Scon D. Taylor 



Cape Lookout Lighthouse 



guided them safely in. Instead, they 

 headed out to sea. 



Alexander Hamilton, too, felt the 

 power of Hatteras' angry fists when 

 at age 17, the passenger ship he 

 sailed on caught fire and lost control 

 on the dangerous shoals. Hamilton 

 never forgot his trip on the Thunder- 

 bolt. As a high-ranking member of 

 George Washington's cabinet, he 

 helped form the Lighthouse Service 

 in 1789 and initiate construction of 

 the first Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. 



The original lighthouse, com- 

 pleted in 1 802, was an octagonal 

 tower 90 feet tall made of sandstone. 

 The lighthouse keeper, one of the 

 faithful men who maintained the 

 beacons, kept nine 200-gallon 

 cisterns full of whale oil to fuel the 

 Hatteras Light. 



With their beams, lighthouses 

 guarded two capes, Cape Fear and 

 Cape Hatteras, as well as ports at the 

 Cape Fear River and Ocracoke. But 

 Cape Lookout and Beaufort re- 

 mained dark. 



Early maps listed Cape Lookout 

 as "Promontorium tremendum," 



Scott D. Taylor 



Bald Head Lighthouse 



which sailors translated later as 

 "horrible headland." Shoals 10 miles 

 offshore fueled the fear. But mariners 

 came to know the quiet harbor behind 



AS AMERICA FLOURISHED, 

 TRADE, TRAVEL AND 

 THE SAFETY OF BOTH 

 BECAME INCREASINGLY 

 IMPORTANT TO 

 GROWTH OF 

 THE NEW NATION. 

 THE LIGHTHOUSE SERVICE 



FINALLY SAW THE NEED 

 TO BUILD BEACONS WHERE 

 NAVIGATIONAL HAZARDS, 

 NOT JUST COMMERCE, 

 DEMANDED THEM. 



Department of Conservation & Development 



Oak Island Lighthouse 



the point as a refuge from storms and 

 a rendezvous site for pirates, Spanish 

 privateers and British warships. 



By 1812, a 96-foot lighthouse 

 rose above the southern harbor. 



The Lighthouse Service had 

 hardly finished the Cape Lookout 

 Lighthouse when it began to receive 

 complaints about the lights at Bald 

 Head and Shell Castle Island. Lt. 

 David D. Porter went as far as to say: 

 "The lights on Hatteras, Lookout and 

 Cape Florida, if not improved, had 

 better be dispensed with as the 

 navigator is apt to run ashore looking 

 for them," recounts Francis Holland in 

 America's Lighthouses. 



The trouble came with shifting 

 inlets and inadequate lamps that 

 couldn't be kept burning. 



In 1818, Congress appropriated 

 money to replace the deteriorated 

 Cape Fear Light with a 1 10-foot 

 lighthouse on Bald Head. "Old 

 Baldy," as it came to be called, shone 

 its beacon past Bald Head and Frying 

 Pan Shoals most years until 1958. 

 Today, it's the oldest standing 

 lighthouse in the state. Continued 



COASTWATCH 5 



