History of lighthouses
Encyclopedia
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
s from Ancient History
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
. A famous example is the Tower of Hercules
Tower of Hercules
The Tower of Hercules is an ancient Roman lighthouse on a peninsula about from the centre of A Coruña, Galicia, in north-western Spain. Until the 20th century, the tower itself was known as the "Farum Brigantium". The Latin word farum is derived from the Greek pharos for the Lighthouse of...
in A Coruña
A Coruña
A Coruña or La Coruña is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. It is the second-largest city in the autonomous community and seventeenth overall in the country...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and there is another at Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
which still stands to about half its original height. It must be remarked that lighthouses existed since the Hellenistic period
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...
, but it is mainly the Roman ones which have survived. One of the oldest lighthouses in North America must be El Castillo in Tulum in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. This aid to navigation guided ancient Mayan
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
mariners from the Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean located in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles....
through a dangerous reef passage and probably dates from the 13th century. Other ancient Mayan lighthouse sites have been identified on Cozumel
Cozumel
Cozumel is an island in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen, and close to the Yucatan Channel. Cozumel is one of the ten municipalities of the state of Quintana Roo...
and Isla Mujeres
Isla Mujeres
Isla Mujeres is one of the ten municipalities of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The municipality, located in the northeastern corner of the state is mostly on the mainland and has a municipal seat of the same name; Isla Mujeres...
.
Lighthouses in ancient times
Reef
In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....
s and promontories
Promontory
Promontory may refer to:*Promontory, a prominent mass of land which overlooks lower lying land or a body of water*Promontory, Utah, the location where the United States first Transcontinental Railroad was completed...
, unlike many modern lighthouses.
Roman period
Ancient evidence exists in many forms. Written descriptions and drawings of the PharosLighthouse of Alexandria
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, also known as the Pharos of Alexandria , was a tower built between 280 and 247 BC on the island of Pharos at Alexandria, Egypt...
of Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
provide information about lighthouses, but the tower itself collapsed during an earthquake many centuries after its construction in the 3rd century BC by the Greeks. The intact Tower of Hercules
Tower of Hercules
The Tower of Hercules is an ancient Roman lighthouse on a peninsula about from the centre of A Coruña, Galicia, in north-western Spain. Until the 20th century, the tower itself was known as the "Farum Brigantium". The Latin word farum is derived from the Greek pharos for the Lighthouse of...
at A Coruña
A Coruña
A Coruña or La Coruña is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. It is the second-largest city in the autonomous community and seventeenth overall in the country...
and the ruins of the Dover
Dubris
Dubris or Portus Dubris was a town in Roman Britain. It is now Dover, Kent, England.As the closest point to continental Europe and the site of the estuary of the Dour, the site chosen for Dover was ideal for a cross-channel port...
lighthouse give insight into construction; other evidence about lighthouses exists in of depictions on coins and mosaics, of which many represent the lighthouse at Ostia. Coins from Alexandria, Ostia, and Laodicea in Syria
Latakia
Latakia, or Latakiyah , is the principal port city of Syria, as well as the capital of the Latakia Governorate. In addition to serving as a port, the city is a manufacturing center for surrounding agricultural towns and villages...
exist.
Working
While the evidence that exists provides insight into the exterior structure of these buildings, there are many gaps in evidence concerning less visible aspects. The remains at A CoruñaA Coruña
A Coruña or La Coruña is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. It is the second-largest city in the autonomous community and seventeenth overall in the country...
and Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
help determine how each lighthouse functioned, though one must make some assumptions to determine how beacon
Beacon
A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location.Beacons can also be combined with semaphoric or other indicators to provide important information, such as the status of an airport, by the colour and rotational pattern of its airport beacon, or of...
s were illuminated. Presumably locally available fuels will have included wood and probably coal to keep a fire going continuously during the night, and there is a large chimney leading to the top room at the Temple of Hercules. The example from Dover has been converted at some stage into a simple watchtower
Watchtower
A watchtower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military, and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to provide a high, safe place from which a sentinel or guard may...
. Lighthouse keepers may have added combustible liquids to reduce the expenditure on fuel and keep the light steady during gale
Gale
A gale is a very strong wind. There are conflicting definitions of how strong a wind must be to be considered a gale. The U.S. government's National Weather Service defines a gale as 34–47 knots of sustained surface winds. Forecasters typically issue gale warnings when winds of this strength are...
s, but little information exists in the literature from the time. It may also be possible that the light was protected from the wind by glass windows, and large mirrors may have assisted in projecting the light beam as far as possible. It is likely that lighthouses would have required considerable labour for transporting the fuel and maintaining the flame. At Cape Hatteras
Cape Hatteras
Cape Hatteras is a cape on the coast of North Carolina. It is the point that protrudes the farthest to the southeast along the northeast-to-southwest line of the Atlantic coast of North America...
in the 1870s, one keeper and two assistants kept themselves busy by tending more sophisticated flames from powerful oil lamps.
