Campbell Island, NC 
Select a photograph to view a photo gallery
Photo Gallery
Photo Gallery
Photo Gallery
Along the winding lower reaches of North Carolina’s Cape Fear River, navigation in the nineteenth century was shaped as much by hidden shoals and abrupt turns as by the currents themselves. Though vessels entering from the Atlantic first confronted the dangerous bars and shifting channels at the river’s mouth, mariners continuing inland toward Wilmington faced a second series of hazards where broad expanses of marsh, shoals, and narrowing channels complicated passage. Among the most troublesome of these locations was Campbell’s Island, a low tract of alluvial land situated near “The Flats,” where shoals extending from both banks constricted navigation and forced vessels through a difficult bend in the river. For little more than a decade, Campbell Island Lighthouse stood here as one link in an ambitious federal system of navigational aids designed to guide navigation along the lower Cape Fear River. Though extinguished during the Civil War and never reestablished, the station occupied a critical place in the maritime history of North Carolina’s principal river port.
The Cape Fear River held a singular importance in North Carolina commerce. Unlike the state’s other major rivers, it flowed directly into the Atlantic Ocean, making it the principal artery for maritime trade between the interior and the outside world. During the colonial era, the rival ports of Brunswick and Wilmington competed for commercial dominance along its banks, with Brunswick benefiting from its closer proximity to deep water and Wilmington prospering through access to inland trade routes. By the nineteenth century Wilmington had firmly established itself as North Carolina’s leading seaport, but safe navigation remained difficult. Mariners moving upriver from the ocean faced shoals, bends, and constantly changing channels that made night travel hazardous.
Recognizing these dangers, Congress passed a major appropriations act for aids to navigation on August 14, 1848, authorizing a coordinated chain of lights along the Cape Fear River from its mouth to Wilmington. Rather than establishing a single isolated beacon, lawmakers envisioned an integrated system that would guide vessels step by step inland. The act appropriated funds for a beacon on the Upper Jettee three miles below Wilmington, a beacon on Campbell’s Island, a lightship at Horseshoe Shoal between New Inlet and Price’s Creek, a beacon at Orton Point, paired range lights at Price’s Creek, and finally two range lights on Oak Island to mark the western channel into the river. Together, these aids represented one of the most comprehensive federal investments in inland navigation then attempted in North Carolina.
The scope of the proposal reflected uncertainty about local needs. Only days after the law passed, Fifth Auditor Stephen Pleasonton advised Treasury officials that he lacked sufficient knowledge of the Cape Fear’s navigational requirements to determine which of the authorized lights were truly necessary. Acting under provisions of the new lighthouse law, the Treasury requested a naval examination of the river. Commander William A. Gardner of the Navy surveyed the proposed locations and, by November 1848, recommended that every authorized station be established. For Campbell’s Island specifically, Gardner supported a twenty-foot beacon light positioned to assist vessels negotiating one of the river’s most difficult sections.
Campbell’s Island—sometimes called Big Island and earlier known as Crane Island—lay approximately a mile below Old Town on the western bank of the river and encompassed nearly 300 acres of fertile alluvial soil. Though celebrated locally for its agricultural potential and immense flocks of rice birds that descended upon nearby plantations each autumn, the island occupied a strategically important position in the river. Shoals extending from both eastern and western banks approached dangerously close to one another nearby, narrowing the channel at the precise point where the river channel changed course.
Construction of the lighthouse, however, quickly encountered difficulties. Superintendent of Lights William C. Bettencourt discovered that ownership of the island posed a problem. In November 1848, Stephen Pleasonton complained that the proprietor, Mr. Miller, refused to sell only the acre or two needed for the station and instead insisted upon selling the entire island for $500—a price the government considered excessive given the modest $3,500 appropriation for the light. Pleasonton warned that if negotiations failed, the federal government might need to seek condemnation authority from the North Carolina legislature.
