Why is Roanoke River Lighthouse in Edenton Harbor?

How do you suppose it came to be that the venerable Roanoke River Lighthouse is on the northern side of the Albemarle Sound sitting in the Edenton Harbor…a far piece from the Roanoke River?

 

The answer requires a clear head to solve a story problem filled with multiple geography and history riddles. 

It’s a curious journey, and a key chapter in the annals of North Carolina’s legend and lore. 

The Roanoke River originates in the Blue Ridge Mountains and flows 410 winding miles in a southeasterly direction through Virginia and North Carolina.

 

The Roanoke empties into Batchelor’s Bay on the southwestern end of the Albemarle Sound. 

The town of Plymouth rose up on the banks of the Roanoke in 1787 and became an important shipping port, connecting North Carolina to trading markets in far-off places. 

“For such an important river and thriving port, Plymouth is not situated as one might expect,” reported a local historian.

 

“First, the river’s mouth at the Albemarle Sound is only about 1,000 feet wide. And the town itself is seven miles upstream. Seagoing ships had to navigate up the river to pick up their cargo, which could be a tricky maneuver, especially if a storm was brewing or fog shrouded the coastline.” 

In 1832, the U.S. Congress approved funding for a lightship to improve safety into the Port of Plymouth. A three-masted sailing ship was converted into a lightship. The vessel was anchored in the bay in 1835, near the mouth of the Roanoke River. 

Its whale-oil light hung at an elevation of 42 feet and was visible for 13 miles out into the Albemarle Sound, guiding pilots into the river. 

During the Civil War, the Confederate navy moved the lightship upriver and scuttled it in 1861. It was an attempt to prevent Union troops from advancing up the Roanoke River. 

After the war ended, work began to erect a permanent one-and-a-half story, cottage-style lighthouse structure within the bay, standing 39 feet tall. The project was completed in 1866. 

This lighthouse was destroyed by fire in 1885 and had to be rebuilt. Unfortunately, a bitter cold spell in January 1886 formed ice on the Albemarle Sound. Colliding with the lighthouse, a floe “severed two of the spindly support legs, causing the structure to collapse into the sound,” according to Dr. Kraig Anderson of Lighthousefriends.com. 

Once again, the lighthouse was rebuilt, but this time architects chose an “atypical design with two stories.” The light was positioned at 35 feet in a “tower arising from a corner of the building, rather than being mounted at the center of the roof.” 

This is the structure that became known through the ages as the Roanoke River Lighthouse, built in 1886.

 

The U.S. Coast Guard decommissioned the lighthouse in 1941, and it was abandoned. Along came Elijah Tate, a veteran waterman, in 1955 to purchase three former Albemarle Sound lighthouses for $10 each – structures at Roanoke River, Wade Point near the Pasquotank River and Roanoke Marshes near Roanoke Island. 

As he was preparing to move two of them, a storm struck, and the Wade Point and Roanoke Marshes lighthouses tipped over and sank. 

Tate passed the deed to the Roanoke River Lighthouse to his friend Capt. Emmett Wiggins, a World War II Navy engineer and underwater salvager. Wiggins used an old amphibious assault ship as a barge. 

He stated proudly: “I sailed back to Edenton with my new home” – a distance of almost 10 miles.