Monthly Archives: February 2009

History of the Assateague Lighthouse

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The History of the Assateague Lighthouse

By Wilma Young

On May 31, 1831, Conway Whittle of Norfolk, VA wrote to W. J. Curtis, the Collector of Customs, Drummondtown, VA; requesting a pilot familiar with the navigation of Chincoteague Inlet in order that said pilot might meet Whittle’s craft to lead such a craft to the Chincoteague Islands “for the purpose of selecting a site for the lighthouse”. He also requested Mr. Curtis “to make the best bargain for me you can, either by the day or by the job”.

His trip was necessary – even urgent – because there was a scarcity of lighthouses south of Delaware. As early as 1825 there had been concern over the desperate need for a seacoast light between Cape Charles, VA and Cape Henlopen, DE. The general plan was to have a lighthouse every 40 miles as each light was visible for 19 to 22 miles. Congress appropriated money for a light on Assateague in 1831 and the Collector of Customs agreed to the location the following year.

Stephen Pleasonton, the Treasury’s fifth auditor of lighthouses advertised for a contractor to build the lighthouse. Pleasonton was known to be an excellent man with the budget but had a reputation of cutting corners to the detriment on any project he controlled. the lowest bidder was Noah Porter from Massachusetts. Porter agreed to build the lighthouse and keepers quarters for $4000 and outfit the quarters for $400. Congress appropriated $7500 on March 3, 1831 for the building of the lighthouse. The tower was built on sand hills on a plot formerly owned by John, Charlotte and Lauretta Winder. the date of the deed was May 4, 1832 and the original cost was $333.34 for 50 acres. There is a reference in Bearrs report the J. M. Winder also received $106.66 on behalf of Susan Winder. The 40 foot lighthouse was never satisfactory to mariners who depended on the light. It was too low and too poorly illuminated to warn ships of the dangerous shoals protruding from the coast.

Lillian Mears Rew wrote in her book Assateague and Chincoteague as I Remember Them that a “standard plunger lamp with five burners to each lamp used after the candle light method”. When the Lighthouse Board was formed in 1852, they evaluated the lighthouse and described the illumination as being “an Argand lamp with 11 small oil lamps being on a frame, each with its own individual reflector”.

The Lighthouse Board came into existence in 1852, taking over a haphazard system. The buildings were poorly maintained and the keepers inadequately trained. The Lighthouse Board was comprised of military personnel who demanded competent, dedicated workers. They set up standards for both keepers and buildings.

In regards to the Assateague Lighthouse, the board insisted it was “the duty of the government to cause is to be increased to power and range to the rank of the first class sea light – without delay. $50000 was appropriated on June 20, 1860, eight years after the decision was made to improve the facililty.

The following year a crew was hired and $3108 was expanded to select a site, construct a wharf, build a plank road from the landing to the site and erect quarters for the labor force.

At the end the of the Civil War the Lighthouse Board stated there had been “increased dilapidation”.

The project engineer was G. Castor Smith, acting engineer of the 4th Lighthouse district. The work was resumed in 1865 at which time Smith discovered that the $50000 voted by Congress five years before was “insufficient”. On July 28, 1886 Congress voted $25000 more.

The structure and roadway built in 1861 had decayed and were repaired. The old tower was razed, new foundations were laid the present tower rests on a foundation of stone masonry 10 feet thick. By Sept. 1, the brick tower was 37 feet high.

Brick was brought in by boat and brought to the crest of the ridge in carts pulled by oxen. Oyster shells were burned to provide lime for the building.

The tower was at 95 feet by Dec. 13 at which time work was stopped for the winter and a watchman was left in charge.

On March 1, 1867 construction began again – and the tower was completed by the end of summer. The illuminating apparatus was adjusted and the light from the new Assateague Lighthouse first shone over the channel on Oct. 1, 1867. The lens was a first order Fresnel lens, enabling mariners to see it from a distance of 19 miles. The tower is 142 feet high and stands on a sand hill 22 feet above mean highwater, making the focal plane 154 feet above sea level. The first fuel was oil.

In 1867 the lantern the lantern glass had to be protected by wire gauge screens against wild fowl.

The brass plate was put up over the lighthouse door in 1868. Brick walks from house to tower were replaced with planks in 1880, the bricks being used to pave the tower.

In 1885 a new plank wall was laid and a new pump was place in the keeper’s kitchen.

1889 brought a new well, described variously as dug or drilled. A new three-call bell was replaced in the tower with connection to the living quarters. The hurricane of 1889 wrecked the station’s wharf; it was replaced but needed repairs the following year.

