8 minute read
Leading the Way
It’s been a part of the landscape, and local lore, for more than 200 years. Here is everything you need to know about everyone’s favorite Cape May landmark.
Leading the Way
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Leading the Way
Illuminating the night up to 24 miles out to sea, the Cape May Lighthouse has guided sailors for nearly 200 years. The present structure that can be seen towering over Cape May Point State Park has been in place since 1859.
Below, 20 facts you likely didn’t know about the lighthouse, based on the book Sentinel of the Jersey Cape (third edition), by John Bailey. The book is available from selected Cape May stores.
1. On May 7, 1822, Congress appropriated $5,000 to build a lighthouse in Cape May. The following July 15, they paid Mr. and Mrs. John Stites $300 for an acre of unstable sand upon which to build a lighthouse. 2. The first known lighthouse to mark Cape May began flashing its signal out to sea in October 1823. However, there may have been unknown sentinels guarding the Cape before 1823. 3. In 1785, the Pennsylvania Board of Port Wardens purchased land on Cape May from “one Thomas Hand 2nd, for the purpose of erecting a navigational beacon.” The tract is believed to have been on a high bluff in front of Congress Hall.
4. The July 1801 edition of the Philadelphia Aurora contains an advertisement entitled, “Seashore Entertainment at Cape May.” Cape May’s first real tavern owner, Ellis Hughes, placed that ad for his Atlantic Hall. It contains this remarkable passage, “The situation is beautiful, just on the confluence of the Delaware Bay with the ocean, in sight of the lighthouse, and affords a view of the shipping which enters and leaves the Bay...” 5. According to the Hand family genealogy, “Foster Japheth Winfield Hand (d: 1896) was born in a lighthouse at Cape May, New Jersey” in 1817. 6. By 1847, the first lighthouse had become a victim of erosion. Using bricks from the original sentinel, two local contractors, Samuel and Nathan Middleton built the second lighthouse 400 yards inland from the ocean. It stood 78 feet tall. 7. In 1851, the Lighthouse Board inspected the 1847 lighthouse and found it totally inadequate. It was poorly built, leaking and rusty. The light revolved irregularly and lacked ventilation. Its reflector beacon couldn’t hold a candle to the new First-Order Fresnel lens. Their report
The electric trolley travels between Cape May and the Point in this early 1900s picture, which shows the lighthouse in the background.
called for replacing that lighthouse with a taller tower and an up-to-date First-Order Fresnel lens. (Most seacoast lighthouses are First-Order.) 8. The tower contains inner and outer walls of curved bricks. The inner wall is a straight cylinder from top to bottom. The outer wall is cone shaped—wider at the bottom—and joins the inner wall just below the watch deck. Arched brick ceilings, known as barrel vaulting, reinforce and join the two walls at each window. Ventilator holes at the windows allow air to freely circulate between the walls. 9. The original First-Order Fresnel lens was made in Paris and shipped to Cape May. It stands seven-feet-10inches tall with a 6-foot diameter. The lens resembled a giant beehive of prisms girdled about the middle with a series of 16 bull’s-eye magnifying lenses. As the lens rotated, the bull’s-eyes caused it to flash every 30 seconds, hurling a beam of light 24 miles across the ocean. The original lens resides at the Cape May County Historical Museum in Cape May Court House. A clockwork
George Gordon Meade, left, who would go on to lead the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg, designed the current lighthouse, built in 1859. Above: Harry and Florence Palmer in 1940. Harry’s wife became the only female lighthouse keeper after he suffered a heart attack. Below: The couple’s daughter Ada, at the top of the lighthouse.
