a new lighthouse replaced
the temporary structure perched on top of the old screw pile. First
the Lighthouse Board had to come up with a design, and as the frame
screw pile lighthouses, pretty as they were, just weren't standing up
well at that location, they decided on newer technology...the so
called 'Sparkplug' lighthouse.
 |
| A good schematic of Thimble Shoal Light's then-new 'Spark plug' lighthouse. |
The
reason it's called a spark plug light is...well, look at a couple of
pictures of 'em...they do indeed look like a giant version of their
namesake. A spark plug lighthouse has a metal, cylindrical
superstructure containing the living quarters and light, built on top
of a deep caisson type foundation. The caisson and superstructure are
both prefabricated ...the superstructure in sections...on land, barged out, and assembled. The superstructure sections are lifted into place by
crane and assembled, erector set style, on site (The Caissons towed out in one piece, floated into position, then sunk into the bottom by
pumping water, air, and sand out once it's in position. If it's
obstructed by rocks or other obstructions, the process is
reversed...air's pumped in, forcing water out and allowing crews to
go down into the caisson and deal with the obstruction. Yes..it was
exactly as complicated, expensive, and sometimes dangerous as it
sounds. Two men died while Thimble Shoal Lightwas being built)
The Lighthouse Board also had to wait for Congress to
approve and disperse funds for the new lighthouse, and then as now
waiting for that crew to do anything was, at best, a long drawn-out process.
It took almost three years for funds to be earmarked for
construction, in two batches of greenbacks...$60,000 in June 1910,and
$38,000 in August of 1912...then construction took another year and a
half or so.
Interesting little factoid here...the temporary light
was, of course, still in use while the new light was being built and
a rope bridge was hung between the small living quarters structure on
the old screw pile and the abuilding new light so the construction
crew had shelter. Bet crossing that was fun in
less-than-awesome weather!
 | |||||
The rope bridge between the new Thimble Shoal Light and the temporary quarters on the old light's screw pile foundation. Bet that was fun in anything other than dead calm weather!\
|
 |
| The new Thimble Shoal Light, with the old light's screw pile and the temporary light and quarters that had been built on it to the right. The old foundation stayed there until 2003. Interestingly enough, the old foundation never appeared an any paintings of the new light. |
The new light featured unique 'porthole' windows and was fifty-five feet tall with a lantern
that originally sent a white flash across the bay every two seconds
(It now sends a white beam across the bay every ten seconds). It had
a kitchen, pantry and living room on the first floor, a pair of
bedrooms on the second floor, and a third bedroom, a watchroom, and
the equipment room for the lantern on the top level, just below the
lantern. There was also a basement, contained within the caisson, and
a 360 degree roofed 'gallery, or deck, off of the first level.
The lighthouse has been in service for going on 100
years this year. The light was automated in 1964, removing the need
for lighthouse keepers, the power source for the light was changed
from huge lead acid batteries to solar power in 1986, and the whole
lighthouse was refurbished in 1998, with other repairs taking place
in 1993.
What
about the old screw pile foundation, you ask...it was in place until
2003, even though it's removal was suggested...strongly...nearly ten
years earlier. And the story doesn't end there...back in 2004, The
National Historical Lighthouse Preservation Act was passed, to save
all of these bits of national and maritime history. The idea was to
donate the lighthouses to nonprofit organizations and let them take
over the care and maintenance of the lighthouses (And thereby relieve
the Coast Guard of the burden, and save the Federal Government money).
One problem...they couldn't find a nonprofit organization that wanted
to take over the care and feeding of Thimble Shoal Light.
So
they decided to auction it off. Who'd buy a lighthouse, you may ask.
How 'bout Smithfield, Va's own Peter Jurewicz, who bought the
lighthouse for $65,000, and is now in the process of restoring it to
it's 1914 appearance while at the same time converting it into one of
the cooler vacation homes in existence anywhere.
The
light, of course, still functions as a navigational aid, and the
beacon and associated hardware is still maintained by The Coast
Guard. And a new generation gets to experience that peaceful feeling
of watching the sun come up over the bay.
 |
| Thimble Shoal Light as it looked when Peter Jurewicz bought it...he added the boat hoist soon after buying it. Sure, it nneeds a little work, but... |
 | ||
| Ya just don't get views like this at your beach cottage at Sandbridge or Nags Head...ya just don't!!! |
 |
| I could get used to waking up to a view like this real quick! |
<***>NOTES,
LINKS, AN' STUFF<***>
It's interesting that there are no paintings, sketches,
or images of any kind in
existence of Thimble Shoals Light's destruction considering that newspapers and magazines such as Harper's
Weekly regularly published elaborate, often very accurate engravings
of various disasters. There may be a reason for this though...this
was probably more or less a 'flash in the pan' news story. When you get
right down to it it was basically a house fire, granted a house fire
that occurred in a unique location and destroyed a structure that was
both a major navigational aid and a local landmark.
It's destruction was witnessed by only a very few
people, and the aftermath really didn't affect the average citizen
much at all. There were no injuries or fatalities.There weren't even
any real ruins to gawk at, other than the screw pile foundation, and
even if there had been ruins left to gawk at it would have been exceedingly difficult for
the average Hampton Roads area resident to get out to them to so gawk.
The story probably passed out of the public eye fairly quickly, so
while there are literally dozens of pictures, both photographs and
paintings, of the second light there are absolutely none...that I
could find anyway...of it's destruction
<***>
At one time there were more than a dozen lightships on
the Chesapeake Bay, all of which were ultimately replaced by either screw pile
lighthouses or Spark plug lighthouses. A couple of the screw pile
lights were in service well into the twentieth century. At one time, there were close to a hundred screw-pile lights along the East Coat
between Delaware and Florida, now there are fewer than ten in existence worldwide. One of
them's in the North Sea, on the other side of 'The Pond'. Five of the
ones left in the US...one in Maryland and four in Florida...are still
in service. Almost all of the spark plug lights that were built in the early 20th century are still in service.
<***>
While 'Spark plug lighthouse' is the most common
nickname for the type of lighthouse now in place at Thimble Shoal,
they are also known as 'Coffee Pot' lighthouses and 'Bug Lights'
<***>
Back in the pre-Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel days, the
ferry landings were at Little Creek, on the mainland, and Kiptopeke
over on The Eastern Shore. I believe the ferries (Which I rode
around a hundred times as a child visiting my paternal grandmother)
had to swing a bit east to clear the tip of The Horseshoe before
swinging back northwest crossing the bay. I still to this day miss
that 90 minute or so boat ride!
<***>LINKS<***>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimble_Shoal_Light
The all but inevitable Wikipedia article about Thimble Shoals light
http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=443
An excellent resource not only for Thimble Shoals light, but for
lighthouses in general. This is a truly awesome site if you are a
light house buff.
http://mysite.verizon.net/ress6511/
This is Pete Jurewicz personal Thimble Shoals light site. The
restoration of the present light is well chronicled, with lots and
lots of pics.
http://www.today.com/id/25971307/#.UwwQJ87wrng
Today show story about Pete Jurewicz's purchase of Thimble Shoal
Light, with video.
great history lesson. i'll look for this next time i am visiting relatives on maple st., just off of shore drive, and indian hill rd on the bay side of va beach.
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