Amelia Island is the northernmost barrier island on Florida’s Atlantic coast. The St. Mary’s River slowly empties into the Atlantic between Amelia Island and Georgia’s Cumberland Island to the north and serves as the curvaceous portion of the border between the neighboring states. Fernandina Beach is Amelia Island’s largest town, and it still seems locked in the enchantment and charm of the Victorian era. The island’s acres of marshlands add to the tranquil setting, but if you ask around a little you can quickly learn about the island’s scandalous past and just perhaps the unique origin of Amelia Island Lighthouse.

Lighthouse before receiving a new lantern room in 1881 Photograph courtesy National Archives

According to local lore, since the arrival of the Europeans, eight flags have flown over Amelia Island, giving rise to the title “Isle of 8 Flags.” Three of these flags were from the brief reigns of the “Patriots of Amelia Island,” Sir Gregor MacGregor, and a pirate, but for the most part, the island’s history can be summarized as “the French visited, the Spanish developed, the English named and the Americans tamed.” The island was named in honor of Princess Amelia Hanover, daughter of England’s King George II, while Fernandina Beach was named after King Ferdinand VII of Spain.

In 1802, a resolution of the Georgia General Assembly ceded jurisdiction of six acres on the southern tip of Cumberland Island to the U.S. Government for lighthouse purposes. At that time, this parcel was the southernmost site on the U.S. Atlantic coast, as Florida was back under Spanish rule, after the British left. It took eighteen years before Winslow Lewis built a lighthouse on Cumberland Island in 1820. In the interim, Congress had outlawed the importation of slaves in 1808. Given the proximity of Amelia Island to the Southern States, it soon became a major black market dealing in slaves and was home to scores of smugglers, drunkards, and prostitutes. The United States eventually stepped in and took control of the island in 1819, and in 1821 Spain officially ceded Florida to the United States.

Perhaps if the U.S. had gained control of Florida before construction of Cumberland Lighthouse began, the tower might have been placed on Amelia Island. Instead, the lighthouse stood across the border, guiding vessels into St. Mary’s River and along the Atlantic Coast. Changes in the channel made it so the light on Cumberland Island could no longer be seen when entering the river, and on July 7, 1838, Congress provided $7,500 for relocating the tower. Cumberland Lighthouse was accordingly dismantled brick by brick, shipped across the river, and reconstructed atop the highest spot on Amelia Island. Keeper Amos Latham, who had replaced Robert Church, the first keeper of Cumberland Island Lighthouse, in 1829, followed the lighthouse across the river and served as the first keeper of Amelia Island Lighthouse until his death in 1842. Winslow Lewis returned to the area to oversee the relocation of the tower he had built eighteen years earlier.

The light source for the tower consisted of a collection of fourteen lamps, backed by reflectors, which revolved to produce a flashing characteristic. Though the tower is just sixty-four feet tall, the light has a focal plane of 107 feet thanks to the prominence on which it stands. Amos Latham followed the lighthouse across the river and served as its first keeper at its new location.

Some mariners were not pleased with the location of the lighthouse on Amelia Island, and in 1848, three pilots for crossing the St. Mary’s River bar submitted the following report:

[T]he present light-house, where it now stands, is at least four miles south of the entrance and bar above mentioned, and, therefore, entirely useless, and in many instances injurious to vessels coming from the north, as they generally make for the light and fall to leeward. …[T]he proper site for a light-house for the entrance of this bar is, and always was, the extreme northeast end of Amelia island.

Lighthouse in 1885 with second keeper’s dwelling Photograph courtesy National Archives

The lighthouse never was moved again, but range lights have worked with the island’s main light at various periods to better mark the mouth of the river. In 1858, a beacon light was established five-eighths of a mile seaward of the tower near Fort Clinch to form, with the lighthouse, a pair of range lights indicating the best channel across the bar. The beacon light was mounted on a car that could be rolled along a 100-foot-long tramway to track the changing channel.

David Levy Yull, who became Florida’s first Senator in 1845, led a push to build a cross-state railroad spanning the 155 miles between Fernandina Beach on the Atlantic and Cedar Keys on the Gulf. Completed in 1861, the railroad took eight years to build and allowed goods to be shipped between New York and New Orleans without having to round the Florida Keys with their dangerous reefs and shoals. Before the railroad could have much impact on the local economy, both it and the lighthouse were taken out of service by the Civil War.

