White Shoal Light, Virginia

The White Shoal Light was a lighthouse located in the James River near Newport News, Virginia. It outlasted all other lighthouses in the James, finally succumbing to ice in the 1970s.

For the light in Lake Michigan, see White Shoal Light, Michigan.
White Shoal Light
1885 photograph of White Shoal Light (USCG)
LocationJames River, northwest of Newport News, Virginia
Coordinates37.0218°N 76.5275°W / 37.0218; -76.5275
Year first lit1855
Deactivated1935
Foundationscrew-pile
Constructioncast-iron/wood
Tower shapehexagonal house
Original lensfifth-order Fresnel lens
ARLHS numberUSA-996

History

White Shoal sits in the center of the James just upstream of Newport News. A light was first lit here in 1855, replacing a daybeacon placed the previous year. Two other lights, those at Deepwater Shoals and Point of Shoals, were erected at the same time.

By 1869 the structure at White Shoal was leaning badly and was declared unsafe, being described by the Lighthouse Board as being "of the oldest and most inferior design[1]". A new light was constructed in 1871 and given a fifth-order Fresnel lens. In spite of its exposed location, it managed to survive until 1934 without serious incident. In that year, it was sold to a private individual and a new unmanned tower was erected a short distance upstream. The structure gradually decayed but remained in place until the mid-1970s, when ice-flows pushed the house off its foundation. At the time of its demise, White Shoal Light was the last surviving lighthouse on the James River, and one of only two privately owned lighthouses along the Chesapeake Bay.[1]

The foundation of the lighthouse still survives but is not lit.

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References
  1. DeGast, p. 23
  • "Historic Light Station Information and Photography: Virginia" (PDF). United States Coast Guard Historian's Office.
  • White Shoal Light, from the Chesapeake Chapter of the United States Lighthouse Society
  • de Gast, Robert (1973). The Lighthouses of the Chesapeake. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 22–25.
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