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But it isn't the only shipping sentinel in Beaufort County. It has four brethren, including the quasi lighthouse at Sea Pines, intended more to catch the eye of golfers playing the 18th hole at nearby Harbour Town Golf Links than to help boats navigate Calibogue Sound.
Bloody Point Lighthouse on Daufuskie Island
Built in 1883, it was designed as a front range light. A front range light, when lined up with a similar one behind it, tells the mariner he's on the right heading and won't run aground. John Doyle designed the light and was its first keeper, getting $620 a year tokeep the light lit and the buildings in order.
The Bloody Point Lighthouse looks nothing like a lighthouse. The two-story structure is of the same design as the keeper's houses at Tybee Island, except for a large dormer jutting out from the roof. At night, the dormer window was opened, exposing a fixed reflector lens. The lighting apparatus has disappeared, but still intact is a sheet metal exhaust stack, which vented heat from the light at the top of the dormer, according to the book "Images of America: South Carolina Lighthouses," by Margie Willis Clary and Kim McDermott.
The rear range light was a steel skeletal tower. Under it, a wick house was used to store the lantern during the day. Each evening, the lamp was lit and hoisted on rails with a cable up to the dormer, where it burned all night. At daylight it was lowered and put away. The tower is gone now, but the oil house and wick house remain,
In 1899, erosion required that the front range light be moved three quarters of a mile inland, with the help of oxen, to the exact spot where the rear range light had stood. A new small, portable, steel skeletal front light had large, flat, circular steel pads on the bottom so it could be dragged to a different location to keep the lights lined up with a sometimes shifting channel. Its site is now offshore.
During the 1950s, the oil house was converted to Silver Dew Winery by Papy Burn, the last assistant keeper, who lived there for 40 years. The oil house is known on Daufuskie as "the winery." The Bloody Point Lighthouse is now a private home.
Haig Point Lighthouse on Daufuskie Island
Built in 1872, it was manned continually until 1924 and once included a wharf and boathouse. In 1984, the International Paper Realty Corp. of South Carolina bought the site to develop it as an exclusive resort. The company painstakingly restored the light and the keeper's house, using original floor plans and other historic reference material. The Victorian structure, now a private guest house, includes a kitchen annex, parlor, dining room and two upstairs bedrooms.
The original Fresnel lens is gone and a modern acrylic optic lens and solar panels powering batteries took its place. The oil house and the 6,000-gallon cistern remain.
Called a rear range light, Haig Point worked in conjunction with a smaller light nearby, which was built on rails so it could easily be moved to keep up with changes in the channel. The smaller light no longer exists.
Harbour Town lighthouse
The brainchild of Sea Pines developer Charles Fraser, the lighthouse was built for tourism, not navigation, in 1970. Thanks in no small part to television broadcasts of the Verizon Heritage PGA Tour golf tournament, the 90-foot tower, surrounded by shops and restaurants, has become a landmark for Hilton Head Island and South Carolina. Its beacon flashes every 2.5 seconds to help boats find the entrance to the Yacht Basin.
The Hilton Head Light
Now behind the 15th hole on the Arthur Hills Golf Course at Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort on Hilton Head, the light served as a rear range beacon, according to Roger Bansemer, author of "Bansemer's Book of Carolina and Georgia Lighthouses," published in 2000.
It was built in 1880 on what was Leamington Plantation.
It was paired with a 35-foot front light atop the keeper's house (since moved to Harbour Town Marina, where it has housed a variety of shops). However, the front light soon proved problematic because the channel was always shifting. In 1884, a movable front light was built to keep up with the ever-changing passage.
This skeletal-style lighthouse is the only one in the state and is an unusual combination ofcast iron crowned with a watch room and lantern room made of cypress.
Ghost stories accompany this lighthouse. The story goes that keeper Adam Fripp was atop the tower during a hurricane in 1898, trying to keep the light burning. Just as a violent gust of wind tore through the lantern room, showering glass everywhere and extinguishing the light, he had a fatal heart attack. In his last moments, he urged his 21-year-old daughter to re-light the lantern and keep it burning. Her efforts were successful, through the stress of it all was just too much. Three weeks later, she also died.
Sightings of the girl with her long blue dress, accompanied by wails and sobbing, have made their way into the folklore of the lighthouse.
During World War II, the lighthouse served as a lookout tower for enemy ships. Temporary barracks and ammunition sheds, along with anti-aircraft guns, were positioned around the tower.
The 1892 oil house and cistern remain beside the lighthouse.
Hunting Island Lighthouse
Built in 1859, Hunting Island is the only lighthouse in South Carolina that is open to the public.
The lighthouse was closed for repairs in May 2003 when cracks were discovered in several of its cast-iron steps. In a renovation that spanned more than 18 months, construction crews not only repaired the cracks, but installed steel braces beneath them for reinforcement. Left unpainted, the silver-gray braces stand out in sharp contrast to the black cast-iron stairs. The contrast helps distinguish between the original structure and modern improvements, which protect the lighthouse's historic integrity.
The lighthouse, midway point between Charleston and Savannah, was destroyed by the Confederate Army during the Civil War so the Union navy couldn't use it for navigation. It was rebuilt for $102,000 in 1875. The second lighthouse was constructed of interchangeable cast-iron sections, each weighing 1,200 pounds, so it could be dismantled should it ever need to be moved. It did, in 1889, because of severe beach erosion. It was moved 1.3 miles from shore, but erosion has eaten up much of that land. The tower is now less than 200 yards from the surf.
In 1890, the keeper's house, oil house, and other buildings were relocated to the new lighthouse site.
A fire in 1938 destroyed the keeper house and two-thirds of the maritime forest. It took Marines and the Civilian Conservation Corps three days to extinguish the blaze.