Spared from wartime damage, the tower quickly returned to service after the conflict. One of the keepers in the post-war era was Dewayne W. Suydam, one of about twenty head keepers who, over the years, were responsible for climbing the tower’s sixty-nine granite steps to tend the light. Each keeper recorded the weather and other observations of interest in the station’s logbook. Keeper Suydam wrote an entry the day he gave up tobacco, and when he retired in 1891 at the age of sixty-three, he penned: “20 years ago I commenced in the Light House Service; have been absent but one night during that time” – talk about having no vacation time.

Work on a set of range lights, known as Amelia Island North Range Beacons, began in December 1871 and was finished the following May. The range’s rear light was displayed from a short square tower mounted atop the pitched roof of a two-and-a-half-story keeper’s dwelling, while the front light was displayed from a square window in the enclosed portion of a square, frame tower. The range lights were activated on June 1, 1872 and served in their original configuration until March 1880, when an iron tower that had held the beacon that ranged with Amelia Island Lighthouse was mounted atop a wooden base and used to replace the rear light of the North Range.

John Miles, an African American, served as keeper of Amelia Island North Range from 1880 to 1895. In 1887, Keeper Miles wrote the following letter to A.A. Marks, the world’s largest manufacturer of artificial limbs at the time:

Permit me to say that your artificial leg with rubber foot attached, which I have been continuously using since September, 1886, is all that you have claimed for it.

I have but seven inches of thigh stump. My occupation is U.S. Light House Keeper, North Beacon Ranges, Amelia Island, Fla., and I have to go up and down in one of the ranges 45 feet high, on iron-rod steps, at least twice a day; so I have good reason to say your limbs are all you claim for them.

The North Range was discontinued in 1899.

Lighthouse with third keeper’s dwelling Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Amelia Island Lighthouse was upgraded in 1856 with a third-order Fresnel lens. In 1881, a new, modern iron lantern room was installed atop the tower to replace the old one that was too small for the third-order lens. A temporary structure was built near the lighthouse, and a fourth-order flashing light was displayed from it between April 15 and July 1 while the new lantern room was put in place. The station’s nine-by-eleven-foot, brick oil house was built in 1890 and could hold 450 five-gallon oil cans. A new third-order lens, manufactured in Paris by Barbier & Benard, was installed in the lighthouse on October 24, 1903, changing the light’s characteristic from a white flash every ninety seconds to a flash every ten seconds. A red sector was added to the light in 1917 to alert mariners of dangerous shoals south of the tower in Nassau Sound.

The first dwelling for the keeper at Amelia Island Lighthouse was a very small brick house. This was replaced by a two-story residence that stood northwest of the tower. A third dwelling, a square, one story structure with a hipped roof, was built southeast of the lighthouse in 1886 and the previous residence was sold to the highest bidder and removed. Unfortunately, none of the historic dwellings remain standing. In the early 1960s, the Coast Guard tore down the latest incarnation of the keeper’s dwelling and replaced it with the present structure that is completely devoid of the charm possessed by the earlier dwellings.

Thomas P. O’Hagan retired as keeper of Amelia Island Lighthouse on June 30, 1925 at the age of sixty-six. He started his lighthouse career at Fort Ripley Shoal Lighthouse in Charleston, South Carolina, and later served at Georgetown Lighthouse and Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse, before arriving at Amelia Island in 1905. Upon his retirement, the Lighthouse Service noted that he was “held in esteem by the officers in charge of the district.”

Electricity reached the tower in the 1930s, which allowed the station to be automated in 1970 and its final Coast Guard keeper, Otho O. Brown, to retire. Following automation, the Coast Guard Auxiliary was responsible for the lighthouse and held CPR and boating safety classes at the station.

Under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000, Amelia Island Lighthouse was declared surplus and offered to Fernandina Beach. In a ceremony held on March 28, 2001, the lighthouse was officially handed over to the city. In 2002, the city received a $350,000 grant from the Florida Division of Historical Resources, enabling Worth Contracting, Inc. to complete restoration work on the tower in 2004. During the project, the iron walkway around the lantern room was replaced along with at least one of the supporting brackets. At the time of my visit, the replaced pieces were being stored in the oil house, which has since been restored.

On March 13, 2017, a bull’s-eye section of the Fresnel lens came out during routine cleaning, and the lens was deactivated until repairs could be made. Curtains were hung inside the lantern room to protect the lens while it was not rotating. The lens was inactive for just over six months before being returned to servie on September 27, 2017.

As the property is bordered by private homes, providing public access to the lighthouse is problematic. After weighing various options, the town decided to offer two “fee-based” public tours each month, wherein the participants will be bused to the site. The Coast Guard Auxiliary still maintains the lighthouse, which is the oldest standing lighthouse in Florida.

