Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse
Richard D. L. Fulton
On August 6, 2021, the United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a “forever” stamp, featuring the Maryland Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse as part of a set of stamps commemorating Mid-Atlantic lighthouses.
The stamp depicts the current version of the lighthouse, along with a flock of the endemic seagulls that inhabit the bay, backwaters, and rivers in tremendous numbers. Apparently, all of the stamps of the set were canceled on their first day of issue at the Highlands, New Jersey, post office.
Thomas Point, bordering on part of the Chesapeake Bay, is located on the southernmost point of the peninsula, upon which Annapolis is situated (referred to as the Annapolis Neck), and is now encompassed within the Thomas Point (Anne Arundel County) Park.
Thomas Point was reportedly named after Philip Thomas, who had purchased the site from Captain William Fuller, and filed for ownership of the tract (which would subsequently become known as Thomas Point) in 1665, according to Thomas Point’s Riveting History, by Ellen Mover, and published at whatsupmag.com.
The first lighthouse erected on the bay was the Cape Henry lighthouse, constructed in 1792 in Virginia waters. Since then, 82 lighthouses have been erected in the Chesapeake, of which 30 are still standing and 23 remain in use.
Lighthouses are generally constructed on waterways where navigation would be somewhat challenging and dangerous, primarily due to the presence of reefs, shoals (which include sandbanks and sandbars), and water too shallow for the safe passage of larger ships.
The Chesapeake provided additional challenges due to the fact that since 1792, the bay had been growing and changing due to erosion of the cliffs of the western shore and further submergence of the wetlands of the eastern shore, resulting in the number of lighthouses that had been constructed over time.
It was not uncommon to decommission an existing lighthouse and build a new one to replace it, due to the everchanging coastline.
Thus, for the aforementioned reasons, there were three Thomas Point Shoal lighthouses constructed over time. The first one—a conical 30-foot-tall tower with a stone keeper’s cottage—having been constructed in 1824 at the cost of $6,500 on a bluff overlooking the bay waters off Thomas Point.
True to the Chesapeake Bay’s “temperamental” nature, the bluff upon which the lighthouse was located began to erode from the waves to the point where the lighthouse was in “jeopardy of toppling over,” according to Mover.
As a result, a “second” Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, which was a relocation and re-build of the 1824lighthouse, used materials that were salvaged from the first lighthouse and was completed in 1840, at a cost of $2,000. The third lighthouse, which exists today, was constructed in 1875, and wisely not built upon a bluff, but rather, was constructed in the bay waters upon the actual shoal of which it was intended to warn of the shoal to ships. The lighthouse cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $35,000.
The new lighthouse was secured to the floor of the bay by employing “screw piles,” which are comprised of steel shafts and plates, and which also serve as the lighthouse’s foundation.
The 1875 Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse was manned until 1986, when manpower was replaced by automation. The lighthouse was the last manned lighthouse on the bay.
The Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse received National Historic Landmark status in 1999, one of only 12 lighthouses in the United States to have been anointed with that distinction.
In July 2004, the title to Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse was transferred to the City of Annapolis. Furthermore, the management of the lighthouse was transferred from the United States Department of Interior to four partnering entities, which included the Annapolis Maritime Museum, the Chesapeake Chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, the City of Annapolis, and Anne Arundel County, according to cheslights.org.
For additional information regarding the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse and its tours, please visit the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse organization website at thomaspointshoallighthouse.org. For a more definitive PDF on the lighthouse, please also visit the U.S. Lighthouse Society’s website at uslhs.org/sites/default/files/articles.pdf/thomas_point_shoal.pdf.
Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse first day of issue cover.