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THOMAS POINT SHOAL LIGHT STATION

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1875. Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of South River, southeast of Annapolis
  • default (Alexander Heilner)
  • default (Alexander Heilner)
  • default (Alexander Heilner)
  • default (Alexander Heilner)
  • default (Alexander Heilner)
  • default (Alexander Heilner)

This is the last unaltered screw-pile cottage light station on its original site in the United States, built from a standard plan developed by the U.S. Lighthouse Service. The screw-pile type was an easy and effective method of anchoring a lighthouse in a non-stable, off-shore location such as sandy or muddy shoals. It is among the few remaining of as many as one hundred such lights built mostly along the southeastern seaboard. It features a hexagonal, frame, cottage-like structure built over a steel-frame deck that is mounted to the wrought-iron screw-pile foundation; the light is housed within a lantern atop the cottage.

Wrought-iron screw-pile technology was developed by Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell in the 1830s, improving upon a late-nineteenth-century design by Henry Whiteside for a frame structure built on wood piles. It is one of only four extant screw-pile light stations in Maryland; the others are Hooper Straight, Drum Point, and Seven Foot Knoll.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Lisa Pfueller Davidson and Catherine C. Lavoie
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Data

Timeline

  • 1875

    Built

What's Nearby

ST. ANNE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
JAMES SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
MARYLAND STATE HOUSE AND STATE CIRCLE
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY COURTHOUSE
REYNOLDS TAVERN

Citation

Lisa Pfueller Davidson and Catherine C. Lavoie, "THOMAS POINT SHOAL LIGHT STATION", [Annapolis, Maryland], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MD-01-WS78.

Print Source

Buildings of Maryland, Lisa Pfueller Davidson and Catherine C. Lavoie. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022, 75-76.

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