Nansemond River Light

The Nansemond River Light, first exhibited in November 1878, was a hexagonal cottage-style screwpile lighthouse that came from the Lazaretto Lighthouse Depot in Baltimore. Parts of the old Roanoke Marshes Light foundation were recycled into the structure that was equipped with a sixth order Fresnel lens with a fixed red light and a range of six to seven miles.

The lighthouse stood near Pig Point on the east side of the entrance to the Nansemond River. The Civil War was over, the steamboat era was at its height and river traffic was heavy. Schooners, farm boats and passenger steamboats filled the river. The oyster industry was at its peak as well and oyster rock lined the west side of the river channel with mud shoals lining the east side.

In 1876 a letter from the Office of Light-House Inspector had made the case for the lighthouse. He explained that the “commerce of the Nansemond consisting of lumber, oysters, wood and vegetables commonly called truck is quite large and increasing…I am informed by reliable authority that some four hundred large schooners, some of them three masted with numerous smaller vessels, and several steamers are engaged in it…” The lumber trade of Suffolk alone is of sufficient importance to require a railroad from that place to the sawmills near the Dismal Swamp. The lumber is carried by schooners from Suffolk and other points on the river to New York and to other Southern states. …the best location for the light is on the shoal making out from Pig Point on the port hand entering the river in (8) eight feet of water, where the channel takes a turn. Should the light be located there vessels can run for it, and rounding it close to avoid the more dangerous Oyster shoals on the starboard hand which frequently bring up vessels causing damage and delay.”

In 1935, when almost all manned lighthouses were automated and the screwpile lighthouses, dismantled, Colgate W. Darden, Jr., a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, asked the Lighthouse Board to retain the Nansemond River light. H.D. King, Acting Commissioner of Lighthouses, assured him that the beacon would remain. Later that same year, however, a steel skeletal tower with an automated light replaced the Nansemond River Lighthouse.

Keepers

Rufus E. Potter - September 16, 1878 - July 1885
A Jones - July 16, 1885- November 20, 1890
Alphonzo Royster - November 20,1890 - May 11, 1891
Eugene M. Edwards - November 15, 1891- March 16, 1906
Mrs. Ella L. Edwards - 1903 -1906
John F. Hudgins - March 11, 1906 - June 1907
Charles E Kirwan - July 1907 - September 1908
James Temple Ripley - March 27, 1908 - 1924
Edward M. Holloway - Dates uncertain
Robert G. Hudgins - Dates uncertain
S.P. Forbes - Dates uncertain
Kelly Neal - Dates uncertain
Edward D. Parham - Dates uncertain
M.F. Simonsen - Dates uncertain