Long Point (North Landing River), NC 
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Along the sheltered inland waterway linking Norfolk, Virginia, with the sounds and rivers of northeastern North Carolina, Long Point Light Station served for more than six decades as the operational center for one of the most unusual lighthouse systems ever established in the United States. Located at Coinjock on the western shore of Currituck Sound, the station was not built to guide mariners with a towering coastal lighthouse. Instead, it functioned as the operating center for a network of beacon lights that marked the inland route through North Landing River, Currituck Sound, and North River. From this modest station, keepers maintained a network of beacon lights, tended compressed-gas equipment, aided stranded mariners, and played a vital role in navigation along what would later become part of the Intracoastal Waterway.
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The origins of the station can be traced to the construction of the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal between 1856 and 1860. Built by a private corporation, the canal created a protected inland passage between Chesapeake Bay and Albemarle Sound. The route consisted of an 8½-mile canal connecting the Elizabeth River with North Landing River in Virginia and a second canal, approximately 5½ miles long, linking Currituck Sound with North River in North Carolina. Together with the natural waterways between them, these canals provided a valuable alternative to the often-dangerous voyage around Cape Hatteras.
As commerce increased along the route, the need for navigational aids became apparent. Congress responded on June 20, 1878, by appropriating $20,000 for beacon lights in North Landing River, Currituck Sound, North River, and Edenton Harbor. The following year, ten lighted beacons were established along the inland route between Norfolk and North Carolina ports. Nine of the lights were mounted on screw-pile structures standing in the water, while the tenth was displayed from the keeper’s dwelling at Long Point. Beacon lights 1-4 were located in North Landing River, beacon lights 5-7 were situated in Currituck Sound, beacon light 8 was at Long Point, and beacon lights 9-10 were in North River.
The offshore beacons were ingenious but simple structures. Each consisted of an iron sleeve-pile fitted with a screw base and placed over a wooden pile driven into the shoal. Rising above the sleeve was an iron column supporting a lantern and ladder. To protect them from collisions with vessels and drifting rafts, the beacons were surrounded by clusters of heavy fender piles connected by timber rails. The lights were first exhibited on July 15, 1879, and were maintained by the steam launch Bramble, which operated from Long Point.
Unlike traditional lighthouse stations where keepers lived beside a single light, Long Point served as a central depot for all ten beacons. Rear Admiral John Rodgers, chairman of the Lighthouse Board, explained in 1880 that the cost of providing keeper’s quarters at every beacon would have been prohibitive. Instead, a steam launch transported keepers from a central station to the various lights. This arrangement made Long Point one of the earliest examples of a centralized maintenance station for an entire lighting system.
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From 1879 until 1905, the station was staffed by a head keeper and two assistants. The first head keeper was Albert Bayles, who supervised the establishment of the system. He was assisted by William Shinault and William Scott. In 1882 Shinault succeeded Bayles as head keeper, beginning a remarkable twenty-three-year tenure during which the station underwent extensive development.
The early 1880s witnessed rapid improvements. In 1881 a new six-room keeper’s dwelling was constructed on a pile foundation, while the older dwelling was repaired and retained for additional accommodations. A detached kitchen, improved barn, landscaped grounds, and decorative plantings transformed the isolated station into a comfortable residence. During the same year the Lighthouse Board introduced the Foster compressed-gas system, an experimental technology intended to reduce the frequency of visits required to maintain the beacons.
The conversion to gas illumination required substantial infrastructure. A brick cistern for storing gas was constructed at Long Point, along with a retort house, gas-compression equipment, and storage facilities. Three gas cylinders were mounted on each beacon. A large boathouse with slips for the Bramble and a gas-storage scow was erected, complete with an auxiliary boiler used to operate the compressor. The station effectively became a small industrial plant dedicated to producing and distributing illuminating gas.
Maintaining the system proved challenging. Ice repeatedly damaged the exposed beacons, carrying away structures at Mackay’s Island, Green Point, Bell’s Island, and elsewhere. Passing steamers occasionally struck the lights despite the protective fender piles. Beacon No. 5 was heavily damaged by a vessel in 1882, while Beacon No. 9 suffered repeated collisions in 1889 and 1890. Shore erosion also threatened the station itself, prompting extensive construction of sheet piling, revetments, wharves, and retaining structures throughout the 1880s.
Despite these difficulties, Long Point evolved into a sophisticated maintenance center. New compressors, boilers, gas holders, storage sheds, and workshops were added. By 1892 the station possessed duplicate compressors and boilers, ensuring that failures in one system would not extinguish the lights. Lighthouse officials proudly noted that no interruption of service was likely because every critical component had a backup.