weight system, similar to those in grandfather clocks, turned the Fresnel lens. The keepers simply wound up a weight and let it slowly descend, driving the lens. 10. The lens rotated around a hydraulic float lamp of five wicks saturated with sperm whale oil, also designed by Lieutenant Meade. The keepers stored the sperm whale oil in the two little rooms on each side of the entry hallway. 11. The first keeper, William C. Gregory, climbed the stairs and lighted the lamp for the first time at sunset on Halloween, October 31, 1859. That date makes the lighthouse a Scorpio, a fixed water sign, energetic, independent, passionate, determined. Its color is deep red. Scorpio’s harmonious signs are Cancer (the crab) and Pisces (the fish). Seems like the Cape May Lighthouse is a solid Scorpio. 12. A kerosene lamp, designed by Joseph Funck, an engineer at the Lighthouse Service’s supply depot, replaced the sperm whale oil lamp some time after 1878. The Service converted all lighthouses to kerosene at that time, as whale oil had become prohibitively expensive. They built the Oil House, now the museum shop, for oil storage as the volatile kerosene was too dangerous to store inside the tower. Keeper Harry Palmer (1924-1933), an avid gardener, complained that he could never grow flowers around the oil house because of the oil leakage. 13. In 1902, a new incandescent oil (kerosene) vapor lamp replaced the Funck lamp. The oil vapor lamp had a bright white mantle similar to those in Cape May’s gas lights. 14. In 1933, the Service electrified the lighthouse with an experimental lamp that simply replaced the oil lamp. The keeper’s daughter, Ada Palmer, told us that the electric light wasn’t as bright as it was with the oil lamp. 15. Following keeper Harry Palmer’s heart attack in July 1933, the Superintendent of Lighthouses appointed Harry’s wife, Florence Arabelle Palmer, as Custodian of the Cape May Lighthouse. She served until 1935 when she retired to care for her ailing husband. They moved into Cape May at 656 Washington Street where Harry died. Florence was the only woman and the last keeper of the Cape May Lighthouse. 16. On July 7, 1939, President Roosevelt consolidated the US Coast Guard and the Bureau of Lighthouses. 17. In 1946, the Coast Guard removed the Fresnel lens and installed a rotating beacon with two Fresnel lenses
that rotated once every 30 seconds, causing a flash every 15 seconds, changing its signature from its traditional 30 seconds. This particular beacon was an advanced oneof-a-kind experimental system that worked perfectly from 1946 until the Coast Guard removed it in 2002 and installed the present beacon. Sadly, this historically significant World War II rotating beacon was misplaced and has never been seen since. 18. An unknown vandal burned the duplex keeper’s cottage on September 5, 1967, after which the State Park kept a ranger and his family on site in the remaining cottage. 19. Due to steep budget cuts, the Coast Guard now maintains only the lighthouse beacons and not their towers. Consequently, the Cape May Lighthouse fell into disrepair. Its paint peeled, its lantern rusted and sandy mortar seeped from between the bricks like its life blood. With Tom Carroll as its champion, the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities (MAC), took up the challenge of restoring this valued landmark. Rumors flew about increased tourist traffic at the lighthouse. One rumor said MAC was going to paint the tower blue. A blue lighthouse would not stand out against a blue sky. The rumor may have started when the restoration architect found that the tower was not actually white, but an off-white with a tint of ochre. Its official day mark colors are off-white tower with red lantern and cannot be changed. 20. The official name as listed on maritime charts, early lighthouse establishment and Coast Guard reports is Cape May Lighthouse (not Cape May Point Lighthouse). Lighthouses are all named after their geographic land masses, shoals, or waterways. This lighthouse marks the peninsula of Cape May.
Visitors and residents who enjoy seeing the Cape May lighthouse in all its present glory owe a debt of gratitude to the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities (now known as Cape May MAC). The non-profit began leasing the structure from the Coast Guard in 1986 and petitioned the government for financial grants to help with the restoration.
More than two million dollars in grant money was received for the overhaul, with MAC largely to thank. They opened the lighthouse to visitors with a grand opening ceremony on May 28, 1988. The attendees at that ceremony were the first to climb the tower in years. Cape May MAC has continued to maintain the structure, spending $130,000 to repair exterior masonry and repaint the lighthouse in 2017. The lighthouse’s daymark, or color scheme, remains the same as it was originally built. While it may appear to be simply red and white, the lower half is a vintage hue known as mortar wash.
Now that the lighthouse is once again in great shape and looking beautiful in the original colors, Cape May MAC offers daily tours to the general public. Visitors are able to climb 199 steps of the old spiral staircase to the top and catch the same inspiring views of the coastline that greeted lighthouse keepers 160 years ago.
