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For the first time in probably 146 years, someone picked up a broom and swept the floor of the small lighthouse. But this time it wasn’t the lightkeeper. It was Julep Gillman-Bryan, a worker with the N.C. Underwater Archaeology Department.
She and a dozen or so others uncovered the foundation and a few artifacts left behind from what was once a 40-foot tall structure standing in what is now called Battle Acre at Fort Fisher State Historic Site.
“It would have been about five feet taller than the eagle,” said Jessica Sutton, historic site assistant, pointing to the Confederate monument that stands about 30 feet away from where the large circle of brick and coquina lay. As she spoke, a group of visiting middle school students swung their gaze from Sutton to the eagle and tried to imagine what it must have looked like.
Jim Steele, historic site manager at the fort, said that question and many others have already been answered for the archaeologists.
From records, they already knew the lighthouse was built in 1816, long before the Civil War brought thousands of Confederate and Union soldiers to two bloody clashes here on the jut of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape Fear River.
Steele said that was the year the United States government acquired one acre square of property where the lighthouse stood and a boat ramp that probably aided transport of kerosene or oil from Wilmington to the light.
He said they also knew that it was remodeled about 1836 after a fire burned the top 10 feet of the lighthouse. Because the intense heat of the fire made the brick and coquina dangerously brittle, it’s likely construction workers decided not to re-build it to the original height.
The structure aided navigation through the early years of the Civil War. But then, Steele said, the fort’s commander, Col. William Lamb, decided it was just to much of a target for Federal gunships and he had his soldiers dismantle it in 1863.
It was a dangerous job.
“There’s a record of a 21-year-old private whose death record says he was killed by a falling lighthouse,” Steele said.
Col. Lamb kept the wood frame lightkeeper’s house as a headquarters until it was destroyed by the December 1864 bombardment of the fort.
In 1962, archaeologist Stanley South excavated the keeper’s house but never found the lighthouse. A painting of the lighthouse by Capt. George Tait of the 40th N.C. Regiment depicted the tower with the house very close to it. But Tait was an amateur artist and no one was certain how accurate his drawing was.
And so it was left under the sand and seashells between the ocean and the monument.
Then, in July and August of this summer, the site got permission from the N.C. Office of State Archaeology to build a walkway and interpretive signs around the Confederate monument. That, however, required “compliance archaeology,” which ensures nothing of historical value is damaged from new construction.
The process includes digging test pits in the area that will be disturbed.
On Tuesday, Steele said, one of the archaeologists’ shovels hit something hard. It was only about 20-feet from South’s old dig site.
“We’d always suspected this was here,” Steele said. “We were afraid it might be too far out and eroded into the ocean.” He added that archaeologists don’t just go around digging holes. They have to have reasons for the work they do. And this new walkway was a great opportunity.
As he looked on, several workers pointed out details that historians hadn’t known before.
The circular wall was about three feet thick. It was put together like an Oreo cookie with brick on the outer and inner walls and with coquina in between. Coquina is a soft limestone made of tiny seashells and corals and is plentiful in the Pleasure Island area. The outer wall was further protected by white-painted stucco.
As he spoke, one worker who had been using a trowel inches from the outside wall, pulled up another pottery shard.
“Some of these dishes do date back to when the lightkeepers were here, before the Civil War,” Sutton said.
Steele said that from the artifacts they’ve found – colorful pottery fragments, pork and beef bones, oyster shells, nails, bottle pieces and what might be fragments from a potbellied stove – it’s likely one small area was used as a garbage pile.
Even though the structure was demolished before any fighting occurred at Fort Fisher, it still bears the scars of war. Cannon ball fragments were found on the site as well as canister and grapeshot fragments.
About two feet of dirt has protected the lighthouse foundation from vandalism over the years. By Friday afternoon, archaeologists had pushed the dirt back on top of the ruins to protect them another 140 years, if necessary.
“This stuff has been well insulated, but if we leave it to the wind and the hard rain and freezes, it wouldn’t last long,” Steele said.
And so the workers scraped and poked and swept diligently until then. Everything will be documented, photographed, measured and preserved for future historians.
“It’s answered a lot of questions for us,” Steele said.