The Lighthouse Board took advantage of the appropriation for National Defense voted by Congress in 1898 to prepare for war with Spain – and voted for a phone in the keepers quarters to be connected to the Assateague Life Saving Station, 1 and 1/8 south of the lighthouse.

In 1891 an inspector from the board deemed the keepers quarters inadequate. “The assistant keepers are living at the station in two rooms each. In these rooms they perform all the ordinary acts of life, such as sleeping, dressing, eating and cooking in the winter. New quarters should be built at this station so that the assistant keepers can live decently with their families, let alone having at least as much comfort as can be had by skilled workers in cities. It is estimated that suitable quarters for the keeper can be erected for $4000 and it is recommended that an appropriation of this amount be made for that purpose. The quarters now occupied by the keeper will then be available for one of the assistants”. The request was denied by Congress so the building was remodeled into three six-room apartments.

The brick oil house was erected in 1892 – 14 X 16 feet. A frame barn was rebuilt. the statement of appropriations does not indicate the original building nor its cost, however in a questionnaire dated Oct. 30, 1929 covering government owned real estate, we find this item: “Describe briefly and generally the improvements on land, such as buildings and other structures with uses:
1 Lighthouse @ $95000.00
1 Oil house @ $750.00
1 Dwelling @ $12200.00
1 Barn @ $400.00

We must then assume the barn still existed in 1929.

In 1900 “280 ornamental shrubs were planted on the hill” and “an inch and a quarter driven well was sunk 26′ in the rear of dwelling 2″. Mrs. Dennis Holland, wife of former refuge manager reports that metal stains once went down the hillside. An outside toilet was situated below that site, across the residence drive.

In 1902, 100 additional trees and shrubs were added and “some additional seeds were furnished for use on the grounds”.

Frames for the ruby glass for the red sector were made, and on Feb. 20, 1907 the red sector was exhibited for the first time. This was for demarcation of an especially dangerous area.

In 1910 a masonry house was built for the lighthouse keeper. It was built under the contract from the Dept. of Commerce by a firm from either Philadelphia or Delaware in 1909-1910.

Mr. and Mrs. William Collins moved into this house in 1910, living in it until 1929. Mrs. Collins was employed as a teacher. Their three children were born in the house, Ada Elizabeth in June 1911, Margaret on July 18, 1913 and Ruth on Jan. 23, 1917. They moved to Smith Island in 1933 daughter Ruth and her grand-daughter (Ruth’s daughter). Mrs. Holland (wife of Dennis) reports that they were living in the house at the time of Mrs. Collins visit. Mrs. Collins was unable to go up to the stars into the house and refused assistance when an offer was made to carry her into the house. Ruth remembered that when she and her sisters were very young they accompanied their mother; by boat to a platform lighthouse in Black Narrows. Sometimes they kept house there for a couple weeks in summertime.

In 1968 the regional supervisor of the U.S.F. & W. suggested that modifications to the lighthouse would have to be made if it were to be suitable for public admittance. These modifications would require expenditure of $54,600. Inflation is evident as the expenditure on the site from 1879 to 1882 had been $82,800 including purchase, construction, and repairs.

A generator was used to operate the light beginning in 1933. This was a flashing electric light, using three 100 watt light bulbs. The staff could then be reduced so the large dwelling was no longer required and was sold and dismantled.

After the bridge was built, in 1963 electric lines came to Assateague. A rotating beacon was installed, another beacon replacing that one in 1970. This light is the one presently in the tower. It consists of 2 drums- each with a 1000 watt lamp with special reflectors. The flash pattern is a double flash every 5 seconds.

Lillian Mears Rew writes that the keepers quarters was built in 1867 “consisting of three large sections large enough to house three families regardless of the size of each family.” The large home was located “on a very high hill” (one wonders; how high as the present structure is only 22 feet above sea level and only the hill where law enforcements’ residence were built any higher.) To the south of the lighthouse she describes a “cement and brick structure” having been built for Mr. William Collins, the lighthouse keeper.

She reports that William Parker (an African-American man) “was briefly a keeper at Assateague but soon transferred to Killock Shoals on Chincoteague Bay.

The large keepers house was built in 1867 and dismantled and sold in 1933 as there was no longer a need for so many keepers as the light was automated.

There is evidence of an earlier dwelling-note picture of 1833 lighthouse with “keepers house”. There is a note in files at H.Q. that a bungalow was “sold to Geo Kilsner in 1929 for a Hunt Club. Later sold to Monrone.”

Was this the first keepers house- the picture of which appears in “Virginia’s Eastern Shore”-or are they referring to the large house dismantled in 1933″?

These facts can probably be ascertained only by checking records of deeds and transfers at the Accomack County Court House.

