Drum Point Lighthouse
HOURS
& FEES
The Drum Point Lighthouse is open year
round, weather permitting, except for when the museum is closed on
certain holidays. Your
admission
fee for the museum also allows you to tour the lighthouse.
Check out the Calendar of Events to see when
you can meet the light keeper. If you cannot
visit just yet, please feel free to take a
Virtual
Tour of the lighthouse
HISTORY
OF DRUM POINT LIGHT
This summary taken from
Drum Point Lighthouse - Its Origins Revisited
By Richard J. Dodds
BUGEYE TIMES, WINTER 1993/94
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
Also Read:
Moving a
Lighthouse: A Brief History of the Efforts to Restore Drum Point
Lighthouse
 At the time Drum
Point Lighthouse was moved to the Calvert Marine Museum in 1975,
volunteer researchers began gathering information on the history
of the lighthouse. The National Archives in Washington
provided the main source for this documentation. The
results provide the basis for what we know of its history today.
Highlights from the surviving station logbooks provide some
additional insight on one of Maryland's most distinctive
buildings.
Drum
Point Lighthouse dominates the museum's waterfront.
 This screwpile, cottage-type light is only one of three
remaining from forty-five that once served the Chesapeake
Bay at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Decommissioned in 1962, the lighthouse fell victim to
vandals until moved to its present site in 1975.
Beautifully restored, complete with furnishings of the
early twentieth century, it has become the waterfront's
main attraction and is listed on the National Register of
Historic Places.
Tours are guided, and the schedule
varies seasonally. A
report by Lt. William D. Porter to the Secretary of the Treasury, Levi
Woodbury, in 1838, provides the earliest reference to establishing a
navigational aid at Drum Point. Lt. Porter urged that a
beacon-light be placed on Drum Point at the mouth of the Patuxent River.
At
this time, nearby Solomons Island, or Sandy Island as it was then known,
had only one house; it was not until 1870 that Isaac Solomon opened his
cannery and shipyard.
No
apparent action was taken until 1853 when Lt. A. M. Pennock of the Light
House board again urged the board to take steps to build a lighthouse.
On August 3 1854, a congressional appropriation for lighthouses,
lightships, buoys, etc., included $5,000 for a lighthouse on Drum Point.
Initially, the Drum Point light station was to be located on land.
Debates between the state and federal governments over ceding state land
to the federal government, fair value of the land, and size of the site
went on until 1856. At that time a survey of the site was made for
a ten acre plot on the south-most point of land at Drum Point.
However no lighthouse was ever built because the transaction was never
completed. The reason for this will probably never be known except
that the land in question may have been owned by a Richard P. Fitzgerald
of Baltimore. Fitzgerald was involved in a plan to extend a
railway to Drum Point, and the sale of the land may have complicated
matters.
Official records reveal nothing further until 1874 when a petition to
Congress was sent by various steamboat company captains and agents
calling for a light and fog bell at Drum Point. The Maryland
general Assembly on April 6, 1874 passed an act of cession allowing the
U.S. government to purchase land, not exceeding five acres, from any
resident in the state. It also empowered the governor to
convey title to any submarine site up to five acres. this
legislation led to a spat of screwpile lighthouse construction in the
1870s and 1880s, since it became easier for the federal government to
gain title to submarine sites, having only to deal with state
authorities.
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| Drum Point Lighthouse keeper William
Yeatman with his children, September 9,1918.The wooden bridge at left connects the lighthouse to the shore. |
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On
February 15, 1883 a deed transfer was signed by Governor William
Hamilton conveying five acres of submerged land about one-sixteenth
nautical mile due south from Drum Point. The five acres were
encompassed in a circle whose circumference was 263.3 feet from the
center; the center being a point 38o 19' 03.5" north by
76o 24' 56.5" west.
Work on the white hexagonal wooden structure and its wrought iron screwpile base was started on July 17, 1883. A Fresnel lens of the
fourth order was shipped from the Office of the Light House Engineer in
Staten Island, new York, and the light was first exhibited on August 20,
1883. From a height of fifteen feet the fixed red light was
visible thirteen nautical miles in clear weather. In poor
visibility the fog bell would ring a double blow every fifteen seconds.
the first keeper was Benjamin N. Gray, who was transferred from his post
as assistant keeper at Cove Point Light Station.
The
museum is fortunate that the logbook for the drum Point Lighthouse have
survived for the periods 1883 to 1943, and are preserved at the National
Archives. Keepers were required to make daily entries regarding
weather, work performed, and any unusual occurrences. A study of
the logbooks reveals and endless round of cleaning and maintenance, but
the logs also recorded strandings, sinkings, the arrival of inspectors
and visits by Light House Board steamers, trips to shore for mail,
supplies, and for church visits, and the occasional visitor.
A
few of the unusual events reported were:
-
March 12, 1885, when a
sloop dragged anchor and hit the lighthouse, with a crew apparently
drunk, one of whom fell overboard and was rescued;
-
August 31, 1886, when
tremors were noted at 9:50 p.m. and 10:10 p.m., strong enough to
slam doors, rattle the bell machine, and wake the children (yes the
light keeper had his family with him out at the light). The
tremors were caused by the great Charleston, South Carolina,
earthquake, the second largest in U.S. history.
-
March 1, 1887, when an
extremely low tide allowed the keeper to walk completely around the
lighthouse;
-
February 24, 1895, when
ice came over the south side of the river, one floe hitting the
station and causing it to shake considerably, overturning several
chairs.
Shifting shoals and bars brought about several changes to the light.
In December of 1899, Drum Point began operating with a "dark
sector". This was achieved by adding a segment of glass to
the inside of the lantern. By keeping out of this dark sector,
mariners could avoid the shoal water off Sandy Point. Other light
changes occurred, but the light essentially remained the same until the
lighthouse was decommissioned in 1962.
The Drum Point Lighthouse as it appears
today at the museum
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