Point Adams, OR 
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When American captain Robert Gray sailed into the Columbia in 1792, he named the sandy southern headland Point Adams, after President John Adams. That spit of dunes and grasses would become a vital landmark for mariners approaching the river from the south. But it would take nearly a century—and many shipwrecks—before the United States Lighthouse Service finally built a proper aid to navigation there.
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Masters of steamships, sailing ships, and pilots sent a letter to Major Henry Robert, who would later write Robert’s Rules of Order, to express doubts about the suitability of Point Adams as the site for a light and fog signal. They feared the ocean breakers would drown out the fog signal and preferred nearby Sand Island as a location for additional navigational aids. Major Robert assured the maritime community that Point Adams would receive “a fog signal of the very greatest power” and that its light “will be low and will often be seen when Cape Hancock (Cape Disappointment) is obscured by fog.”
Paul J. Pelz, the chief draftsman of the Lighthouse Board, designed a “Carpenter Gothic” or “Stick-Style” lighthouse for Point Adams. A nearly identical design was used at Hereford Inlet in New Jersey and at Point Fermin and Point Hueneme in California, and a similar design, but with a shorter tower, was used for East Brother and Mare Island in California. R.N. and C.W. Holt of Astoria built the light station on Point Adams.
The following advertisement appeared in newspapers in early 1875 to announce the completion of the lighthouse:
Notice is given by the Lighthouse Board that on and after February 15th a light will be shown from the lighthouse recently erected at Point Adams, south of the entrance to the Columbia River, Oregon. The light will be characterized by alternate red and white flashes, with intervals of ten seconds. Notice is also given that on and after the same day a fog whistle will be sounded at this station during thick and foggy weather, giving a blast of seven seconds duration, with an interval of fourteen seconds; then a blast of four seconds, followed by an interval of thirty-five seconds. The fog signal-house is painted white and situated 160 feet from the lighthouse, south ten degrees east.
A cistern fed by a cement watershed provided the needed water for the twelve-inch steam fog whistle, while a 5,000-gallon cistern that captured the rain that fell on the lighthouse roof stored water for the keepers. Charles W. Tracey, who had previously served as an assistant and head keeper at Cape Blanco, was appointed the first head keeper at Point Adams. Two assistants helped him mind the fog signal and light.
In early 1880, a powerful storm struck the area. The district superintendent reported: “The dwelling and outbuildings were much damaged in January. The storm-shutters on the first floor of the keeper’s dwelling were torn off, and water entering one of the rooms by the windows so saturated the ceiling as to cause the plastering to fall, and the sheathing of the tower, above the roof of the dwelling, was so disarranged as to require its total renewal. The sand rows on the beach in front of the station gradually increased in height during the year, and at times during heavy southwesterly weather, sand drifted over the sand fence and was piled by the wind, in deep layers, upon the fog-signal shed, causing the cisterns to fill up. To arrest the sand movement, the sand fence was extended and raised, and for the present the trouble is removed. It may, however, be expected that the sand will continue to accumulate, and will require careful watching to prevent its completely covering the grounds. The presence of timber does not seem to act as a barrier to its advance, for just south of the station, where the trees are high and the undergrowth dense, large extents of dunes are found for many hundred feet inside of the timber’s edge.”
Joel W. Munson was placed in charge of Point Adams Lighthouse in 1880 and would look after the light until 1898, longer than any other keeper to serve at the station. Keeper Munson was born in New York in 1818. He became an expert carpenter and cabinetmaker but left New York City in 1852 aboard the Ohio. He crossed the Isthmus of Panama and then boarded a steamship for San Francisco. He continued his work as a carpenter on the West Coast and also played the violin for dances, earning him the nickname “Fiddler Smith.”
Munson moved further north in the fall of 1852 and spent time in Portland and Astoria working as a carpenter before becoming keeper of Cape Disappointment Lighthouse in 1865. Shortly after his appointment, he recovered a longboat from the wreck of the Industry in which seventeen people perished. Using money earned from playing his fiddle at dances, Munson purchased material to repair the longboat and began using it to rescue shipwreck victims. In 1866, he saved the lives of thirteen people from the wreck of the W.B. Scranton with the help of his longboat, his assistants, and other men from the area.
Keeper Munson left Cape Disappointment in 1877 and spent three years in Astoria, during which time he built the steamer Magnet, before taking charge of Point Adams Lighthouse. A local newspaper described how Keeper Munson continued entertaining people with his violin at Point Adams: “While Mr. Munson was in charge of the old lighthouse the people, both young and old, felt at liberty to enjoy the hospitality afforded by the out-hanging latch-string, and it was no uncommon thing for two or three wagon loads of friends to drive from Fort Stevens, Hammond or Skipanon in the evening. Then the old violin would be brought out and the hours would fly swiftly by.”
When Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, roughly eighteen miles distant from Point Adams, started flashing its white light every five seconds on January 21, 1881, the light at Point Adams was changed from a flashing red and white light to a fixed red light. At the same time, the fog signal at Point Adams was discontinued. With the workload at the station reduced, the position of second assistant was abolished on February 1, 1881. One assistant continued to serve at the station until that position was abolished the next year.
Drifting sand continued to plague the station, which sat on the open beach with long stretches of sand on either side. “No height or alignment of sand fences has yet proved effectual in checking or diverting it,” noted the Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board in 1881. “A fence on the south side, to protect the station during southerly storms, only invites drifts during northerly storms, and vice versa. It is probable that security can be obtained by removing all fences and unnecessary outbuildings, so that the dunes formed by winds from one direction may be dissipated by winds from the reverse direction.”
The keepers sowed eight pounds of mesquite and bluegrass seed around the lighthouse in April 1882 to help hold the sand in place, but no signs of growth had appeared after two months. Willows were then planted south of the station as a sand barrier, and when they didn’t sprout, a thick wall of brush with a height of ten feet was built on the line of the willow hedge. The keepers later tried planting Scotch Broom, sand grass, and pine trees around the station. Only the sand grass survived, and wire fences had to be built to keep the station’s cattle from eating it.
The old fog signal building was removed in 1884 as it was in danger of destruction by sand drifting against and over it. A sixteen-by-twenty-foot section of the fog signal building and a section used for an oil room were cut off and reconnected near the barn to serve as workroom/storehouse. The remaining lumber from the fog signal was piled up in a safe place.
While a jetty was being built at the mouth of the Columbia River in the early 1890s, the steam whistles of the hoisting engines on the wharf at Fort Stevens would be sounded in response to any steamer blowing its whistle during foggy conditions. This improvised fog signal proved so effective that $11,000 was obtained in 1896 for building an official fog signal on the wharf after the jetty work was completed and the hoisting engines removed. When trying to obtain title to the desired land led to litigation between the War Department and private parties, the Lighthouse Board decided instead to construct a light and fog signal on Desdemona Sands.
After North Head Lighthouse was activated on May 16, 1898 across the mouth of the river, there was less need for Point Adams Lighthouse, and it was discontinued on January 31, 1899. Desdemona Sands Lighthouse commenced operation on December 24, 1902.
Joel Munson resigned as keeper of Point Adams Lighthouse on September 30, 1898 at the age of eighty-one, and Keeper Edmund Bailey was transferred in from Cape Flattery to look after Point Adams until its light was discontinued four months later.
Under orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Stevens, commander of the coastal defenses at the mouth of the Columbia River, Point Adams Lighthouse was burned to the ground on January 26, 1912. The army had built a battery of modern guns nearby, and it didn’t want the abandoned lighthouse to draw unnecessary attention to the location.
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