Bodie Island Lighthouse: ‘Third time is the charm’

North of Oregon Inlet on the Northern Outer Banks is Bodie Island, pronounced as “body island.” Natives never say “beau-dee island.” 

Local folklore says the name resulted from the many bodies that washed ashore from shipwrecks that occurred in the offshore waters that took the name “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” 

“Rising 156 feet and painted with black and white stripes (or bands), the venerable Bodie Island Lighthouse is actually the third attempt to illuminate the perilous stretch of coast between Currituck Beach and Cape Hatteras,” said Dr. Kraig Anderson of Lighthousefriends.com.

 

“Because of the mounting number of shipwrecks off this section of North Carolina’s Outer Banks,” Anderson said, “the U.S. Congress appropriated $5,000 in 1837 for a lighthouse to be built on Pea Island, south of Oregon Inlet. 

The 54-foot Pea Island lighthouse was completed in 1847, but the “tower began to lean within two years after completion,” reported the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) archivist. “Numerous expensive repairs failed to rectify the problem and the lighthouse had to be abandoned in 1859.” 

“A second lighthouse fared little better than its wobbly predecessor. Though funded, contracted and completed in prompt fashion at a nearby site on Pea Island in 1859, it soon succumbed to an unforeseen danger – the Civil War,” the NPS spokesperson said. 

Within days of the outbreak of the Civil War, North Carolina Gov. John Ellis ordered all coastal lighthouses in the state North Carolina’s lighthouses “to be extinguished so that the state would not aid the warships of the Union navy,” commented historian and author Kevin P. Duffus. 

“When it became apparent that simply extinguishing the lights would be insufficient as coastal defenses were weak, the entire lighting apparatus of each lighthouse was removed,” Duffus said. “Some Fresnel lenses were shipped to Raleigh, like Cape Lookout’s large first-order lens and Bodie Island Lighthouse’s smaller third-order optic.” 

The NPS spokesperson said: “Fearing that the new 80-foot tower on Pea Island would be used by Union forces, retreating Confederate troops blew it up in 1861.” 

After the war, the coast remained dark for several years while a replacement tower was considered by the U.S. Lighthouse Board. The location for the third lighthouse was moved north from Pea Island to a 15-acre site at Bodie Island. 

Construction began in 1871, and the Bodie Island light went into service on Oct. 1, 1872. The keepers’ quarters duplex was completed soon thereafter.

 

The light was electrified in 1932, phasing out the need for on-site keepers. All of the lighthouse property, except the tower, was deeded to the NPS in 1953, with the formation of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. 

The boundary of the national seashore extends from the southern portion of Bodie Island in a southerly direction and includes nearly all of Hatteras and Ocracoke islands – more than 70 miles of ocean frontage.

 

Ownership and responsibility for operation of the Bodie Island Lighthouse itself was finally transferred from the U.S. Coast Guard to the NPS in 2000.

 

The Bodie Island Lighthouse keepers’ duplex now serves as a ranger office and visitor center. If you’re planning a visit, factor in that the building is haunted. Every day at 4 p.m. on the dot, you can hear a loud knock from behind its large brick fireplace. No one knows what or who lies behind it.

 

Also, whenever a severe storm or hurricane is brewing offshore, the “Gray Ghost” appears as a misty apparition walking along the shoreline.