By early 1849, title issues had apparently been resolved, and deeds for the Campbell’s Island and Orton Point sites were forwarded to the Attorney General for approval. In May, Bettencourt advertised for proposals to construct the two stations. The specifications reveal that Campbell Island Lighthouse was envisioned not as a simple beacon tower but as a substantial dwelling-lighthouse similar to many smaller river lights of the era.
The keeper’s residence was to be a brick or stone structure measuring thirty-six by twenty feet, with plastered rooms, finished attic chambers, fireplaces, a cellar, and attached kitchen. Rising from the center of the roof was an octagonal wooden tower thirteen feet high, surmounted by an iron lantern fitted with eight Winslow Lewis lamps and fourteen-inch reflectors. Rainwater collection cisterns capable of holding 1,000 gallons supplemented the isolated station’s needs. Because the site proved marshy and unsuitable for cellars, Treasury officials later ordered contractors to substitute piles and elevate the structure accordingly.
A contract was ultimately awarded for the station’s construction at a cost of $3,382, narrowly within the original congressional appropriation. The lighthouse was scheduled for completion in January 1850.
In 1850, John Craig became the first keeper of Campbell Island Lighthouse with an annual salary of $350. His responsibilities extended beyond merely tending the lamps. Like keepers throughout the Lighthouse Establishment, Craig maintained the lantern, polished reflectors, trimmed wicks, stored oil, protected government property, and ensured that the light burned reliably through storms and darkness.
Craig served until 1853 and was succeeded by Hosea Williams, William Woodward, Basil Jackson, and finally Francis W. Savage, who became keeper shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Though surviving records reveal little of their daily experiences, life on Campbell’s Island was likely isolated and demanding. The surrounding marshes and river channels left the station exposed to flooding, insects, storms, and difficult access, while keepers depended heavily upon river traffic and nearby settlements for supplies.
Despite its modest stature, the station fulfilled an important role in the larger navigational network created in 1848. Vessels entering the Cape Fear first aligned with the Oak Island range lights, passed the Horseshoe lightship and Price’s Creek beacons, then relied upon Campbell’s Island and Orton Point to navigate the increasingly narrow and twisting inland reaches toward Wilmington. The system reflected a growing federal understanding that rivers required carefully coordinated lighting rather than isolated coastal beacons alone.
The coming of the Civil War brought an abrupt end to Campbell Island Lighthouse. Confederate authorities extinguished many navigational lights along the southern coast to hinder Union operations, and the strategic position of Campbell’s Island soon made it useful for military purposes. In October 1861, Confederate engineers requisitioned enslaved laborers from nearby rice plantations to construct a battery on Campbell’s—or “Big”—Island, replacing the lighthouse’s peaceful mission with one of wartime defense. Notices ordered planters between Orton and the upper rice fields to provide twelve percent of their able-bodied enslaved men for work on the fortifications.
Like many southern lighthouse stations, Campbell’s Island suffered heavily during the conflict. By war’s end, the buildings had been entirely destroyed. In 1867, federal reports acknowledged that nothing remained of the station and recommended abandoning the former site in favor of a screw-pile lighthouse erected directly on a shoal near the channel turn above the island. Such a structure, standing over the water rather than upon unstable marshland, promised greater effectiveness and resilience.
Yet despite repeated recommendations in 1867, 1868, 1873, and 1874 emphasizing the necessity of restoring the light, Congress never appropriated the requested funds. Officials repeatedly described Campbell’s Island as among the most difficult passages on the river below Wilmington, where the wide river suddenly narrowed and shoals crowded dangerously near the channel. The proposed screw-pile lighthouse was even described as the most important unbuilt light on the Cape Fear River. Nevertheless, re-establishment remained unrealized.
Today, little evidence survives of Campbell Island Lighthouse itself. The structure disappeared during the upheaval of war, and the navigational system it once served gradually evolved through newer aids and modern channel improvements. Yet for a brief but important period between 1850 and 1861, Campbell Island Lighthouse formed a vital link in an ambitious chain of lights stretching from the mouth of the Cape Fear River to Wilmington, helping guide mariners safely through one of North Carolina’s most commercially significant waterways.