Located fourteen miles up the Potomac River from the Chesapeake Bay, Piney Point Lighthouse is situated on the Maryland shore of the river. A lightship had been stationed in the area since 1821, to mark shoal hazards at Piney Point and on the opposite shore at Ragged Point. In 1835, Congress set aside $5,000 for construction of a land-based beacon to replace the lightship. The contract was awarded to the prolific lighthouse builder John Donahoo. Piney Point Lighthouse was the tenth of twelve he would complete in his lifetime. The tower was the first of eleven lighthouses to be built along the river, and it is one of only three that remain standing today (the other two being Jones Point and Fort Washington).

The land deed for the construction site consisted of 2.57 acres and was bought from Henry Suter and his spouse for $300. The lighthouse, first lit in September of 1836, is much like Donahoo’s other towers – a thick and blocky structure in the form of a truncated cone. Donahoo’s works were cheap and sturdy, allowing him to make low bids that were to the liking of the frugal Fifth Auditor of the Treasury, Stephen Pleasanton. Since Pleasanton held great sway over lighthouse construction for three decades, John Donahoo’s and (his assistant) Winslow Lewis’s building styles were repeatedly endorsed.

Piney Point Light with bell tower Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

In addition to the tower, Donahoo built a one-story keeper’s dwelling topped by an A-line roof. The small 20 x 30 foot house contained a dining room, parlor, fireplace and cellar, and was given a 10 x 12 foot kitchen later on. In 1884 a second story was added to the structure, greatly improving the keeper’s comfort level.

The old lighting apparatus of ten oil lamps set in 15-inch reflectors was replaced by a more efficient fifth-order Fresnel lens in 1855. This change increased the lighthouse’s visibility from ten to eleven miles. In 1880 a thirty-foot fog bell tower was added to aid mariners in low-visibility conditions. Painted white, this tower stood fifteen feet west of the lighthouse and possessed a mechanical striker. A long reed horn replaced the bell in 1936, and the old bell tower was demolished by Hurricane Hazel in 1954.

A Maryland Historical Trust report gives an excellent account of the lighthouse’s original dimensions and the current condition in which we find it over 150 years later. The tower has a thirteen-foot diameter at the base, where its walls are four-feet thick, and tapers to a seven-foot diameter at the top, where the walls are only eighteen inches thick. The door to the structure is just five feet high, and is set in a threshold that is a single piece of stone. The floor of the tower is made of brick treads, and a spiral wooden staircase winds around a central support column. The outermost portions of the stair treads are set in the masonry walls, and the stairwell leads to a masonry vault that sustains the lantern deck above. Three windows are set at different levels within the tower.

The nine-sided lantern, currently painted black, is accessed via an iron ship’s ladder that ascends through the lantern deck. The panes along the lantern walls are rectangular in shape, and a metal roof with a large ventilator ball caps off the structure. The lantern’s floor is made of radially laid stone wedges, and the outer parapet wall is composed of masonry. An exterior brick deck encircles the lantern room, and can be reached by walking through an iron half. While the fifth-order Fresnel lens has been removed, the original light pedestal is still intact.

In a modern-day interview, Marion Humphries, the son of a Piney Point Lighthouse keeper, gives a compelling account of the work ethic a light steward had to maintain. Humphries’ father was assigned to the station from 1907 to 1912, and young Marion was often called upon to help with various tasks. He relates how he “knew every part of the machinery that operated (the) light and the fog signal...as good as my dad.” He claims that his father was a “stickler” for proper procedures, and that “it was beat into your head that what you were doing was for the protection of the lives of people.” Later in the article we learn that this attitude emanated from the top down. Humphries recalls how a retired naval officer and lighthouse inspector would put on a pair of white gloves and run a finger along the top of the door, looking for dust. Apparently this inspector’s high standards were well satisfied, as he once told the elder Loch Humpries: “Your place looks like a man o’ war.”

The keeper’s job was ultimately eliminated with the onset of automation, and Piney Point Light Station was decommissioned completely in 1964. For many years the Coast Guard kept the property as housing for its personnel, but in 1980 it deeded the grounds to St. Mary’s County. The lighthouse and other buildings were given over to the Department of Recreation and Parks, and this organization allowed the St. Clement’s Island-Potomac River Museum to take over the operation of the site. Though the light is no longer an aid to navigation today, the Museum sometimes activates the lantern at night.

The Museum has undertaken a restoration program aimed at repairing and improving the tower and grounds, and it recently received an $11,000 donation from the nearby Steuart Petroleum Company for that purpose. These monies were used for external lighting of the grounds, landscaping, benches and picnic tables, and brick repairs for the keeper’s house. The restrooms at this public park were also made wheelchair accessible with the Petroleum grant. Other improvements to the property include a boardwalk that traverses a path from the keeper’s house to a Potomac River pier amid a sand beach and pine trees. Flower beds and walkways extend throughout the grounds, and an interested visitor can read from plaques that relate the historical lore of the lighthouse.

The St. Clements group established a Piney Point Lighthouse Museum in a Coast Guard cottage near the lighthouse, but this structure was unfortunately flooded by Hurricane Isabel in 2003. The museum is now located on higher ground in a two-story building just up the road from the lighthouse. The museum contains exhibits about the lighthouse, the Coast Guard, the history of the area as a presidential retreat, and the interesting tale of a Black Panther German submarine that was sunk in the waters of the Potomac. This German U-boat is still largely intact, and is now a historical shipwreck dive preserve. Besides this sunken sub, Piney Point did not see much combat action during World War II, although it was used as a torpedo testing range during the conflict.

Appropriately, the Piney Point Lighthouse Museum can also be reached by boat. Seafaring vessels can dock at a river pier and proceed directly along the boardwalk to the lighthouse and other attractions.

Photo Gallery: 1

References

1. Bay Beacons, Linda Turbyville, 1995.
2. “The Piney Point Lighthouse Museum and Historic Park,” St. Mary’s County, Maryland website.
3. The Lighthouses of the Chesapeake, Robert de Gast, 1993.