So close (2,000 feet), yet so far (16 miles) seems to be the case with Fort Washington Park, at least as you see it from the Virginia side. Been many moons since we went so a return trip beckoned.
George Washington passed by here a number of times on the ferry ride to and from the Piscataway village and then parts eastward to Annapolis. He also turned and went to Port Tobacco and further southward to see family or duty at Williamsburg. Washington knew Thomas Attwood Digges (1742-1821) and his family who lived at Warburton Manor (site near the fort) and sold part of their lands to the US government for a fort.
In his diary (November 3, 1793), Washington described this part of the Potomac (Digges Point) as, “remarkably well calculated for a Battery.” Thomas Jefferson echoed this (January 31, 1808): “Digges Point below Alexandria is a commanding position.”
The knoll is one of the higher and steeper ones in this part of the Potomac where the river makes a sharp turn. Perhaps Washington would be pleased one still today sees mostly water, trees and sky. River Farm, the GW Parkway, Piscataway Park, and two long expanses of the mighty river are part of the landscape.
The history of the fort has been summarized by the NRHP, but the form notes the lighthouse is not within the jurisdiction of the National Park Service and does not contribute to theme of site as significant military structure.
There are quite a few resources on the web, but they don’t all agree at times, and there seems to be no definitive effort. We’ll try our best to find middle ground. LighthouseFriends bathed light on the subject and Frederick Tilp’s “This Was Potomac River” is a trusty beacon. Other sources include Chesapeake Chapter United States Lighthouse Society, 1933 HABS report (“Fort Washington, Fort Washington Light, Northeast side of Potomac River at Fort Washington Park), Mid-Atlantic Lighthouses published by Bella Terra and "Light 80," an article at NPS. "The Lighthouses of the Chesapeake" by Robert de Gast answered questions.
Construction of the fort began in 1808, but it was destroyed by retreating American forces under the command of Captain Samuel Dyson on August 27, 1814. The new fort was completed in 1824, but there would be on going repairs in the coming years. The NRHP points out little work was done on the fort from 1848 to 1861 and it was unoccupied from 1853 to 1861.
Tilp tells us:
“lighthouses have always symbolized integrity, constance, reliability, and succor when it was most needed, but those on the Potomac have not always measured up to the best.”
In 1851, in the wake of a scathing report by the Secretary of Treasury, Congress created the Lighthouse Board. In 1857, one year after the completion of the lighthouse at Jones Point, an eighteen and a half feet cast iron pole with a light on top was built along the wharf at Fort Washington to aid the captains and watermen. Although this was a navigating aid, it was not a lighthouse in the traditional sense. One source called it a “feeble illuminating apparatus.”
Skippers complained about the inadequacy of the light at this key turning point of the river. In response, a sixteen-foot tower rose up closer to the water’s edge in 1870. It was built elsewhere and shipped to the site. de Gast says this was “the first real lighthouse at Fort Washington.” It was shorter than the first, but placing it closer to the water’s edge was an improvement. It had a 6th-order Fresnel lens that is displayed at the Museum of Chincoteague Island.
Construction of several sheds and boathouses obstructed the light. In 1882, a thirty-two foot fog bell tower was added (the current one). The HABS report points out it was rare for a fog bell tower to support both a light and fog signal. Most became obsolete. In 1884, a keeper’s house was built. A photo at Lighthouse Friends shows a two-story dwelling of some size with a picket fence.
The fort sat quiet from 1872 to 1896 when it was reactivated. In May, 1898, The Washington Post reported the Commander of the Fifth Lighthouse District ordered the light be discontinued as well as the fog bell sounding at night. This came at a time during the Spanish-American War. He wrote:
“Should a warship of the enemy manage to reach a point so high in the river the light at Fort Washington would have served as an excellent guide for firing."
In 1901, “four new caps were put on the sills of the fog bell tower and a platform was built on them to support a lens lantern.” The old tower was demolished as well as the keeper’s house. In 1904, the tower was enclosed in wood.
In 1920, the light was made electric and the color changed from white to red. The following year an electric bell striker was installed in the tower, hitting every 15 seconds. Steven L. Markos notes it still required a light keeper who was also responsible for two dozen other lighthouses.
Tilp tells us that in 1921, Fort Washington became home of the 12th Infantry. The commander warned the keepers “about their activities as go-betweens for the soldiers as well as in their supplying sugar for the local river moonshiners.”
In 1946, the National Park Service gained control of the lighthouse. Tilp’s research shows the last keeper being Mrs. Josephine Ekland in 1953 and the penultimate Jean Marie Roest. The first was Joseph Cameron.
In the 1954, the light was changed to an unmanned automatic flashing red light. The wharf and keeper’s house were removed.
In June 1963, the light house made the front page of the Evening Star, with a large photo showing two children beside it. The caption said:
“Beacon for Tourists. The lighthouse at Fort Washington on the Maryland side of the Potomac southeast of the Nation’s Capital, holds the attention of Richard Gardner and Debbie Kramer of Westchester Estates, Md, just two of the visitors who tour the historic fort at the rate of about 10,000 a week during the summer.”
There were no visitors after 9/11/2001. Markos writes that the military took over and used it as a radar tower until 2005. The fog bell tower was returned to NPS control and restored in 2009 by their Historic Preservation Training Center. In 2020, the United States Coast Guard removed the light and the triangle red marker. The tower remains standing in its original place, the sole sentinel of a lost past.
Historical marking is good for the fort, but none for the lighthouse. Our recommendation is a marker or two showing a timeline with images and perhaps publication of an updated definitive source.
Hopefully, that is not as far away as it seems…
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