Wolf Trap Shoal juts into the bay from Winter Harbor, a point a few miles north of Mobjack Bay and the York River. It got its name from the 1691 grounding of HMS Wolf, a British naval vessel engaged in enforcing the Navigation Act and in combating piracy.[7] In 1821 a lightship was stationed at this spot, and after refurbishment in 1854, the original ship was destroyed by Confederate raiders in 1861 during the Civil War. Two years later a replacement ship was put on station.
First Wolf Trap Light
In 1870 a screwpile lighthouse was constructed on a hexagonal foundation, the house being prefabricated at the station at Lazzaretto Point in Baltimore. This light survived until 22 January 1893,[8] when ice tore the house from its foundation. The keeper was able to escape, but the house was found floating far to the south at Thimble Shoals, where the lantern and lens were recovered.
A lighthouse tender was put on station to serve as a temporary lightship and a request was put to Congress to appropriate funds for a new lighthouse. LV-46, assigned to tend the station, suffered a boiler casualty August 28, 1893, killing two of the crew, and was replaced by LV-97 until March 16, 1894, when LV-46 could return to the station.[9]
On 3 March 1893 Congress approved $70,000 for the construction of the new light. The screw-pile design was abandoned because of its demonstrated weakness in the face of ice. The new design called for the lighthouse to sit on a cast-iron pier. The pier was a cylindrical shell that flared out at the top. The shell was 30 feet (9.1m) in diameter at its base and 42 feet (13m) tall. It was built of 210 cast-iron plates which were 1", 1 1/4", and 1 1/2" thick. They were bolted together on site with 1 1/4" bolts. The bottom 30 feet (9.1m) of the shell was filled with concrete. The remainder of the shell became the cellar for the house. It contained water tanks, and separate rooms for the storage of coal, oil, and provisions.[8] The house was built on top of the shell. It was made of brick, painted red in the late 1920s,[10] standing two stories with the lantern on its roof. Unlike the Maryland examples, the roof is flat. Quantities of rip-rap were dumped around the base of the light to resist pressure from the ice.
The Engineer of the 5th Lighthouse District, Captain Eric Bergland, was responsible for the construction of the new light. While contractors and temporary laborers did much of the work, he and his staff were on site and used 5th District ships to support the construction. USLHT Jessamine hauled materials to the site, did test boring, and drove mooring piles.[11]
The metalwork for the pier cost $6,950. This material was delivered to the Lazaretto Depot of the Lighthouse Board in November 1893. The cost of erecting the pier was $31,150. The pier was completed in April 1894.[8]Jessamine began loading material for the superstructure of the light on 26 June 1894.[12] The Lighthouse Board published a Notice to Mariners announcing that the new light would be lit on or about 30 September 1894.[13][9]
Complaints about the visibility of the original fixed light led to a change to a flashing characteristic in 1895. Automation came in 1971. A 300mm acrylic lens was installed in 1984, to be replaced with the current VRB-25 in 1996. A set of black plywood blinds is installed in the lantern to block stray reflections from the panes.
Wolf Trap Light was offered to non-profit and historical organizations in 2004 under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. As no applications were received, it was put up for auction in 2005. Nick Korstad, of Seattle, Washington, purchased the station,[10] and was unable to obtain financing for his plan to convert the light into a bed and breakfast, and after an unsuccessful attempt to auction the light on eBay, it was sold privately again. The light was bought by Dr. James Southard, Jr. for $119,000,[10] and was again up for sale in 2012, including a nearby waterfront lot, for $288,000.[14] In March 2023, the lighthouse was purchased by Richard Cucé of Quakertown, Pennsylvania for $125,000. Mr Cucé also owns Hooper Island Lighthouse near Dorchester County, Maryland.[15]
Related Research Articles
A lightvessel, or lightship, is a ship that acts as a lighthouse. They are used in waters that are too deep or otherwise unsuitable for lighthouse construction. Although some records exist of fire beacons being placed on ships in Roman times, the first modern lightvessel was off the Nore sandbank at the mouth of the River Thames in London, England, placed there by its inventor Robert Hamblin in 1734. The type has become largely obsolete; lighthouses replaced some stations as the construction techniques for lighthouses advanced, while large, automated buoys replaced others.
United States lightship Chesapeake (LS-116/WAL-538/WLV-538) is a museum ship owned by the National Park Service and on a 25-year loan to Baltimore City, and is operated by Historic Ships in Baltimore Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. A National Historic Landmark, she is one of a small number of preserved lightships. Since 1820, several lightships have served at the Chesapeake lightship station and have been called Chesapeake. Lightships were initially lettered in the early 1800s, but then numbered as they were often moved from one light station to another. The name painted on the side of lightships was the short name of the Light Station they were assigned to and was the daytime visual aspect of the many Aids to Navigation on board lightships. The United States Coast Guard assigned new hull numbers to all lightships still in service in April 1950. After that date, Light Ship 116 was then known by the new Coast Guard Hull number: WAL-538. In January 1965 the Coast Guard further modified all lightship hull designations from WAL to WLV, so Chesapeake became WLV-538.
The United States lightship Huron (LV-103) is a lightvessel that was launched in 1920. She is now a museum ship moored in Pine Grove Park, Port Huron, St. Clair County, Michigan.
The St. Johns Light is an active lighthouse in Jacksonville, Florida, marking the mouth of the St. Johns River. Built in 1954, it is located on Naval Station Mayport in the Mayport area. It was erected to replace a lightship, which itself replaced the still-standing Old St. Johns River Light. It is the fourth lighthouse built at the mouth of the St. Johns since 1830. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.
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United States Lightship 101, now known as Portsmouth as a museum ship, was first stationed at Cape Charles, Virginia. Today she is at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum in Portsmouth, Virginia. Portsmouth never had a lightship station; however, when the vessel was dry docked there as a museum, she took on the pseudonym Portsmouth. A National Historic Landmark, she is one of a small number of surviving lightships.
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The Choptank River Light was a screw-pile lighthouse located near Oxford, Maryland. In its second incarnation it was the only such light moved from another location in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Lower Cedar Point Light was a historic lighthouse in the Potomac River near its eponymous point, south of the present Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge, which carries U.S. Route 301 between Maryland and Virginia. It has been replaced by a skeleton tower.
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USC&GS Drift was a United States Coast Survey schooner built in 1876 specifically to anchor in offshore waters to undertake current measurements. She was transferred to the United States Lighthouse Board on May 20, 1893 to become the lightship Light Vessel # 97 or (LV-97) on the Bush Bluff station until retirement and sale in 1918 to become the W. J. Townsend which was scrapped in 1945.
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