© 2004 Kevin P. Duffus The mystifying message was like a beacon, flashing an irresistible invitation to solve a 140-year-old Civil War mystery and to search for the "holy grail" of American lighthouses. Who knew where the winding path would lead as it faded into the darkness of time? The message--"I have had the apparatus removed to a good storehouse in the county and safely stored"--was hand-written by 36-year-old Washington, NC, physician David T. Tayloe. It was Easter weekend in 1862 and Tayloe had just escaped the acrid odors of war--black powder and the smoke and ashes of forts, homes and churches. Surviving a grueling, five-day journey by rail to the interior of North Carolina, Tayloe was in possession of 44 pine crates containing bronze frames and crown-crystal prisms that were once the illuminating apparatus from the 1803 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. In its wake, the Hatteras lens left a trail of destruction, defiance and recrimination. The U.S. government wanted its lens back. Both Hatteras keeper Benjamin Fulcher, and H.F. Hancock, Pamlico District Superintendent of Lights, were forced to escape into hiding. Fulcher was also investigated and pursued by the New York law firm of Secretary of State William H. Seward. Washington, the picturesque Pamlico River town that once harbored the lens, was threatened with annihilation and the steamboat that had transported the lens was eventually captured and sunk. The lens from the Hatteras Lighthouse had become a pawn in the Civil War. Confederates possessed the apparatus to flaunt their claim on what they believed was their lawful property. The Federal government desperately wanted to get the lens back and the Hatteras light re-established for humanitarian reasons, but more importantly, as a symbolic pronouncement proving that the Union, like the lighthouse, would prevail. So began an intriguing mystery that endured for 140 years--what became of the 6,000-pound, 12-foot tall, bronze and crystal Fresnel lens from the original Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, hidden by Dr. Tayloe during the Civil War? By horse-drawn carts, pole-propelled flats, steamboats and the rickety rails of the Confederate railroad, the lens--considered by some to be the "holy grail" of American lighthouses--vanished into obscurity, a mystery made of myths, urban legends and a sea of faded and fire-damaged documents. According to Lighthouse Digest, the whereabouts of the Cape Hatteras lens had remained "one of the great-unsolved mysteries of American lighthouse history." And all for good reason. The magnificent lens was one of the first of its kind commissioned by the U.S. government to rectify an embarrassment that had been called, "the worst [lighthouse] in the world"--the original granite and sandstone tower at Cape Hatteras. One disgusted captain suggested that the 90-foot-tall lighthouse be done away with, otherwise "the navigator is apt to run ashore looking for [it]." For decades, Hatteras keepers struggled with the lantern room's inefficient and out-dated illuminating system of fitful wicks and reflectors. Fires sometimes broke out and more than a few nights at the Cape passed without its guiding light. But after five decades of disappointment, lighthouse officials in the nation's capital were determined to make Cape Hatteras Lighthouse seen "beyond death's doorstep," the dreaded Diamond Shoals. In 1854, the U.S. Lighthouse Board commissioned a powerful new lens from Henry-Lepaute & Company of Paris and at the same time elevated the Hatteras light with a brick addition to 150-feet above sea level. The improvements worked and lives were undoubtedly saved. That is, until a dirty bedsheet was hoisted over the battered ramparts of Fort Sumter on April 13, 1861. At the outbreak of the Civil War more than 100 Southern lighthouses were extinguished and later disabled under orders of the Confederate Treasury to prevent the beacons from guiding the enemy ships of the Union. In response, one northern columnist wrote that the Southerners had acted with "murderous indifference" and specifically noted the absence of light at Cape Hatteras. As it turned out, the Union blockaders found North Carolina's inlets and ports just fine, with or without the lights. With deadly intent or not, the Hatteras lens was removed from the lantern room atop its lighthouse by mid-summer 1861. Hidden for nine months in the John Myers & Sons warehouse on the edge of the Pamlico River, the Hatteras lens was next hastily loaded onto Myers' shoal-draft steamer, Governor Morehead, for Tarboro, within hours of its intended capture by General Burnside's troops. It was the single purpose of the Federal expedition to Washington in March 1862--to recover the apparatus. Thirty years earlier I unknowingly uncovered my first clue to the riddle while researching an unidentified shipwreck in the black waters of an Eastern North Carolina creek--what proved to be an unfinished Confederate gunboat launched from the same waterfront and on the same evening the Hatteras lens was spirited away from Washington. A key piece of information about the Hatteras apparatus had been in my possession for years and I began to wonder if my own journey might be intertwined with that of the lens. The trail ended with Dr. Tayloe at Townsville in Vance County and that is where I began to look for the lens in