A set of steps leads from the northwest corner of the 1910 built house down the hill towards Assateague Village. One note says this was the set of steps from the “main keepers house”.

Assateague Island, a Virginia Home to the Wild Ponies Also Home to Wildlife of all Kinds

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In the winter I walk the beach, often without another human in sight… that’s when my soul recovers. The first time I saw a peregrine do his stoop…the one and only time I saw a woodcock plunge to earth in his courting flight, the day I saw the first foal of the season being born behind my house, the year we had…for the first time in 50 years, a pair of eagles build their nest and the young stood out on a branch and did avian aerobics…getting their wings ready for flight.  –Wilma Young, former senior volunteer and intern with the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.

By Jessica Van Dessel

Fall and winter can be stormy, so this is the time to stay on the high ground, and grow heavy, scruffy coats for protection. With the whole of Assateague at their disposal, the ponies separate into small herds, and pick different parts of the island for their home territory. The herds usually consist of the stallion, his mares and their foals. A typical day begins with an early morning visit to a fresh water pond, followed by eating, eating, and more eating, another session at the pond, and then the shelter of the trees at night. The ponies’ favorite foods are cord grass, which grows in the marshes, and American beach grass, found in the dunes. But they’ll eat almost anything on the island – including poison ivy.

Photo by Thomas Adkins

Though they share the island with birds, squirrels, deer and foxes, the ponies have no predators to threaten them, and so their lives are generally peaceful. Stallions will, however, try to steal mares away from another stallion's herd, and this can lead to dramatic fights. The young ponies have many games they play with each other, that help them to learn the skills they'll need as adults. Once they are two or three years old, they will either leave the herd of their own accord, or (if they're male) be driven away by the stallion, eventually to form herds of their own.PopulationWhat is the biggest threat to the ponies' health and freedom? Ironically, it may be the ponies themselves. Assateague, being an island, has only but so much food available; if the population of ponies gets too big, there will not be enough resources to support them all. It's been determined that about 150 animals is the maximum number that can live in a healthy way on either end of the island. So what can be done to ensure that the herds stay under that number, without interfering too greatly in the ponies' natural way of life? In Maryland, park managers have recently begun administer birth-control vaccines to female ponies using dart guns. But in Virginia, the people of the island of Chincoteague have long had a simple solution to pony population control.Pony PenningChincoteague, unlike its neighbor Assateague, has been inhabited for decades. In 1924, the townspeople of Chincoteague had just formed a much-needed fire department, and were looking for ways to raise money to buy firefighting equipment. They decided that once a year, they would round up the wild ponies on Assateague and sell some of the young colts at an auction. The proceeds of the auction would benefit the fire department, the ponies would benefit from the thinning of their numbers, and everyone would have a festival to look forward to.This "pony penning," as it came to be known, is still a major attraction to thousands of visitors today, just as it was a big event in 1924. Pony penning is always held the last week of July. For the first part of the week, the Chincoteague firefighters and other men on horseback ride over Assateague, rounding up the ponies and driving them into corrals. Because of this, the firefighters have earned the nickname "saltwater cowboys" - and there's no question that they've earned it. The weather during pony penning is invariably stifling. The mosquitoes are fierce. Some of the ponies know every patch of quicksand, every impenetrable thicket, and every sandy slope, and will lead the riders through it all. Nevertheless, by Wednesday, both herds will have been rounded up and brought to the edge of the channel that runs between Assateague and Chincoteague.

This channel is about a quarter of a mile wide. When the tide is slack, the ponies are driven into the water, to make the swim across to the opposite shore. It takes them less than 10 minutes. They generally have no problem with the swim, but boats are waiting to pick up any pony that has difficulty. Crowds of admirers line the shore, cheering the ponies on. The ponies are rested for up to an hour; then, kept close in a formation, they parade up Ridge Road, to Beebe Road, over to Main Street and down to the holding pens at the carnival grounds, where they are held until the auction on Thursday morning.

Only the colts that are one year old or younger are put up for sale. Those judged to be too young to leave their mares are put back into the herd and can be picked up by their owners at the October roundup. There are three roundups each year so the ponies can be checked by a veterinarian and fire company personnel.

It can be sad to see the mares and the colts separated. But onlookers must understand that it is necessary to keep the population of the herd down to a healthy size. Besides, every colt that is sold goes to fulfill someone’s dream. These beautiful ponies are loved by families all over the world.

Home Again

It’s much quieter on Friday, when the ponies swim back home. They shake themselves off once they reach the shore of Assateague, and then amble back into the marsh. The saltwater cowboys might visit them again in the winter, to drop off loads of hay, but except for the roundups, the ponies will be left alone for another year, to enjoy their freedom on their wild island.

