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HOOPER STRAIT LIGHT
You won't find the Hooper Strait Lighthouse at
Hooper Strait in Tangier Sound.
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels
has been home of the Hooper Strait Lighthouse since 1966.
The Museum's lighthouse is the second lighthouse
constructed at Hooper Strait. The restored three-story cottage style house with green roof, dormers and
shutters stands majestically by the water’s edge on its new foundation.
NPS photo by Candace Clifford, 1989
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COOL FACTS
A lightship station was established at
Hooper Strait as early as 1827.
Several different ships served duty there
and one was destroyed during the Civil War by Confederate raiders.
The first lighthouse at Hooper Strait was
built in 1867.
It stood for 10 years.
In January 1877
ice flows tore the iron sleeve piles out from under it
and the
wooden lighthouse fell into the Bay.
Lighthouse keepers had risky jobs.
The two keepers at
Hooper Strait made a perilous escape, dragging the station’s small boat for 24
hours across the ice.
Later people found the lighthouse, mostly
underwater, five miles away and the lamp, lens, and bell, were saved.
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 Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard
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Originally located off the northern entrance to Tangier Sound, between Bloodsworth
Island and the eastern shore mainland in the Chesapeake Bay, the Hooper
Strait Light was moved to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St.
Michaels, Maryland in 1966. |
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The Keepers' Life
At the Hooper Strait Light, two men kept watch. Their job was to:
- stand watch all night to make sure the light
did not go out
- ring the fog bell during bad weather
- maintain the building
This lighthouse was not a home for families.
Water for drinking, bathing and cooking was
collected from the roof's rain gutters.
Groceries arrived from the mainland on a very
unpredictable schedule.
The bathroom was located outside on the deck. |
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EXTRA CREDIT
Why is the Hooper Strait Lighthouse called a
"screwpile?"
The Hooper Strait lighthouse is called a "screwpile,"
because it was built on special
iron pilings which were tipped with a screw that could be turned into the
muddy bottom for a depth of 10 feet or more.
The foundation for this one consisted of seven,
10-inch thick, solid wrought iron, (true) screw-piles which
were screwed 25 feet into the shoal.
Unfortunately, screwpile lighthouses did not stand up very
well under ice floes.
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Discover more about the Hooper Strait
Lighthouse at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Website
http://www.cbmm.org |