Keepers:

• Head: Robert Church (1820 – 1829), Amos Latham (1829 – 1842), Capt. Edmund Richardson (1842 – 1849), George W. Walton (1849 – 1854), Horace D. Vaughan (1854 – 1857), James W. Woodland (1857 – 1859), Christopher C. Morse (1859), George Latham (1859 – ), James H. Parker (1864 – 1868), Joseph H. Donnelly (1868 – 1873), M.J. Thompson (1873), Henry Swan (1873 – 1874), Henry Gage (1874 – 1878), Samuel Petty (1878 – 1879), Joseph S. Howell (1879 – 1880), Dewayne W. Suydam (1880 – 1891), Charles W. Grimm (1891 – 1905), Thomas Patrick O’Hagan (1905 – 1925), Thomas John O’Hagan (1925 – 1954), David Martin (1954 – 1957), Otho O. Brown (1957 – 1959), Francis Woodward (at least 1961 – 1962), Louis J. Oglesby, Jr. (1962 – 1965), Otho O. Brown (1965 – 1970).
• Assistant: Mrs. Winfield Woodland (1860 – ), William McGlue (1864 – 1865), Benjamin T. Randall (1865 – 1868), Jane M. Donnelly (1868 – 1871), Elisha Suydam (1871), Dewayne W. Suydam (1871 – 1873), Benjamin Vepan (1873), Edward Mordecai (1873 – 1879), Adam Williams (1879), Samuel Petty (1879 – 1880), John Elwood McKay (1897 – 1899), Edward E. Pepper (1899), Joseph Hendricks (1900), Thomas J. Bundrix (1901), Wilbur J. Scott (1901 – 1902), Eugene J. Dozier (1902 – 1903), John E. Eriksson (1903), James C. Smyth (1903), John P. Burn (1903 – 1905), Charles L. Sisson (1910 – 1912), Thomas John O’Hagan (1912 – 1925), David C. O’Hagan (1925 – 1934).
• USCG: Dave M. Riley ( – 1961), Robert T. Guerry (1961 – 1962), Owen P. Davis (1962 – 1963), Richard A. Morrill (1963), Joseph L. Rhodes (1963 – at least 1964), Eric C. Awkerman (1969).

References

1. Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board, various years.
2. Lighthouse Service Bulletin, various years.
3. Florida Lighthouses, Kevin McCarthy, 1993.

From Interstate 95 take Exit 373, and drive east on SR 200 onto Amelia Island. Follow SR 200 as it turns north to Fernandina Beach. Continue into the historic district then turn right on Atlantic Avenue (A1A). Views of the light can be had from Atlantic Avenue, but better views come from Fort Clinch State Park. The entrance to the park is off Atlantic Avenue, east of Amelia Island Lighthouse.

Tours of the lighthouse are offered by the City of Fernandina Beach on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. For more information call: (904) 310-3350. The grounds surrounding Amelia Island Lighthouse property are open to the public for viewing on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. At other times, access to the lighthouse grounds is restricted.

The lighthouse is owned by the City of Fernandina Beach. Grounds open during tours, tower closed.

Find the closest hotels to Amelia Island Lighthouse

Kraig writes:

While on Amelia Island, we spent the night in the lighthouse - not Amelia Island Lighthouse, but rather Murray’s Lighthouse, a rental property on the beach in Amelia Island. It was a fun place to stay, and watching sunrise over the Atlantic from the observation tower atop the lighthouse was a great way to start the day. Murray’s Lighthouse was for sale some time after we stayed there and is no longer available as a rental unit. In fact, it seems it has been torn down.

We were fortunate enough on our visit in 2006 to meet Helen Sintes and have her give us a tour of the lighthouse grounds. Helen comes from a long line of Lighthouse Keepers on both sides of her family. Her grandfather and father were both keepers at Amelia Island and several other family members manned other lights. It was a special treat to spend time with her and hear about her life at Amelia and her visit to her cousin at St. Simons Lighthouse in GA.

Helen’s father was Thomas John O'Hagan, who served at Amelia Island Lighthouse from 1912 to 1925 as assistant keeper and 1925 to 1954 as keeper. Her grandfather, Thomas Patrick O'Hagan, father of Thomas John, served at Amelia Island Lighthouse from 1905 to 1925. Helen asked the mayor of Fernandina Beach, if the small road leading to the lighthouse couldn't be named O'Hagan Lane in honor of her father and grandfather. Amazingly, the change was approved in just a few weeks, and the street sign outside the lighthouse grounds, colored brown to indicate a national historic district, now reads O'Hagan Lane.