In 1852 the Lighthouse Board received a Congressional appropriation of $5,000 to purchase land and erect a beacon at Jones Point. Three years later, the money was used to purchase a tract of land measuring 30 by 100 feet from the Manassas Gap Railroad Company for $501. The land included one of the boundary stones of the original District of Columbia. The stone marked the southern point of the diamond-shaped district, and was installed by George Washington. The stone is still visible today in the seawall just south of the lighthouse, and to the north of the lighthouse a marker designating the boundary between Maryland-Virginia can be seen.

First lit on May 3, 1856 by keeper George L. Deeton, the lighthouse is a wooden clapboard house-shaped structure with a pitched cedar roof, sitting on a brick foundation. The house contains a porch perpendicular to the river, which includes what would appear to be the front door. In the lawn near the porch is the six-foot-square masonry foundation of what was a water well. The actual front door to the house is larger, and located on the side of the building facing the river. Inside on the main floor, a central hallway originally divided the space into two large rooms, each containing a large brick fireplace. In the middle of the hallway a hatch door leads to the basement, which contains two large rooms with brick floors. Fireplaces also adorn these spaces and are positioned directly underneath the main floor hearths so they can use the same chimneys. Above the main floor is one large room topped by a pitched dormer-style ceiling. A ladder ascends through this ceiling up to the lantern room, whose interior is like that of a large barrel. The lantern room contains ten trapezoidal windows along with slots for ventilation.

Jones Point Light Tower Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

The exterior of the house was painted white, while the protruding lantern was painted black. An iron catwalk formerly encircled the lantern room, which housed a fifth-order Fresnel lens that ships could see from up to nine miles away.

From the beginning, the lighthouse grounds were a center of good times for local residents. During the summer, fishermen, boaters and picnickers would gather to enjoy the park-like setting. In colder weather, the beacon’s light, which played upon the frozen river ice, served as an attractive backdrop for ice skating. Less wholesome pursuits also took place in the buoy shed near the lighthouse, where Maryland rye and Virginia corn whiskeys often accompanied poker games, even during the traumatic years of the Civil War.

For a number of years, the Jones Point Lighthouse was home to keeper Benjamin Greenwood’s clan of eleven children and his wife; in total he was married twice and spawned fourteen offspring. He kept the lighthouse from 1866 until his death in 1903.

Whale oil lamps were originally used to power the beacon at Jones Point, but in 1858 the Lighthouse Board allowed an Alexandria gas company to extend lines to the station. Soil erosion and corrosion plagued the lines until 1900, when mineral oil replaced gas. At the same time, the light’s characteristic was changed from fixed white to fixed red. As the lighthouse was near Alexandria’s red-light district, this change caused some confusion to revelers prowling the ‘Mulan Rouge’ corners of the city. The confusion ended in 1919, when the light was changed to flashing white.

The Jones Point Lighthouse was slowly obscured over time as the reclaimed land at nearby Battery Cove was used by the Virginia Ship Building Company. In 1926, a steel skeleton tower with a fixed green light was erected in a more prominent location. This tower was automated in 1934 and then decommissioned in 1962, when navigational-aid duties were usurped by the lights of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

When the Jones Point Lighthouse was supplanted by the skeletal tower, the lighthouse was deeded to the Mount Vernon Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The group thoroughly renovated the station and gave it a custodian, a Mrs. McMahan whose ‘Sport Doll Factory’ occupied the grounds for some time. The lighthouse was accessible to the public until 1936, when the Army requisitioned it for a top secret Signal Corps of Engineers project. The grounds were sealed off with a wire fence, and were not returned to DAR until after the conclusion of the Second World War. At that time, the Mount Vernon Chapter found the interior of the lighthouse stripped and ruined, and what remained of the outside walls was pockmarked with bullet holes compliments of the soldiers who had used the lighthouse for target practice.

Jones Point Lighthouse in ruins Photograph courtesy Library of Congress

Lacking money for proper upkeep of the lighthouse, DAR turned the structure and surrounding property over to the Department of the Interior, with the stipulations that the land be converted into a public park and that the group could restore the beacon in the future. In the 1980s, DAR negotiated with the Interior Department, and came away in 1986 with an agreement with the National Park Service that allowed restoration of the lighthouse. During this period, local officials had to fend off the federal government’s efforts to sell the land to real estate developers.

Under the direction of DAR, the exterior of the station has been refurbished, and the surrounding property has been turned into a 50-acre pastoral setting with picnic tables, soccer fields, and bicycle trails. The Mount Vernon Chapter raised $20,000 and received a matching state grant that were used to construct a retaining wall reinforced by rip rap stone. A new picket fence was added to the property and a replacement stairwell installed in the station, but the interior of the lighthouse remains in a state of ruin.

As the last remaining river lighthouse in the state of Virginia, Jones Point is of great historical interest. At a ceremony held June 29, 1993, Leona Kemper, DAR restoration committee chairwoman, threw the switch that reactivated the beacon atop the lighthouse, though its windows remained boarded up. At the gathering were local dignitaries, park officials and numerous DAR members. They were joined by the great grand-daughter of the very fruitful keeper Benjamin Greenwood in hearing a history of the lighthouse and watching as the lighthouse was lit for the first time in 67 years. The signal is powered by commercial electricity and emits a white flash every four seconds.

While walkers and bikers provide some level of visibility and security in the park, no one watches the lighthouse around the clock, and it has been vandalized repeatedly. The lighthouse is near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, beneath which live many homeless who also make occasional forays into the lighthouse’s interior. DAR hopes to restore the interior of the lighthouse and re-establish a full-time caretaker position at the point.

References

1. Bay Beacons, Linda Turbyville, 1995.
2. The Keeper’s Log, Spring 1994.
3. The Keeper’s Log, Spring 1993.
4. Lighthouses of Virginia, Jerry Zaccaria, 1998.

In 2009, a fifth-order Fresnel lens, believed to have been used at the Jones Point Lighthouse, was put on display at the Lyceum in Alexandria.