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The original granite stones that once comprised the original base of North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras Lighthouse before it was moved back from the eroding shoreline in 1999 are now themselves endangered.
The National Park Service, through a letter from Barclay Trimble, recently stated that they will no longer maintain the stones because it is impractical to keep uncovering them from the sand that buries them and rearranging the stones that have been moved after each storm
After the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was moved, the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society spent $12,000 to have the original granite foundation stones from the base of the lighthouse engraved with the names of all the lighthouse keepers who served at the historic lighthouse, which is one of the tallest brick lighthouses in the world.
Almost immediately after the National Park Service announcement was made public, the Cape Hatteras Genealogical and Preservation Society, under the leadership of Dawn Farrow Taylor, started a petition drive on behalf the descendants of the keepers of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse to present a petition to the National Park Service, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and North Carolina’s Congressman Walter Jones asking that the granite blocks of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Circle of Stones be preserved and maintained.
In 2001, the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society, from an idea by Bruce and Cheryl Shelton-Roberts, organized the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Keepers Descendants Homecoming that was attended by approximately 1,200 descendants and a couple of hundred lighthouse aficionados. Our Lighthouse Digest editor, Timothy Harrison, who at that time was also president of the American Lighthouse Foundation, was one of the many speakers at the event. In addressing the crowd of over 1,200 on May 5, 2001, as well as calling for a national petition drive to have the U.S. Postal Service issue a series of postage stamps honoring lighthouse keepers, Harrison said that the Circle of Stones should be considered as a National Monument or National Historic Site or National Memorial, and he called upon the lighthouse community and the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior to take the initiative - but they never did.
Hopefully the National Park Service will reconsider their current stance and do something to save the granite blocks that were engraved with the names of the keepers who served our nation so faithfully. In my humble opinion, there are many options that the National Park Service can consider to save the historic granite blocks, and why they don’t is beyond explanation. They have been entrusted with their care and they should not be allowed to simply walk away and do nothing.
I would encourage all of our readers to write to their Representatives and Senators in Washington, D.C. and ask them to have the National Park Service save the “Circle of Stones” of the original granite blocks of the North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras Lighthouse that are engraved with the names of all of the lighthouse keepers who served at this historic structure. You can also write to the President of United States and ask him to issue an executive order to declare the Circle of Stones a National Monument.
This story appeared in the
Mar/Apr 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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