Let There Be Light

Let There Be Light. Point Lookout State Park. For 136 years, the Point lookout Lighthouse helped generations of Chesapeake Bay mariners avoid shoals, navigate through dense fog, and find the Potomac River’s mouth. The beam shone until 1966, when an automated light off Point Lookout assumed the job of the original wood-and-masonry lighthouse. , Trailblazing Women. Lighthouse keeping was one of the first non-clerical government jobs available to American women. In 1830, when Point Lookout’s first keeper James Davis died after three months of service, his daughter Ann replaced him, working on for 17 years. Then came short tenures for three men followed by two years for Martha Edwards. Her daughter Pamelia kept the light from 1855-1869. , A haunted lighthouse? Isolated wind-swept buildings often attract ghost stories, if not ghosts, and the point Lookout lighthouse is no exception. Decades-old tales about strange sounds and sightings led a parapsychologist to study the lighthouse in 1980, and the Maryland Committee for Psychical Research held a séance there. The committee reported the image of a Confederate soldier. But proof remains elusive. , “[Grandfather] would fix us baked turtle for dinner which I didn’t look forward to.” Recollection by Mildred Lucy Goldhborough Voight, granddaughter of William Yeatman, lighthouse keeper for 37 years. , During Yeatman’s lengthy tenure (1871–1908) the light was expanded and modernized, a buoy depot built, and the house raised one story, with a new tin roof and porches added. , (caption) The Point Lookout Lighthouse, built by John Donohoo, began operations on September 20, 1830.