Wolf Trap Light Station-Lighthouse, Poquoson East Virginia

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The Wolf Trap Light Station was part of federal governmental efforts to provide an integrated system of navigational aids and to provide for safe maritime transportation in the Chesapeake Bay, a major transportation corridor for commercial traffic from the early 19^th through the 20^th centuries. The lighthouse embodies a distinctive design and method of caisson construction that typified lighthouse construction on the Chesapeake Bay during the second half of the nineteenth century. Of the eleven pneumatic caisson lighthouses built in the United States, seven were built in the Chesapeake Bay: three built in the Virginia portion of the Bay (Wolf Trap Lighthouse, 1894, Smith Point Lighthouse, 1897, and Thimble Shoal Lighthouse, 1914) and four in the Maryland portion of the Bay (Solomons Lump Lighthouse, 1895, Hooper Island Lighthouse, 1902, Point No Point Lighthouse, 1905, and Baltimore Lighthouse, 1908).

Congress noted the need for an aid to navigation at Wolf Trap Spit or Shoal as early as 1819. In 1821, a lightship was stationed just off the spit and it served this station until 1861 when "insurgents" destroyed it during the Civil War. A second lightship was placed on Wolf Trap Shoal from 1864 until 1870 when a screw pile lighthouse was built to mark the shoal. This structure served until 1893 when ice flows on the Bay destroyed it. The current pneumatic caisson lighthouse replaced the screw pile structure in 1894. Another lightship temporarily marked the shoal until the new lighthouse could be completed.

The screw pile lighthouse was built at Wolf Trap in 1870 from general appropriations used for repairs of light vessels, which had been taken out of service. A contract for the metalwork had been awarded in October 1869. The piles were wooden and covered with cast iron screw sleeves. The "superstructure" or wooden cottage portion of the lighthouse was fabricated at the Lazaretto Lighthouse Depot during the winter of 1869 and spring of 1870. A temporary working trestle was erected at the site, but it was carried away in a "gale." The light was announced in a "Notice to Mariners" as being first exhibited the evening of October 1^st, 1870. The light was described as "a fixed white light of the fourth order, varied by a white flash every 30 seconds, illuminating the entire horizon … " The 500 pound fog bell was struck by a Stevens' apparatus at intervals of 15 seconds. The superstructure was painted lead color to conform to the color of the light vessel, which it replaced.

In 1893, it was reported that the

The keeper, John William Thomas, was able to escape shortly before the lighthouse was torn loose by making his way over the ice to a nearby tugboat locked in the frozen bay. The illuminating apparatus and most of the portable parts were later recovered from the floating wreck. A temporary "gas-lighted buoy" was placed at the site, which was subsequently replaced by a lighthouse tender Holly, which moored temporarily as a light vessel. Congress appropriated $70,000 for a new caisson lighthouse. The lowest bid of $6,950 was awarded for the cylinder cast iron plates and $31,150 for the construction and sinking of the caisson.

The caisson was sunk at the site in March 1894. The lighthouse tender Holly was replaced at the site by light vessel 16. The light was first exhibited on September 20^th, and the lighthouse was completed two weeks later. The light vessel was relieved of its duty. About 300 tons of riprap stone was deposited around the lighthouse cylinder to prevent scour. In 1895, responding to a complaint about the light being indistinct, "the lens machinery was so adjusted as to produce flashes at intervals of 25 seconds." A second-class Daboll trumpet was installed as the primary fog signal; the bell used as a backup. New model fourth-order lamps were installed in 1899. A new reed was supplied for the Daboll trumpet, the engine and air pump were overhauled and a test made of the audibility of the fog signal.

The Wolf Trap Lighthouse was automated in 1971. In 1991, the lighthouse received a major overhaul including repainting the exterior, replacing the window panes with acrylic sheets fitted with metal ventilators, and re-tarring the roof. The lighthouse received another major overhaul in June 1996.

Structure Description

The Wolf Trap Light Station (1894) consists of a wooden caisson, which supports a cast-iron foundation cylinder and an octagonal two-story brick dwelling with a one-story square tower supporting a cast-iron lantern. The cylinder is painted brown, and the brick quarters and tower are painted red, with the lantern painted black. It is an integral station, i.e., the keeper's quarters, fuel storage areas, and lantern room are part of the same individual structure. The same plans were used in building both the Smith Point and Wolf Trap Lighthouses. The Wolf Trap Lighthouse lies in about 16 feet of water, on the east end of Wolf Trap Spit, on the west side of the Chesapeake Bay between the York and Rappahannock Rivers, in Mathews County, Virginia. Owned and managed by U.S. Coast Guard District 5, access to the station is via boat.

The cast iron cylinder, 30 feet in diameter, 44 feet, 9 inches high, is attached to a 32-foot square wooden caisson sunk 12 feet into the bottom. The plates forming the cylinder are 6 feet, 3 inches tall, and bolted together into seven horizontal bands or courses with the flanges of the plates turned inward to give the exterior a uniform smooth surface. The upper or top band flares outward like a trumpet providing support and additional deck space for the lower gallery deck. The cylinder is filled with concrete except where the cellar is formed. There are four porthole-type openings in the upper plate tier to provide light into the cellar area. The cylinder is painted a dark red/brown.

The cellar is located in the upper portion of the foundation cylinder, accessed by a wooden stairwell located off the foyer. Below this level, the cylinder is solid except for a cistern. There are four portholes located in the upper cast-iron-plate course of the foundation cylinder. These provide light into the cellar areas except the oil and coal room. Acrylic sheets with drilled holes for ventilation have been placed over the porthole openings and caulked in place.