The station’s importance was formally recognized in 1896 when the Lighthouse Board described Long Point as “the operating center for the system of gas-lighted beacons.” By then the reservation contained multiple dwellings, storage buildings, workshops, a substantial wharf, a dredged slip, and the equipment necessary to maintain the extensive network of aids to navigation.
Among the station’s most notable keepers was William Shinault. After serving as first assistant from 1879 to 1881, he became head keeper in 1882 and remained in charge until 1905. During his administration, Walter Gray and Joseph F. Talbott served lengthy terms as assistants, providing remarkable continuity in the operation of the station. In 1905 Shinault was appointed master of the lighthouse tender Juniper, while Walter Gray became the vessel’s engineer. Although transferred to the tender, Shinault continued supervising the lights.
A new chapter in the station’s history began in 1915 when William J. Tate was appointed keeper. Tate would become the most famous individual associated with Long Point. A native of the Outer Banks, he had earlier achieved prominence through his association with Wilbur and Orville Wright. In 1900, after receiving a letter from Wilbur Wright seeking information on wind conditions and terrain, Tate encouraged the brothers to conduct their experiments at Kitty Hawk. The Wrights stayed with the Tate family, assembled gliders in his yard, and used his assistance during their early experiments. Wilbur later remarked that Tate was the first person outside his family who truly believed the brothers might succeed.
As keeper, Tate proved exceptionally energetic and resourceful. Between 1915 and 1922 he rendered assistance to an extraordinary number of vessels. He floated grounded tugs, schooners, yachts, and freighters; repaired disabled boats; towed stranded craft to safety; furnished provisions and shelter to mariners; and even aided a disabled airplane. During one three-week period in 1921 he worked repeatedly with the crew of the stranded yacht Cruz del Sur in attempts to refloat the vessel.
Tate’s responsibilities extended far beyond rescue work. In a detailed description written in 1928, he explained that he maintained forty-three automatic gas lights spread over fifty-five miles of waterway. He regularly traveled by motorboat to inspect the aids, monitored gas pressures, ordered supplies, tested gas quality, repaired equipment, maintained records, and placed hundreds of channel bushes to mark the dredged channel. He also maintained the five-acre reservation at Coinjock, received supplies for other stations, transported inspectors, and met passing steamers several nights each week to gather information on the condition of his lights.
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Technological change gradually altered operations. In 1920 Tate became the first keeper in the service to inspect his lights by airplane, a remarkable development considering his connection with the Wright brothers. The same year an unused dwelling at Long Point was moved across Currituck Sound to Currituck Beach Light Station. The complex operation involved transferring the forty-ton structure onto two scows, towing it ten miles across the sound, and hauling it more than half a mile inland to its new location.
Tate’s friendship with the Wright family endured throughout his life. In 1932 he accompanied Orville Wright on a tour of Kitty Hawk and the Wright Memorial then under construction. In 1938 Henry Ford invited him to Dearborn, Michigan, as an honored guest during a celebration of the Wright brothers. The following year he traveled to New York to dedicate an aviation exhibit and recount his experiences with the pioneers of flight. Reflecting on those early days, Tate wrote that if his hospitality and encouragement had helped the Wrights “one iota,” he felt repaid a thousandfold.
Long Point remained active during Tate’s final years as keeper. In December 1935 the keeper reported unusually severe weather conditions that closed navigation along the Intracoastal Waterway between Coinjock and Norfolk. Six inches of snow covered the region, and temperatures plunged to 10 degrees, conditions considered highly unusual for coastal North Carolina.
After twenty-five years as keeper, Tate retired in 1940 at age sixty-nine. Lloyd V. Gaskill succeeded him and served until 1942. Tate died in 1953 at the age of eighty-three, remembered both as a distinguished lighthouse keeper and as an important supporter of the Wright brothers’ pioneering aviation experiments.
The keepers’ duplex used at Long Point was relocated to Coinjock in the 1940s and remains standing today.
Though no towering lighthouse ever stood at Long Point, the station occupied a unique place in lighthouse history. It was the headquarters for an innovative system of inland beacon lights that guided countless vessels through the waters of Virginia and North Carolina. Through decades of technological change, severe weather, ice damage, vessel collisions, and ever-increasing traffic, the keepers of Long Point ensured that one of the East Coast’s most important inland navigation routes remained safely marked for mariners.
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