1795, February 7: Land necessary for a lighted beacon on Shell Castle Island, in a deed from John G. Blount and John Wallace, for a lot on Shell Castle Island.

1798 – H. Dearborn, who was also responsible for Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, built the lighthouse on Shell Castle Island. The lighthouse was a fifty-four-and-a-half-foot-tall, pyramid-shaped wooden tower covered with shingles and set on a submerged stone foundation. The keeper’s dwelling measured twenty by fifty feet.

1799 – Samuel Treadwell, amount paid for land whereon to erect a beacon on Shell Castle Island and for the purchased and survey of 4 acres of land for lighthouse on Cape Hatteras.

1817 – Shell Castle Light – A small light situated on an Oyster Bank, between Ocracock Bar and the Swash, and is a fixed light.

1818 – On August 16, 1818, a lightning strike destroyed the lighthouse.

1820 – On May 15, 1820, Congress appropriated $14,000 "for building a lighthouse on Shell Castle Island, in the State of North Carolina, or, in lieu thereof, a light vessel to be moored in a proper place near said island if, in the opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury, the latter shall be preferred."

1842 – The first light-house built at Ocracoke was on Shell Castle island, in the year 1798, and was built in connection with the one on Cape Hatteras, by H. Dearborn, Esq. In process of time, the channel leading in and out of Ocracoke left the light-house the distance of a mile, so as to render it altogether useless. The fact being made known to Congress, an appropriation was made of $20,000, for building another near the channel, and this (Ocracoke Lighthouse) was built in 1823, not by Winslow Lewis, but by Noah Porter, of Massachusetts, for $11,359 35.

Keepers: John Wallace (1803 – ), John Taylor (at least 1816 – at least 1817).

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