Construction of Latrobe's Lighthouse - 1818-1820

I must first take a moment to apologize for not updating this blog for some time. The chronology of topics has finally led me to a discussion of which I have little source material to reference. I had hoped to discover more information about the construction of Latrobe's Lighthouse before I posted this article, but I have had little success in doing so. Since I was not able to discover any new information about the construction of the first lighthouse on Frank's Island, I have decided to approach this topic by establishing an accurate time line of the events that occurred between the purchasing of materials in 1818 and the halting of construction in 1820.

According to Samuel Wilson, Jr.'s report for the Historic American Buildings Survey, jurisdiction of Frank's Island was ceded to the United States on March 2, 1818. It was then reported in the March 11, 1818 edition of the "Louisiana Courier" that the contract for building the lighthouse had been signed. By April 13, 1818 materials had started arriving by way of the Brig Triton from Boston.

The next dated reference I can find is from Dr. Fazio’s report. By July of 1818, Winslow Lewis had sent his agent, Benjamin Beal, to Frank’s Island. Joining him was Captain Edward Gardner, a customs inspector, who drove a test pile and determined there was “no doubt that a permanent building may be erected with perfect safety.” Dr. Fazio’s report then states that Beal went back to Boston to confer with Lewis. During the meeting, Beal conveyed his doubts that the island’s soil could support such a masonry structure. Despite Beal’s misgivings, construction on the lighthouse had begun by January of 1819.

In a report written by Benjamin Latrobe dated May 7, 1819, Latrobe describes a personal visit he made to Frank’s Island. In his report, Latrobe conveys his disappointment with the lack of shells and other hard materials that were to be placed among the piles. During this inspection, Latrobe did approve of the building materials (bricks and stone) that had been procured for the lighthouse’s construction. He also found some of the work to be “faithfully executed”, but Dr. Fazio’s report is unclear as to specifically which work Latrobe was referencing. Included in Latrobe’s report is a drawing of the construction site showing the foundation and temporary buildings.

Frank's Island - April 1819
(Lighthouse Construction Drawing by Benjamin Latrobe)

In July of 1819, according to Dr. Fazio’s report, a hurricane struck Frank’s Island and “ravaged the site”. Despite this setback, by September of 1819, the base, including the keepers quarters, had apparently been completed and work on the tower had begun. A letter from Chew to Smith, dated September 20, 1819 states that “the tower of the lighthouse has settled perpendicularly”. This statement was taken from a report by Mr. Edward Hearsey, the resident superintendent of the lighthouse on Frank’s Island. Mr. Hearsey went on to describe the settling of the tower and contrasted its settlement with that of the outer base section and concluded “That there does not appear to have been any settlement in the wall of the columns, -- but rather, if anything a rise.”

Through the research I have located so far, things become unclear at this juncture. According to Dr. Fazio’s report, Latrobe read Mr. Hearsey’s report and met with him to discuss the building’s settling. Based on the information presented to him by Mr. Hearsey and “other evidence”, Latrobe concluded that the settling had stopped and construction continued. On March 14, 1820, The Speaker of the House laid before Congress a report from the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury, Stephen Pleasanton, regarding the progress being made on the lighthouse. Dr. Fazio’s report implies that this report contained the “bad news” of the structure’s failure. This is confirmed in Mr. Wilson’s HABS report which states, “that the building was settling dangerously, large cracks being produced in the walls”.

At this point, it appears all construction work on the lighthouse was ceased. According to Dr. Fazio's report, "By early April, the contractor of record, now a man named Duncan Thaxter, had abandoned the island". Several people, including architects and engineers, were called in over the course of the next year to inspect the damage. Eventually, the inspectors deemed the failure of the structure to be too costly to repair. Even before a consensus on the damage was reached, in May of 1820, the Secretary of the Treasury had requested that a “light vessel” be stationed at the mouth of the Mississippi according to “The Public Statues at Large of the United States of America” (Sixteenth Congress, Session 1, page 599).

A View of the Second Lighthouse

You may have noticed a drawing of the 1823 Frank’s Island Lighthouse towards the top of the main page. One of the things that first drew me to the Frank’s Island Lighthouse was the aerial photograph of the tower ruins taken in 1995 by Bob and Sandra Shanklin. What intrigued me about the photograph was the fact that the lantern was missing. As I began researching the structure, I discovered that no known drawings or photographs existed which depicted a complete lantern. For the longest time, I questioned whether the original lantern had been reused or whether Lewis’ tower was capped with one of his signature “birdcage” lanterns. The photographs from Samuel Wilson’s 1935 report for the Historic American Buildings Survey show the remains of a railing system consistent with a “birdcage” lantern. A report from the 1855 U. S. Congressional Serial Set states that the “dome” was painted. Since the lantern from the first lighthouse was equipped with a stone cap, my conclusion based on these findings is that the 1823 lighthouse erected on Frank’s Island featured a “birdcage” lantern.

Once I came to this conclusion, I began searching for a scale drawing of a Lewis “birdcage” lantern. This was more difficult than I originally thought considering it has been noted that Lewis had a canned set of tower designs. I eventually discovered such a plan in David Cipra’s first book, “Lighthouses & Lightships of the Northern Gulf of Mexico” published for the Department of Transportation in 1976. This book is now out-of-print; but if you can locate a copy at a reasonable price, I would recommend purchasing it. There are pictures and information contained in this 62-page publication that were not included in his second book.

With scale drawings of both the Lewis’ tower and lantern in hand, I was able to overlay the two images in scale to generate a single image. I then projected the submerged base of the tower from Wilson’s drawing and added the remaining few feet at the bottom. The "Frank’s Island Lighthouse – 1823" drawing towards the top of the blog’s main page is the result. I hope this drawing serves to give future generations a fairly accurate representation of the lighthouse that stood at the Northeast Pass of the Mississippi River for 179 years.