Vaulted masonry, which springs from rolled iron beams that span the outer walls, supports the floor of the first level. The cellar has been partitioned with masonry walls. Off the main room, a coal storage room has a wooden door. Next to it is another room with an iron door, which probably served as the oil room. A third smaller room probably served as storage and has a wooden door. All the doors have arched tops to fit the door aperture, and all doors appear to be original. The doorframes for these rooms are made of cast iron. Below the cellar level is at least one water cistern built into the concrete pour. The floor of the cellar is cement. Along one side of the main cellar room is a wooden bench made of 8-inch-square wooden timbers, which, from paint ghosts, appear to have been used to store three 55-gallon-sized oil tanks. On the exterior of the foundation cylinder, is a large funnel-like opening just to the north side of the east ladder, which may have been a coal chute to the coal room.

The two-story brick dwelling is octagonal in shape, 10 feet, 6 inches to 10 feet, 10 inches wide on each exterior side. The brick portion of the structure is painted red, the tower is painted red, and the lantern is painted black. A kitchen, pantry, and sitting room were located on the first level, and two bedrooms are located on the second level.

The gallery deck is brick and overlays the cylinder fill. The gallery balustrade surrounds the perimeter of the slab. It is made of solid curved cast-iron sections, 45 inches long and 232 inches high, which conform to the shape of the diameter of the foundation cylinder parameter. This balustrade wall is surmounted with a 2-inch-diameter pipe rail supported by 2-inch-diameter pipe balusters. The privy, located on the southwest side of the lower gallery deck, overhangs the deck and is supported by cast-iron brackets attached to the foundation cylinder. The privy is iron, semi-octagonal in shape (that is only five of the eight sides make up the structure, the door makes up the sixth truncated side of the structure), with a pyramid roof surmounted by a ventilation spike. A small porthole window is located on each face of the privy to the right and left of the privy door opening; the door is missing. A small metal overhang protects the door entrance. The two pairs of davits and the landing ladder on the west side have been removed; both the davit windlass wheels and the east landing ladder remain.

The dwelling has a decorative lower single and upper double molded brick masonry belt course between the first and second level. At the top of the second level, there is a decorative molded brick cornice on the southwest, southeast, northeast and northwest sides this cornice consists of a lower five-course corbelled band and an upper three-course corbelled band; and on the south, west, north and east sides, this cornice consists of a lower three-course corbelled band and upper three-course corbelled band. The roof of the dwelling is a very shallow pyramid-standing seam sheet metal roof.

Fenestration on the first level consists of an entrance door on the south side. The southwest, northwest, and northeast faces have no fenestration. The southeast, and east faces have one window, and the west and north face has two windows. On the second level, there is a single window on the north, east, south, and west face. Each window has a stone sill and lintel, and the door also has a stone lintel. All the windows were four-over-four double-hung wood sash. Only the upper sash remains on the second level while both upper and lower sashes have been removed from the first level. A four-pane single-sash window at the watch room level has been removed and the opening bricked up. Only the upper two-pane sash of the east window is present.

The original wooden door has been replaced with a non-paneled wood door. All of the window openings are covered with acrylic sheets fitted with white aluminum louvered vents. The stairway and banister is original except for the banister from the second level to the watch room, which has been crudely and inappropriately replaced with treated boards. Some of the original banister balusters are missing. The walls and ceilings are covered with variable-width tongue-and-grove vertical wooden paneling. This paneling is original except in the northeast room where the walls and ceilings are covered with plywood and battens. All the molding around the doors and windows appears to be original. The window and door corners are decorated with bull's-eye molding. On the second level just off the stairwell, the two wall corners projecting into the stairwell room are decorated with ornate corner molding. Most of the original doors have been removed though three four-paneled doors on the second level are original; the hardware has been replaced.

The square tower is one-story tall, the lower two stories are incorporated into the dwelling structure. The tower contains the watch room, which has two windows. The window over the door or south face is a two-over-two double-hung wooden sash vertical in length while the other was a four-pane horizontal single sash. These windows have stone sills and lintels. The cornice of the tower watch room is made from a single lower corbelled brick course followed by an upper band of corbelled brick three courses high. A nine-step ladder provides access to the lantern. The tower supports the lantern.

The lantern is a hexagonal cast-iron lantern with a pyramidal roof surmounted by a ventilation ball. There are four ventilators located in every other parapet wall. The lantern deck is cast iron. A square deck and a gallery rail surround the lantern. Part of the top rail is missing. Two radio signaling and receiving wires were attached to booms on the lantern gallery deck during the 1960s. The lantern and gallery rail is painted black. Three solar panels are located off the south side of the lantern gallery rail.

The original lens was an 1897 fourth-order Fresnel lens. A photograph from the Coast Guard Historian's Office, said to be that of Wolf Trap, shows a bull's eye lens, which would produce three flashes with every rotation. This lens was replaced with a 300mm acrylic lens in 1984 and, finally, replaced in June 1996, with a solar-powered Vega Model Marine Rotating Beacon VRB- 25. There are seven plywood blinds painted black radiating out from seven of the eight pane astragals to the pedestal. These serve to keep reflection from the storm panes giving false flashes. A cast-iron pedestal, probably the original, is still in use.

(1997)

(1997)

(1955)