Jessica Van Dessel has lived on the Eastern Shore of Virginia all her life, in the town of Parksley about 45 minutes from the island of the wild ponies. She likes reading, hiking and bicycling, and has spent many hours on Assateague’s trails. She works at the Eastern Shore Public Library and farms with her family.

Assateague is a skinny strip of land with a hook on one end that lies off the coasts of Maryland and Virginia. It’s a barrier island, meaning that it protects the mainland from the brunt of the Atlantic Ocean. Much of Assateague is marsh and sandy beach, but there are trees and shrubs on some of the higher ground.

The island has no towns or houses on it except The Big House, that is, the former keeper’s house, just across from the lighthouse. South of that are two buildings which have been used for law enforcement housing and sometimes summer interns. The northern part is a national seashore, and the southern part, a national wildlife refuge. Under this protection, the many different species of animals that call the island home lead free and natural lives. And the most famous of the island’s inhabitants are the bands of wild ponies that have been here for 300 years.

Those who came to the Virginia end of Assateague years ago will recall seeing the ponies move about on the beach, walking on the roadways, and mingling closely with visitors, to the delight of children. But this up close view of the ponies is no longer allowed and in fact, it may be difficult to see a Chincoteague pony now, except perhaps in a distance. This is because in 1989, as the number of visitors increased, it was decided by Assateague management to fence the ponies into what are officially called “compartments.” An article in a 1996 edition of The Piping Plover, a publication of the Chincoteague Natural History Association, reports that fencing and maintaining the ponies within compartments is required to protect the majority of the freshwater impoundment habitats, threatened and endangered species habitat, and the fragile dunes.” It is not hard to come across stories from the past about ponies being struck by cars, about children being allowed to get close to a pony’s back legs and visitors feeding almost everything to the ponies. So the warning signs, “Wild Ponies Bite and Kick” that everyone used to see are no longer present.

This in no way keeps the ponies from roaming free in a wide span of open space, but it does make them harder to see. The ponies are divided into two herds, known as the southern herd and the northern herd. The southern herd is the one visitors see on the right side of Beach Road on the way out to the Atlantic. The larger, northern herd, numbering about 110 ponies, is not seen by the public unless visitors take one of the commercial boat tours, have their own boat, or take the tour bus run by the Natural History Association. This leaves from near the information center.

Where Did The Ponies Come From?

If the ponies have lived on Assateague for over 300 years, then where did they come from? Nobody really knows. There are a couple of theories. The most romantic one says that the ponies were shipwrecked on the island. Perhaps a Spanish galleon, taking a herd of small horses to work in the gold mines of South America, was wrecked in a storm; and perhaps the horses swam free, reached the shore and claimed the island for themselves. There were certainly plenty of ships wrecked off the shallow shores of Assateague in the 16th and 17th centuries.

But there is another theory that might be more likely. In colonial days, many farmers would pasture their livestock – including horses – on the barrier islands, because it was easier and cheaper than building fences. The animals were both protected and corralled by the water around the island, and when the farmers wanted the animals, they would simply round them up and swim them back over to the mainland. It was inevitable that some animals were forgotten or overlooked, and this, many people believe, is what formed the beginnings of the herd of wild ponies.

An account written by R. Owen Hooks in his Guide to the Wild Pony Auction tells how livestock owners in the 1600′s would release their animals to the islands to avoid paying taxes. England had established fencing laws on the colonies, “whereby a tariff was imposed on livestock enclosures.” Writes Mr. Hooks, “This relocation of livestock to dozens of islands on the Atlantic coast resulted in resident populations of swine, jack rabbits, sheep, goats, cattle, oxen and horses in many different places.”

The Chincoteague Ponies

Wherever the ponies came from, after 300 years they have turned into a special breed of their own: the Chincoteague ponies. Not as small as some ponies, yet shorter than an average horse, they stand about 13 hands high. They can be found in all colors, with many pintos among them. They are unshod, and their hooves appear to be unusually long, but this is simply because Assateague’s sandy soil does not grind the hooves down. The ponies also look fat because the high amount of salt in their diet causes them to drink a lot of water. Their average lifespan is about 20 years. The ponies are known for being good-natured and gentle but they are still wild horses

The Life of the Ponies.

With their freedom and a minimum of interference from humans, the ponies can live according to the rhythms of nature. Each season has its own events. Spring is when the new foals are born, one every year for most mares. Summer is probably not the ponies’ favorite time, for the flies and mosquitoes on Assateague are terrible. The ponies use their long tails to flick the annoying bugs off themselves and each other, and sometimes wade into the ocean to stay cool.