Carysfort Reef Light is located approximately six nautical miles east of Key Largo, Florida. The lighthouse has an iron screw-pile foundation with a platform, and a skeletal, octagonal, pyramidal tower, which is painted red. The light is above the water. It was the oldest functioning lighthouse of its type in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

until it was decommissioned in 2015, having been completed in 1852. Carysfort Reef is named for , a 20-gun

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

post ship Post ship was a designation used in the Royal Navy during the second half of the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars to describe a ship of the sixth rate (see rating system of the Royal Navy) that was smaller than a frigate (in practice, carr ...

that ran aground on the

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock o ...

in 1770. The light currently installed is a xenon flashtube beacon. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1984.

Caesar and Florida

The original Carysfort Reef light was a lightship named ''Caesar'', starting in 1825. Caesar was built in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. While being sailed to its station, it went aground near

Key Biscayne Key Biscayne ( es, Cayo Vizcaíno, link=no) is an island located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, located between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. It is the southernmost of the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast of Florida, and lies sou ...

during a storm, and its crew abandoned the ship. The ship was salvaged by wreckers and taken to

Key West, Florida Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Sigsbee Park, Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Isla ...

. The owners bought the ship back and it was placed on station at Carysfort Reef. The lightship was often blown off-station by storms, and even went aground on the reef at one point. That first lightship had to be replaced after only five years because of

dry rot Dry rot is wood decay caused by one of several species of fungi that digest parts of the wood which give the wood strength and stiffness. It was previously used to describe any decay of cured wood in ships and buildings by a fungus which resul ...

. The second lightship was named ''Florida''.

Lightship keeper

Both lightships were captained by John Whalton, who at the age of 25 won his initial appointment as commander of the Caesar, in 1825. After the

Cape Florida Lighthouse The Cape Florida Light is a lighthouse on Cape Florida at the south end of Key Biscayne in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Constructed in 1825, it guided mariners off the Florida Reef, which starts near Key Biscayne and extends southward a few miles ...

was burned by

Seminole The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, an ...

s in 1836, the Carysfort Reef lightship became the only navigational light on the Florida coast between St. Augustine and Key West. In 1836, Seminoles attacked Capt. Whalton and four of his helpers as they went ashore on Key Largo to tend their garden at Garden Cove, Key Largo. Capt. Whalton and one helper were killed, and two of the other three were wounded, but the three managed to escape back to the ship, where the rest of the seven man crew awaited, along with Capt. Whalton's wife and daughter, who at the time were visiting from Key West.

New lighthouse

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

appropriated funds for a lighthouse at Carysfort Reef in the 1840s. It was the third screw-pile lighthouse in the United States. The interchangeable parts were manufactured in 1848 in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and a construction crew was trained there. The erection of the lighthouse was more difficult than expected. The site was under four-and-a-half feet of water, and the reef was not solid, as expected, but consisted of a hard shell over compacted sand. The plans had to be modified by adding large plates to the piles to spread the weight of the lighthouse over a larger area of the reef. When the supervisor of the construction died, the

US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers The U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers was a branch of the United States Army authorized on 4 July 1838. It consisted only of officers who were handpicked from West Point and was used for mapping and the design and construction of federal ...

sent Lieutenant

George Meade George Gordon Meade (December 31, 1815 – November 6, 1872) was a United States Army officer and civil engineer best known for decisively defeating Confederate States Army, Confederate Full General (CSA), General Robert E. Lee at the Battle ...

(later commander of the

Army of the Potomac The Army of the Potomac was the principal Union Army in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was created in July 1861 shortly after the First Battle of Bull Run and was disbanded in June 1865 following the surrender of the Confedera ...

and victor at Gettysburg) to complete the project. This was Meade's first command of a lighthouse project.

Original structure

The original lens was a first-order

Fresnel lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the c ...

. The structure originally had a balcony that encircled the enclosed, circular light keeper's quarters. The balcony and its railing were later removed.

Head keepers

* Courtland P. Williams (1852 – 1853) * William Richardson (1853 – 1854) * Ezra Harris (1854 – 1856) * Martin McIntyre (1856 – 1858) * William C. Green (1858 – 1860) * John Jones (1860 – 1863) * Charles Bowman (1863 – 1866) * Charles W. Russell (1866) * Harry W. Ramsdell (1866 – 1869) * Edward Bell (1869 – 1881) * H.W. Magill (1881) * Fred A. Brost (1881 – 1885) * Martin Weatherford (1885 – 1886) * William Lester (1886 – 1894) * Francis McNulty (1894 – 1903) * Miguel Fabal (1903 – at least 1912) * Charles H. Williams (at least 1913) * Charles Johnson (1915 – ), * Thomas L. Kelly (1918 – 1919) * William H. Curry (1919) * Thomas L. Kelly (1919 – 1922) * Captain Pierce ( – 1927) * Alexander B. Jenks (1927 – at least 1936) * Leonard L. Galloway (1940 – at least 1941) * Wallace L. Lester (1942 – at least 1948)

Availability

On February 1, 2019 it was announced that the lighthouse would be given away freely to any government agencies, educational agencies, non-profit corporations, or any community development organizations who wanted to use it for "educational, park, recreational, cultural or historic preservation purposes." This is in accordance with the

National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 (NHLPA; Public Law 106-355; 16 U.S.C. 470w-7) is American legislation creating a process for the transfer of federally owned lighthouses into private hands. It was created as an extension o ...

. If none request it, then it will be auctioned off to anyone else who does.

References

Sources

* McCarthy, Kevin M. (1990) "Cape Florida Lighthouse." ''Florida Lighthouses''. (pp. 41–44). University of Florida Press. * . * Swanson, Gail. (2005) ''Slave Ship Guerrero.'' West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Infinity Publishing.
HMS ''Carysfort'' ship's log on grounding

External links

Florida Keys Reef Lights Foundation
{{authority control Lighthouses completed in 1852 Lighthouses in Monroe County, Florida 1852 establishments in Florida