The Hawkins Point Light was an unusual

screw-pile lighthouse A screw-pile lighthouse is a lighthouse which stands on piles that are screwed into sandy or muddy sea or river bottoms. The first screw-pile lighthouse to begin construction was built by the blind Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell. Constructi ...

which displayed the front light to the Brewerton Channel Range. It was eventually superseded by an iron tower on the same foundation.

History

This light was built in 1868 as part of a project to mark the Brewerton Channel, which had been excavated in the 1850s to provide a fixed deepwater channel into Baltimore Harbor. It served as the front of a pair of

range light Leading lights, also known as range lights in the United States, are a pair of light beacons used in navigation to indicate a safe passage for vessels entering a shallow or dangerous channel; they may also be used for position fixing. At night ...

s, with the Leading Point Light serving as the rear. Like most lights constructed on the bay in this period, Hawkins Point was a screw-pile structure, but of a unique configuration. The square foundation had an outrigger on each side, so that the rectangular house, viewed from above, appeared to sit diagonally on its base. As originally built, it housed two lights. The range light itself shone from a window in the second story of the house, while a second beacon was mounted in a tower on the roof. This tower was removed in the early 1900s, leaving a curiously truncated roofline. In 1924 the house was removed, and a skeletal tower erected on the iron foundation. This light continues to serve as the front light of the Brewerton Channel Range, but it no longer is given a name in navigational charts.

References

*
Brewerton Range Front Light
from the Chesapeake Chapter of the

United States Lighthouse Society The United States Lighthouse Society (USLHS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to aiding in the restoration of American lighthouses and educating the public about their history. With four chapters, and more than a dozen affiliates, it is one ...

External links

* {{authority control 1868 establishments in Maryland Buildings and structures demolished in 1924 Hawkins Point, Baltimore Lighthouses completed in 1868 Lighthouses in Baltimore Lighthouses in the Chesapeake Bay