During the early years, the beacon light was referred to as the Cape Henlopen Lower Light. Later it was called a range and harbor light. Initially the rubble stone tower was about 45 feet high. No dwelling was associated with the beacon as Stephen Pleasonton, the fifth auditor of the Treasury in charge of our system at the time, felt that the service could save on expenses by having the keeper of the main light tend both aids.
The Cape Henlopen Lighthouse was the fifth lighthouse constructed in the Colonies, completed in 1764, the same year as the Sandy Hook Lighthouse in New Jersey. The story of the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse is one of eroding sand, accreting sand, shifting sand, sand seeping into the keepers' dwelling and the tower, and amassing sand. Sand amassed in such large amounts that at times it piled up against the dwelling to the extent that the keeper's children could exit via tile upstairs windows and slide to the ground.
In 1788 Benjamin Franklin, President of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, appointed a Committee of Wardens to investigate the condition of the Cape Henlopen light station, located in the State of Delaware. The tower was virtually built upon shifting sands and from its early days caused uneasiness as to its preservation.
The tower of the old Cape Henry Lighthouse still stands, gaunt and silent, perched atop a dominating sand dune at the edge of the sea at the junction of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Though its light is gone and repairs would be helpful, it continues as a noted, familiar and ancient landmark. Such it has been since its construction was begun in 1791.
May 16, 1873 - A keeper applying to this office will be given a leave of absence for 10 to 14 days a quarter between March 31 and Nov. 31, at other times leave will only be granted to the applicant having a substitute who must be a person of good character and also fair ability. A leave for four days can be granted by the principal keeper. The two assistant keepers are entitled to three roomw between them, a bedroom each and a kitchen on the third floor. This leaves the keeper two bedrooms on the second floor and a parlor, dining room and kitchen [on the ground floor]. W.F.
On one occasion while waiting in Cordova for a ship, advantage was taken of the few days interlude to make a maintenance inspection of the Cape Hinchinbrook Light Station. This station is located at the entrance to Prince William Sound, thirty miles south and east of Cordova. A fishing boat and crew was hired for transportation to the cape and return. Leaving Cordova at midnight the boat arrived at the station about five in the morning and anchored. A safe landing was made with a dinghy through light surf to a narrow beach below a high cliff on which the station was situated.
Standing on "Shell Point," a spit of land at the tip of Harkers Island, one is embraced by the waters of Core Sound. Looking southeast, the Cape Lookout Lighthouse stands in solitude across a marsh-studded sound on South Core Banks, overlooking Lookout Bight on the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. These waters have carried the great people who have lived here: lighthouse keepers, life-saving surfmen, boatwrights, fishermen, net makers, whalers, and all those who formed independent communities that made a living from the sea.
Clould Cape May really have been dark until 1823? Recorded history tells us that it was. However, scattered clues point to an earlier light on this historically busy Cape: Cape May at the southernmost tip of New Jersey, marks the northeast side of the entrance to Delaware Bay. The Cape's earliest settlers were bay pilots, ship builders, and whalers. Cape May's whaling industry in the 1680's rivaled that of Cape Cod's. And Delaware Bay has been one of the nation's busiest waterways since Colonial times.
A short distance off the eastern point of Cape Neddick in the town of York, Maine, about two miles north of the entrance to them York River and a mile south of the entrance to the Cape Neddick River, is a high rocky island-about two and a half acres in area-known as the Nubble. It's separated from the area now known as Sohier Park on the mainland by a narrow channel, about 100 feet wide, that's almost dry at low tide. The explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, who met with local Indians there in May 1602, dubbed the island Savage Rock.
The Falkland Islands are situated 340 miles from the nearest coast of South America in the South Atlantic Ocean. The Falklands consist of some 200 islands of which only 20 are inhabited. The main two islands and the largest are East and West Falkland. The islands altogether cover a land area of 4,700 square miles and have a resident population of almost 3,000 people, excluding military personnel.