Old Style Brick Lighthouses, 1820-1849

In the early days of the federal government, lighthouse maintenance was one of the tasks of the Secretary of the Treasury. In 1820, Secretary William H. Crawford delegated this responsibility to Stephen Pleasonton, the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury. Pleasonton served as superintendent of U.S. lighthouses until 1852. He was a bureaucrat, with no direct knowledge of the sea, of construction, or of lighthouse operation.

For technical expertise, Pleasonton relied on Winslow Lewis (1770-1850), a former sea captain from Wellfleet, Massachusetts. When U.S. shipping was embargoed, during the Napoleonic wars, Lewis turned his attention to lighthouses and designed a new lighting apparatus based on the Argand lamps being used at that time in Europe. In 1812, Congress bought Lewis's patent rights for the lighting system and awarded him a contract to equip all the country's lighthouses with the new lamps. Four years later, after this work was completed, Lewis won a contract to supply oil to all the light stations and to visit them once a year to verify that they were being properly operated.

Before long, Lewis was also winning contracts to build new lighthouses. When Pleasonton took over responsibility for these contracts, Lewis formed an alliance with him, and for three decades a large part of the lighthouse construction in the country was awarded to Lewis. Demand for lighthouses was high as shipping boomed on the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes. Funds were short. Pleasonton took pride in his economical administration of the lighthouses and strived to build them as cheaply as possible.

To meet the demand, Lewis had standard plans drawn up for conical lighthouses in five sizes: 25, 30, 40, 50, and 65 feet high. Dozens of these lighthouses were built, many in brick and some in stone. However, Lewis's ignorance of engineering and Pleasonton's pinch-penny policies made most of these lighthouses unsatisfactory: they were too short or poorly constructed or both. Most were later pulled down and replaced by taller, sturdier towers. Only a handful survive today, most of them surviving because someone other than Lewis had the contract to build them, or because Lewis happened to pick a subcontractor who was particularly skilled in brick construction. I refer to these lighthouses of the Pleasonton-Lewis era as "old style."

The historic photo at right shows clearly the difference between old style towers and the towers that replaced them after the Lighthouse Board was appointed in 1852. The photo shows the Cape Romain, SC, light station sometime late in the nineteenth century. On the left is the 1858 lighthouse, tall and slender, crowned with a large lantern holding a first-order Fresnel lens. On the right is the old style tower, a 65-foot model built in 1827. It is short and blunt: notice that its base is as broad as that of the taller tower. It is topped by a "birdcage" lantern originally designed for the Lewis lamp system. (Both towers still stand, although the older tower has lost its lantern and all of its paint. The newer tower was deactivated in 1947. This is the only place in the country where old style and new style towers stand side by side. Keith Anderson has posted recent photos.)

Cape Romain Light Station, South Carolina; US Coast Guard photo

Ocracoke Light, September 2006
Creative Commons photo by Bob Muller

One of the best-known old style brick towers is the lighthouse at Ocracoke village on North Carolina's Outer Banks. Winslow Lewis lost the contract for this 65-footer to Noah Porter, another New Englander. Porter's work, completed in 1823, has held up well over the years. The photo shows the two most characteristic features of the old style design. The tower is bluntly conical, and the lantern is slightly off-center because it is positioned over the top of the spiral stairway. The original birdcage lantern is gone, replaced by a mid-nineteenth-century lantern having distinctive trapezoidal windowpanes. The lantern was designed for a fourth order Fresnel lens installed in 1854; this lens was replaced with another fourth order optic in 1895, and that lens remains in use today. The tower's brickwork was later covered with a stucco-like mortar, painted white. Several other old style brick towers have received similar treatments.

Ocracoke Light is owned now by the National Park Service as part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The narrow, winding stairs are closed, but visitors are allowed to enter the base of the tower.

Dover Castle Lighthouse, England

This is a Roman lighthouse built around the second half of the first century ad.

The Torre De Hercules (tower of Hercules) is the only roman lighthouse still in use and holds the title of ‘oldest active lighthouse in the world’. It was built by the Romans in the 11th century and renovated in 1791 by a team led by engineer Eustaquio Giannini. The 185ft lighthouse still stands today and looks as sturdy as ever.

this still active lighthouse, also known as the coastwatchers monument, was built in 1959 as a memorial to the coastwatchers during the 2nd world war. apparently intended to resemble a giant torch, the four-finned base makes it look more like a rocket. either way, it’s an incredible look. as for the light itself, the ‘flame’ encased lamp at the top can produce an impressive 1,000,000 candlepower beam.