St. Clement's Island Lighthouse

St. Clement's Island Lighthouse. "None of the Lighthouses … are Safe". , On May 19, 1864 Confederates raided St. Clement's Island to destroy the 1851 lighthouse. Capt. John Goldsmith, a county residence who had once owned the island, led the attack, having joined the Confederate army in Virginia. In a thirty-foot sailboat, Swann, Goldsmith slipped past a United States gunboat anchored nearby and landed on the island intending to blow up the lighthouse. Keeper Jerome McWilliams, a former neighbor, knew Goldsmith and persuaded him that it would be dangerous to McWilliams pregnant wife to move her from the keeper's dwelling adjacent to the lighthouse. Goldsmith gallantly abandoned that part of his plan and contented himself with destroying the lens and lamp and making off with the oild and light tender., "And I am of the opinion that, while there are so many 'rebel sympathizers' in Maryland and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, none of the lighthouses there located are safe without a guard on shore to protect them." Cmdr. Foxhall A. Parker, U. S. S. King Philip St. Mary's, Maryland, May 21, 1864, Caption of photo in middle of marker , Blackistone Lighthouse, St. Clements Island, ca 1920, Text of inset on right side of marker , Black Nancys , Although omnipresent Union gunboats patrolled the Potomac River and a Federal supply depot located just north of St. Clements Island at Bushwood Wharf, Confederate blockade runners nevertheless slipped back and forth to Virginia undetected. "Black nancys," local dories painted or stained black, played an important role in the nightly runs. These small, light boats slid quietly through the darkness laden with supplies for the South.