National Register of Historic Places
Brandywine Shoal Light Station
Cape May Point vicinity, Cape May County, New Jersey
The record
- Listed
- January 8, 2007
- Type
- Structure
- Address
- In lower Delaware Bay, about 8.8 mi. WNW of Cape May Point, Cape May Point vicinity
- County
- Cape May
- State
- New Jersey
- Period of significance
- 1900 to 1974
- Contributing resources
- 3 structures
- Coordinates
- 38.98622, -75.11268
- Reference number
- 06000943
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
Brandywine Shoal Light Station is a lighthouse in Delaware Bay near Cape May Point, Cape May County, built in 1913-1914 as a reinforced concrete caisson foundation lighthouse designed by the U.S. Lighthouse Service.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criteria A and C in 2007, with local-level significance in maritime history, transportation, architecture and engineering; its significance runs from 1914 to 1955, keyed to 1914, when the new lighthouse's optic was first lit.
Physical character
The tower is a 45-foot reinforced concrete cylinder on a pneumatic caisson foundation 35 feet across and 37.5 feet high, with a lantern of cast iron and glass housing a third order Fresnel lens, and a spiral stairway to the watch room.
Historical context
An 1827 lighthouse on pilings was destroyed in 1828, and an 1850 screw-pile replacement, the first of its kind in the United States, had a cast iron foundation. Congress appropriated $75,000 in 1911 to replace that structure, and after a 1913 hurricane sank the contractor's barge Hero, the Interstate Construction Company and the Champion Iron Company completed the new lighthouse in 1914, the first such lighthouse built on submerged land in the United States, and in 1974 it became Delaware Bay's last lighthouse to be automated.