Location | mouth of the St. Mary's River Florida United States |
---|---|
Tower properties | |
Constructed | 1858 |
Construction | wood |
Shape | square tower atop keeper's house |
Markings | white tower and lantern |
Light properties | |
First lit | 1872 (rebuilt) |
Deactivated | 1899 |
Lens | Sixth order Fresnel lens |
Characteristic | F R |
The Amelia Island North Range Light was built to mark a channel over the sandbar at the mouth of the St. Mary's River, which led to the harbor at Fernandina Beach, Florida, on Amelia Island. [1] [2] It consisted of a lighthouse and a front range tower with a light, arranged so that when ships could see one light above the other, they were lined up with the channel. During the Civil War Confederate forces removed the lenses from the lights. Union forces seized Fernandina Beach, Fort Clinch and the lighthouse in 1862.
It is known that the front range tower was destroyed during the war. There is no record of when the lighthouse was destroyed, but a new lighthouse was built in 1872. As the channel over the sand bar shifted with time, the front range light was periodically moved to maintain an alignment with the channel. In 1887 the rear range light was moved from the lighthouse to a tramway to permit proper adjustments to be made to the alignment. The light was decommissioned in 1899 after the channel was sufficiently marked with buoys. The lighthouse was listed in a survey in 1924, but has since disappeared.
Nassau County is the northeasternmost county of the U.S. state of Florida. According to the 2010 United States Census, the county's population was 73,314. The Census Bureau estimated a population of 88,625 in 2019.
Fernandina Beach is a city in and the county seat of Nassau County, Florida, United States. It is the northernmost city on Florida's Atlantic coast, situated on Amelia Island, and is one of the principal municipalities comprising Greater Jacksonville. The area was first inhabited by the Timucuan Indian people. Known as the "Isle of 8 Flags", Amelia Island has had the flags of the following nations flown over it: France, Spain, Great Britain, Spain (again), the Republic of East Florida (1812), the Republic of the Floridas (1817), Mexico, the Confederate States of America, and the United States.
Amelia Island is a part of the Sea Islands chain that stretches along the East Coast of the United States from South Carolina to Florida; it is the southernmost of the Sea Islands, and the northernmost of the barrier islands on Florida's Atlantic coast. Lying in Nassau County, Florida, it is 13 miles (21 km) long and approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) wide at its widest point. The communities of Fernandina Beach, Amelia City, and American Beach are located on the island.
The Amelia Island Light is the oldest existing lighthouse in the state of Florida in the United States. It is located near the northern end of Amelia Island in the northeastern part of the state. Its light marks St. Marys Entrance, the inlet leading to St. Marys River, the Cumberland Sound and the harbor of Fernandina Beach, Florida along the Amelia River. The white light flashes every ten seconds which turns red from 344° to 360° when covering the shoal water in the vicinity of Nassau Sound.
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