Even with its fine harbor, it was still several years after the United States gained control of the region that a lighthouse was finally proposed for the island. Part of Jefferson Davis’ platform during his successful campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives was the establishment of lighthouses and fortifications along Mississippi's coastline. Two years later, Davis was appointed to the U.S. Senate and funds were finally allocated for lighthouses at Ship Island, Biloxi, and Chandeleur Island.

1853 Ship Island Lighthouse Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Although funds were available in 1847, a Spanish land grant on Ship Island delayed the start of construction on the lighthouse until 1853. A forty-five foot brick tower was completed by November of that year, and it was lit for the first time on Christmas Day by Keeper Edward Havens. The lantern room originally housed lamps and reflectors, but was upgraded to a fourth-order Fresnel lens in 1856. Havens served as keeper until his accidental death eighteen months later. Mary Havens succeeded her husband as keeper and served until her death sixteen months later.

After Jefferson Davis was appointed Secretary of War in 1853, he succeeded at convincing Congress and President Pierce to build a fort on Ship Island. Construction began in 1859, but due to storms and an outbreak of yellow fever, only eight feet of the outer walls were completed in two years of work. On January 13, 1861, four days after Mississippi seceded from the United States, the incomplete fort was taken over by Confederate forces, who built up the fort with timbers and sand bags.

In July of 1861, Union forces aboard the USS Massachusetts approached the island. A brief exchange of cannon fire ensued, until the Massachusetts retreated. The Confederates declared the skirmish a victory, but by September of that year, they had left the island. The Fresnel lens was removed from the tower, boxed up, and taken away with them. The last remaining Confederate soldiers on the island packed the base of the tower with flammable material and set it ablaze.

A large force of Union soldiers soon occupied the island shortly thereafter, and work continued on the fort, which they named Fort Massachusetts after their flagship. This certainly was not the use that Jefferson Davis, now President of the Confederate States, envisioned for the fort. Restoration work soon began on the charred lighthouse. A mast from a seized Confederate schooner was used as the newel for a new circular staircase. A captured fourth-order Fresnel lens and the old lantern room from the Bayou St. John Lighthouse, found in a Confederate warehouse on Lake Pontchartain, were used to complete the tower. The light was reactivated on November 14, 1862 and served throughout the remainder of the Civil War.

Ship Island Lighthouse in 1892 Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Dan McColl began his lighthouse career as an assistant at Ship Island in 1875. McColl had worked for a railroad in New Orleans following the Civil War and lost his right leg at the hip in a train accident. In 1877, McColl was promoted to Head Keeper and served in that capacity until 1899. With his one good leg, McColl would regularly make the trip up the circular stairway and then continue up the iron ladder into the lantern room to care for the light. During his tenure, the brick lighthouse was condemned as unsafe in 1886. A replacement square, open-frame wooden lighthouse topped with a lantern room was built 300 feet from the brick tower in September of that year. The lower portion of the tower was enclosed the next year. When the brick tower finally collapsed in 1901, the rubble was used to curb erosion around the new lighthouse. The Coast Guard employed keepers at the lighthouse until 1947, when the station was automated.

In 1959, a special-use permit for the lighthouse was granted by the Coast Guard to Philip M. Duvic “for private use and general recreational purposes”. In the following years, Duvic converted the bottom floor of the lighthouses into a kitchen and bathroom, the second floor into a sleeping area for women, the third floor into a men’s dormitory, and the top floor into a honeymoon suite. The Coast Guard put the lighthouses up for sale in 1965 with the stipulation that the owner must remove the lighthouse from the island within 90 days of receiving ownership. Duvic was the sole bidder, and for $250 the lighthouse was officially his. For some reason, Duvic was not required to remove the lighthouse from the island. Then, on August 17, 1969, devastating Hurricane Camille struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast. With winds in excess of 200 miles per hour, Camille cut the island in two, creating West and East Ship Island. The hurricane damaged the lighthouse, and Duvic, whose mainland home was lost in the hurricane, decided to not repair the structure. A modern steel skeleton tower was built next to the wooden tower in 1971.

In June of 1972, two young campers lit a campfire near the lighthouse to cook their dinner. High winds spread the fire to the lighthouse, which quickly erupted in a volcano of flames. The lighthouse was a total loss. A group of citizens, known as Friends of Gulf Islands National Seashore, was formed in 1999 to rebuild the lighthouse. The U.S. Forest Service provided the massive 64-foot long and 12-inch wide corner beams, along with other lumber needed for the project. In 2000, the U.S. Navy SeaBees built the framework for the replica lighthouse on a pier in Gulfport, then barged it to the island and completed the tower on the foundation of the 1886 lighthouse. The lighthouse replica stood until 2005, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the tower along with a few other historic lighthouses of the Gulf Coast.

Today, Ship Island can easily be visited via ferry from Gulfport. A fourth-order Fresnel lens used in the Ship Island Lighthouse was displayed at the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum in Biloxi, however, the museum was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as was the lens. All the pieces of the lens were recovered, crated up, and shipped to the St. Augustine Lighthouse, where the lens will be repaired at an estimated cost of $132,000.

1. Lighthouses, Lightships, and the Gulf of Mexico, David Cipra, 1997.
2. "Ship Island Light Rebuilt," Lighthouse Digest, May 2000.
3. National Park Service Gulf Islands National Seashore website.

The fourth-order Fresnel lens from the lighthouse was displayed at the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum in Biloxi, but the museum was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The lens will hopefully be repaired and back on exhibit in 2008.