Many ship owners and seafaring men of respectability have frequently spoken to me on the subject of a light to be placed at the end of Thomas' Point bar, a few miles below Annapolis; which extends a considerable distance out into the Bay, cutting the direct track of vessels bound up or down; at the end of which from four feet, you instantly deepen to six and seven fathoms water. A light placed here, would be of as great utility as perhaps any one in the Chesapeake Bay.

Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse in 1885 Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

The first light to mark Thomas Point was also prolific lighthouse builder John Donahoo’s first attempt at a lighthouse. In 1825 Donahoo completed his conical, 30-foot-tall tower, which was eighteen feet in diameter at its base and tapered to nine feet at the lantern room. A cozy, stone keeper’s cottage was built at the same time, measuring 24 by 20 feet and containing two large rooms, each with its own fireplace.

By 1838, the lighthouse, originally located 100 feet from the edge of a high bluff, was in danger of toppling into the bay. Winslow Lewis, an early associate of Donahoo’s, was given $2,000 to tear down the old lighthouse and rebuild it behind the keeper’s dwelling. Over time, erosion reduced the seven-acre acre parcel on which the lighthouse was built to a two-acre island, separated from the mainland by a strip of water. The lighthouse remained standing until 1894, when it too was lost to erosion.

Years before the lighthouse collapsed, the Lighthouse Board had moved to replace it. In 1872, the board reported “that the lighthouse at Thomas’s Point … can serve but poorly its purpose as a warning of the dangerous shoal that makes out from it at a distance of one and one quarter miles into the bay.” The following year, Congress appropriated $20,000 to replace the original lighthouse with an offshore structure built “on the extreme point of the shoal.”

The Lighthouse Board had previously erected several economical screwpile lighthouses at various points in the Bay - only to see many of them succumb to heavy fields of moving ice. Desiring to build a sturdier caisson-type lighthouse on Thomas Point Shoal, the Lighthouse Board requested an additional $25,000 for the project. When the additional funding was not immediately granted, the decision was made to proceed with a screwpile design. Five acres of submerged land was conveyed to the Federal Government by the State of Maryland on October 28, 1874, and with an additional $15,000 allocated by Congress in March of 1875, the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse was ready for its inaugural lighting on November 20, 1875.

The lighthouse’s hexagonal cottage has a diameter of thirty-five feet and rests upon seven piles, a single central pile and six perimeter piles. The dwelling is picturesque, exhibiting such careful touches as carved balusters on the walkways encircling both the first level and the lantern, and six dormer windows interrupting the dwelling’s sloping roof at regular intervals.

The cottage’s first level is divided into five rooms: a mechanical room, bedroom, bathroom, dayroom, and kitchen. Although the original privy is still cantilevered over the bay from the lower gallery, the Coast Guard installed an indoor “incinomode,” an electrically superheated toilet that incinerates waste, around 1971. A central, spiral staircase leads to the second floor, where another bedroom and a room that formerly housed the fog bell striking mechanism are located.

Crewmen lowering Boston Whaler from station in 1968 Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

The lantern room, accessed by a ships ladder from the second level, is situated forty-three feet above mean high tide. A fourth-order Fresnel lens, manufactured by L. Sautter & Co., was previously mounted atop the cast-iron pedestal that now supports a modern beacon. The historic lens has been removed to the Commander’s Office of the Coast Guard in Baltimore.

Thomas Point Lighthouse was endangered in the winter of 1877, when heavy sheets of ice damaged the screwpile foundation. The crushing impact of the ice overturned the lens, damaging it badly enough that it had to be replaced. As a result, an ice-breaker consisting of “three wrought-iron screwpiles, connected together by double channel-iron beams, surmounted by heavy cast-iron caps, securely bolted together” was positioned ninety feet north of the light station. Over the years, tons of riprap have been placed about the piles to provide further protection from ice and scouring.

By 1964, Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse was the only manned station on the Chesapeake Bay. Four Coastguardsmen divvied up lighthouse duties, with each taking a week of shore leave every four weeks. A lightship tender made a monthly delivery of fresh water, fuel and supplies. This state of affairs lasted until the 1970’s, when a three-man crew, with a two-weeks-on, one-week-off rotation took over. The crewman arriving at the station would bring groceries and mail for the week, and the one leaving would tote away the trash. Scott Kaufman, stationed at the lighthouse in the early 1980’s, commented that living at the station gave him plenty of time to think. “All the problems you have. You can just sit out here and think out all the angles. I’ll even sit here and think about my friend’s problems. That’s how much time I have.”

In 1972 the station felt the effects of tropical storm Agnes, which raised 23-foot waves and brought them crashing down upon the cottage and foundation. The lighthouse managed to survive the assault with only minimal damage, but for a while there was some question if it would survive the Coast Guard’s announcement that same year that the lighthouse would be “evaluated for cost effectiveness.” In the past, other screwpile lighthouses had simply been set afire, and then replaced by a low-maintenance structure mounted on the old pile foundation. Public outcry, bolstered by politicians looking for a cause in an election year, managed to change the Coast Guard’s plans, and on January 23, 1975, Thomas Point Lighthouse was granted historic landmark status. The Coast Guard staffed the lighthouse until it was fully automated in 1986.

Under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000, a consortium of four partners (the Annapolis Maritime Museum, the Chesapeake Chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, the City of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County) took control of the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse in 2004. The City of Annapolis serves as the owner of the station, leasing it to the Chesapeake Chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, which acts as the managerial organization. The Annapolis Maritime Museum houses exhibits on the lighthouse and serves as a shore-departure point for tours to the lighthouse, while Anne Arundel County offers expert advice on how best to preserve the light and the surrounding environment. Lighthouse enthusiasts are now fortunate to have the opportunity to tour the only unaltered screwpile lighthouse in the United States remaining attached to its original foundation.

References

1. “Thomas Point Shoal Light Station: National Historic Landmark Study,” Ralph Eshelman, January 20, 1999.
2. Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse website.
3. Bay Beacons, Linda Turbyville, 1995.