As technology continues to improve, it’s possible that one day the site may be uncovered again for more testing. But more likely, many years will pass before the lighthouse floor is swept again.
She and a dozen or so others uncovered the foundation and a few artifacts left behind from what was once a 40-foot tall structure standing in what is now called Battle Acre at Fort Fisher State Historic Site.
“It would have been about five feet taller than the eagle,” said Jessica Sutton, historic site assistant, pointing to the Confederate monument that stands about 30 feet away from where the large circle of brick and coquina lay. As she spoke, a group of visiting middle school students swung their gaze from Sutton to the eagle and tried to imagine what it must have looked like.
Jim Steele, historic site manager at the fort, said that question and many others have already been answered for the archaeologists.
From records, they already knew the lighthouse was built in 1816, long before the Civil War brought thousands of Confederate and Union soldiers to two bloody clashes here on the jut of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape Fear River.
Steele said that was the year the United States government acquired one acre square of property where the lighthouse stood and a boat ramp that probably aided transport of kerosene or oil from Wilmington to the light.
He said they also knew that it was remodeled about 1836 after a fire burned the top 10 feet of the lighthouse. Because the intense heat of the fire made the brick and coquina dangerously brittle, it’s likely construction workers decided not to re-build it to the original height.
The structure aided navigation through the early years of the Civil War. But then, Steele said, the fort’s commander, Col. William Lamb, decided it was just to much of a target for Federal gunships and he had his soldiers dismantle it in 1863.
It was a dangerous job.
“There’s a record of a 21-year-old private whose death record says he was killed by a falling lighthouse,” Steele said.
Col. Lamb kept the wood frame lightkeeper’s house as a headquarters until it was destroyed by the December 1864 bombardment of the fort.
In 1962, archaeologist Stanley South excavated the keeper’s house but never found the lighthouse. A painting of the lighthouse by Capt. George Tait of the 40th N.C. Regiment depicted the tower with the house very close to it. But Tait was an amateur artist and no one was certain how accurate his drawing was.
And so it was left under the sand and seashells between the ocean and the monument.
Then, in July and August of this summer, the site got permission from the N.C. Office of State Archaeology to build a walkway and interpretive signs around the Confederate monument. That, however, required “compliance archaeology,” which ensures nothing of historical value is damaged from new construction.
The process includes digging test pits in the area that will be disturbed.
On Tuesday, Steele said, one of the archaeologists’ shovels hit something hard. It was only about 20-feet from South’s old dig site.
“We’d always suspected this was here,” Steele said. “We were afraid it might be too far out and eroded into the ocean.” He added that archaeologists don’t just go around digging holes. They have to have reasons for the work they do. And this new walkway was a great opportunity.
As he looked on, several workers pointed out details that historians hadn’t known before.
The circular wall was about three feet thick. It was put together like an Oreo cookie with brick on the outer and inner walls and with coquina in between. Coquina is a soft limestone made of tiny seashells and corals and is plentiful in the Pleasure Island area. The outer wall was further protected by white-painted stucco.
As he spoke, one worker who had been using a trowel inches from the outside wall, pulled up another pottery shard.
“Some of these dishes do date back to when the lightkeepers were here, before the Civil War,” Sutton said.
Steele said that from the artifacts they’ve found – colorful pottery fragments, pork and beef bones, oyster shells, nails, bottle pieces and what might be fragments from a potbellied stove – it’s likely one small area was used as a garbage pile.
Even though the structure was demolished before any fighting occurred at Fort Fisher, it still bears the scars of war. Cannon ball fragments were found on the site as well as canister and grapeshot fragments.
About two feet of dirt has protected the lighthouse foundation from vandalism over the years. By Friday afternoon, archaeologists had pushed the dirt back on top of the ruins to protect them another 140 years, if necessary.
“This stuff has been well insulated, but if we leave it to the wind and the hard rain and freezes, it wouldn’t last long,” Steele said.
And so the workers scraped and poked and swept diligently until then. Everything will be documented, photographed, measured and preserved for future historians.
“It’s answered a lot of questions for us,” Steele said.
As technology continues to improve, it’s possible that one day the site may be uncovered again for more testing. But more likely, many years will pass before the lighthouse floor is swept again.
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