Images on coins
While artistic representations assist us in re-creating a visual image of lighthouses, they present many problems. Depictions of lighthouses on Roman coins, inscriptions, carvings, and mosaicMosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
s present an inconsistent view of the actual appearances of the structures. Most show a building with two or three stories that decreases in width as it ascends. The limited size of coins could cause the producer of the coin to alter the image to fit on the surface. The similarity in depictions of lighthouses is symbolic rather than accurate representations of specific beacons.
Later lighthouses
Eddystone Lighthouse
Eddystone Lighthouse is on the treacherous Eddystone Rocks, south west of Rame Head, United Kingdom. While Rame Head is in Cornwall, the rocks are in Devon and composed of Precambrian Gneiss....
by Henry Winstanley
Henry Winstanley
Henry Winstanley was an English engineer who constructed the first Eddystone lighthouse.-Early life and career:He was born in Saffron Walden, Essex, and baptised there on 31 March 1644...
in 1695 and the Bell Rock Lighthouse
Bell Rock Lighthouse
Bell Rock Lighthouse is the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse and was built on Bell Rock in the North Sea, off the coast of Angus, Scotland, east of the Firth of Tay...
in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
by Robert Stevenson
Robert Stevenson (civil engineer)
Robert Stevenson FRSE MInstCE FSAS MWS FGS FRAS FSA was a Scottish civil engineer and famed designer and builder of lighthouses.One of his finest achievements was the construction of the Bell Rock Lighthouse.-Early life:...
in 1810.
American Lighthouses
Many of the earliest lighthouses predate the birth of the nation. The first lighthouse in America arrived in 1716 in Boston HarborBoston Harbor
Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeast.-History:...
. Following the introduction in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, other North Atlantic cities built them as well. The lighthouses were built to foster the growing maritime economy of the colonies. The North Atlantic waters were a “superhighway” for ships, and lighthouses served as the signs, signals and direction for the crowded open waters. They were essential for navigation as the marshy coast lines from Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
to North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
often made navigation difficult while the New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
coast remained treacherous due to its rocky shores. Navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
on the North Atlantic coast was essential to the growth and continued survival of the British colonies in America, and the development of the lighthouse system with their sounds and signals from the shore allowed the shipping industry to evolve smoothly with the colonies reaping the benefits. Today there are lighthouses all along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as the Great Lakes region.
In 1716, the colony of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
built the first lighthouse in America in Boston Harbor on Little Brewster Island
Little Brewster Island
Little Brewster Island is a rocky outer island in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. It is best known as the location of Boston Light, the only remaining Coast Guard-manned lighthouse in the United States, and an important navigation aid for traffic to and from the Port of Boston...
. It was known as Boston Light
Boston Light
Boston Light is a lighthouse located on Little Brewster Island in outer Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. The first lighthouse to be built on the site dates back to 1716, and was the first lighthouse to be built in what is now the United States...
. The lighthouse was kept by George Worthylake
George Worthylake
George Worthylake was the first lighthouse keeper in what was to become the United States. He was also the first to die in the line of duty....
, the nation’s first lightkeeper. Boston Light was the site where the first foghorn
Foghorn
A foghorn or fog signal or fog bell is a device that uses sound to warn vehicles of hazards or boats of the presence of other vehicles in foggy conditions. The term is most often used in relation to marine transport...
was used in a lighthouse. The third keeper John Hayes asked that “a great gun be placed on the Said Island to answer ships in a Fogg.” They used a cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
as the fog horn and installed it in 1719. In the 1770s, the lighthouse suffered damage when the British took over the island during the American Revolution. They burned the wooden parts of the lighthouse and later set charges to blow it up when the Americans regained control of the island in 1776. This was an attempt to make navigation more difficult for enemy troops because the light was essential to navigating the waters. The tower was rebuilt in 1783. Today the lighthouse is preserved by a special act of Congress
Act of Congress
An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by government with a legislature named "Congress," such as the United States Congress or the Congress of the Philippines....
to serve as a monument
Monument
A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...
to the Lighthouse Service, ensuring that the lighthouse will always be manned and cared for by human hands to uphold the traditions of lightkeeping.
Onshore lights, or lighthouses built on land, made up the majority of the earliest lighthouses in America. These were made from a variety of materials and exhibited various architectural styles. Wood, stone masonry, brick, cast-iron plates, skeletal and reinforced concrete make up some of the most common types of lighthouse construction materials. Wood lighthouses were common before the nineteenth century because wood was readily available. It was phased out as a primary material due to the susceptibility to fire. Masonry towers were made from rubblestone, cut stone, brick and concrete. The oldest standing masonry tower in the U.S. is Sandy Hook Lighthouse
Sandy Hook Lighthouse
__notoc__The Sandy Hook Lighthouse, located about one and a half statute miles inland from the tip of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, is the oldest working lighthouse in the United States. It was designed and built in 1764 by Isaac Conro...
(1764) in New Jersey. The stone towers were typically built in the form of a cone.
The screw-pile lighthouse
Screw-pile lighthouse
A screw-pile lighthouse is a lighthouse which stands on piles that are screwed into sandy or muddy sea or river bottoms. The first screw-pile lighthouse was built by blind Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell...
marked an important architectural development for lighthouses in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Carolina coasts. It was a type of offshore construction invented by Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell in the 1830s and first used on the Thames. It made its way to the Chesapeake Bay because of the estuarial soft bottom which allowed wrought-iron piles to be inserted for the lighthouse structure. Inexpensive to build, easy to construct, and quick to build, it marked a significant improvement over the standard straightpile construction type. The screwpile was normally a complex hexagonal structure that sat on six to eight outer piles and one central pile, all of which were screwed in place. The first screw pile light in the United States was Brandywine Shoal in the Delaware Bay. They became especially popular after the Civil War when the Lighthouse Board approved a policy to replace lighthouses in the interior. Around 100 of these complex structures were built on the Atlantic coast line from the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays down to the Florida Keys and Gulf of Mexico. Other common types of offshore lighthouses included caisson, crib, pier/breakwater, and Texas towers.
One of the most famous screw pile was Thomas Point Shoal Light
Thomas Point Shoal Light
The Thomas Point Shoal Light, also known as Thomas Point Shoal Light Station, is a historic lighthouse in the Chesapeake Bay on the east coast of the United States, and the most recognized lighthouse in Maryland. It is the only screw-pile lighthouse in the bay which stands at its original site...
. Built in the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
, it has been called “the finest example of a screw pile cottage anywhere in the world.” Its main purpose was to warn vessels that would require deeper water about the shallow sandbars. Screw pile lights were especially vulnerable to storms and ice. Ice and violent winds could cause the lantern dismount or break. Thomas Point is currently the last remaining screw pile light in the Chesapeake Bay that stands in its original location for this reason. It was also equipped with a foghorn, something first used in Boston Light
Boston Light
Boston Light is a lighthouse located on Little Brewster Island in outer Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. The first lighthouse to be built on the site dates back to 1716, and was the first lighthouse to be built in what is now the United States...
. It remained manned into the late 20th century at which point it was automated by the United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
, something that happened to most lighthouses in the United States over the course of the 20th century as technology made it less essential for lighthouses to be maintained by human keepers.
The waters of the Pacific Northwest offer great amounts of coastal diversity. The Pacific Ocean and the estuaries of the coastal rivers mark an area of huge waves, high winds, towering cliff faces, rolling sand dunes and pounding surf. The ocean is busy with fisherman while the rivers are important to the region’s lumber industry. The coast of California is very rugged and often blanketed in thick fog, making it especially deadly. Lighthouses started being built on the Pacific coast as settlers moved west in search of gold in California. Life for lighthouse keepers on the Pacific coast could often be a treacherous experience. On St. George Reef off of California, five keepers were kept at all times because it was so difficult to operate. No families were allowed to live there. Weather conditions could be so bad that contact with the shore might be cut off for an entire month or more.
A fine example of the lighthouses on the western coast is Tillamook Rock Light
Tillamook Rock Light
Tillamook Rock Light is a deactivated lighthouse on the Oregon Coast of the United States. It is located approximately offshore from Tillamook Head, and south of the Columbia River, situated on less than acre of basalt rock in the Pacific Ocean. The construction of the lighthouse was commissioned...
. The architecture of Tillamook has been called a tremendous engineering feat and one of the most daring of the nineteenth century. Located 1.1 miles off the coast of Washington, it is isolated and located in an area where turbulent and stormy seas are common. It took 575 days to build and cost one worker his life. Built on a rock, the plans initially face skepticism for being wasteful and foolish. Crewman had to blast away tons of rock in conditions that included fog, rain and wind. To keep passing ships away during the blasting, the head of construction had to toss cartridges of exploding powder over the water to warn the ships. The light was a first-order Fresnel lens which stood 134 feet above the water. The lighthouse itself was used solely for lightkeeping; the fog signal and other sirens were kept in a separate area. No women or children were ever allowed on Tillamook due to its dangerous conditions. The lighthouse was often “barraged by storms and the iron roof and lantern panes were often cracked or shattered from flying rock debris.” Men sometimes had to work overnight in water up to their necks to replace or repair the Fresnel lens.