earnest. I tried to put myself in Tayloe's boots--would I select a hiding place close-by, where I could keep an eye on my secret; or would I keep my distance and cover the trail of my complicity? Visions of burning towns and farms, and potential prosecution, suggested a remote hiding place to be most prudent. Transported by boxcar, it seemed a simple deduction the "holy grail" of lighthouses might have been hidden near the tracks of the Roanoke Valley Railroad. But the tracks no longer existed. The rails had been dismantled for their iron even before the Civil War had ended, a conspicuous reason why the three-ton lens may not have been returned. By comparing old maps with modern USGS quadrangles, I soon found the old railroad grade, an elusive apparition disguised by thick tangles of briars, sumac and mingled with modern-day development. A few miles west of Townsville in a remote, unpopulated area, were three large, rectangular granite stones, arranged in an unmistakable triangle, only 200 yards from the old railroad. Was this the grave of the lost Hatteras light? My instincts said maybe, but a metal detector and a long steel probe said, no. Over weeks, I made numerous trips to the State Archives and local libraries to study period farming practices and architecture, census records and family genealogies, mining histories, railroads, steamboats and newspaper clippings of the day. No amount of information is too much for a history detective when the trail has long gone cold. Where was Dr. Tayloe's "good storehouse?" I increasingly suspected Tayloe might have hidden the lens below the floorboards of a tobacco barn or even a church. But if so, why hadn't the lens been found? The Tayloe family's wartime refuge was on Hibernia Plantation. Today, Kerr Lake covers much of the old plantation, most of the old buildings have been torn down and a young pine forest disguises the previous lay-of-the-land. But two omnipresent symbols of estates of old--parallel lines of ancient cedar trees and the family cemetery led me to the former site of the plantation house. Nearby was a surprising hole in the ground, large enough to hide 44 boxes containing a lighthouse lens. Had the Hatteras apparatus been hidden here and since relocated? Further research determined the hole was once Hibernia's subterranean icehouse, but my question regarding its other uses remained unanswered. Meanwhile, I explored the broader story of North Carolina's lighthouses during the Civil War. In fact, nearly two dozen lighthouse lenses disappeared at the same time as the prized Hatteras optic, including the only other first-order lens on the Carolina coast at Cape Lookout. Whether from lighthouses in the Cape Fear region; Beaufort and Core Banks; Pamlico, Croatan and Albermarle sounds; Ocracoke and Bodie Islands--all of the state's lenses vanished, at least in the eyes of the Union invaders. Where did they all go? I had to know the answer to be able to determine what became of the Hatteras lens. One day while at North Carolina Archives, I took a break from my research to replenish a parking meter on Jones Street in Raleigh. In the lobby, I fortuitously ran into Raymond Beck, Capitol historian and past acquaintance. Beck saw a Vance County map in my hands and guessed immediately what I was looking for. It was then that my search took a significant turn, for Raymond shared with me a recent stunning discovery by Civil War historian, Mark Bradley--the NC State Capitol building had been the secret hiding place of numerous lighthouses lenses and had been discovered by Sherman's army during the last days of the war. I vowed never to complain about parking meters again. But was the Hatteras lens among those found in Raleigh? I headed to the hallowed halls of the National Archives, where the answers to countless forgotten riddles await diligent and persistent researchers. There I delved into the dusty and decaying records of Record Group 26, which contains the archives of the U.S. Coast Guard and the consolidated bureaucracies that preceded it, representing 10,194 cubic feet of material, an intimidating Everest-sized mountain in which lay the proverbial needle. Over subsequent trips to Washington, D.C., I searched thousands of original, handwritten documents, letter books and maps, rolls and rolls of microfilm of War Department letters, and the published memoirs of Civil War generals and governors. A fire in the U.S. Commerce Department in the 1920s destroyed or damaged many 19th century lighthouse records making my quest more difficult, although some index references survived. One such document--a 3-1/2-by-8-inch slip of paper--summarized the contents of a letter bound in Letter Book no. 164, page 269, that "the illuminating apparatus taken from Hatteras light was reported to be at Raleigh, N.C." It was the clue I was looking for. But my excitement quickly turned to dismay when I learned that Letter Book no. 164 was destroyed in the 1920s fire. The index reference was hardly the conclusive evidence I needed of what happened to the Hatteras lens, I thought as I returned to Raleigh. Weeks passed until I could return to Washington to pursue a hunch--maybe the response to the burned letter survived. It did, and with a twist. The complete response from the U.S. Naval Secretary addressed the Raleigh rumor: "I have to say that a first-order lens (fixed) originally in use at Cape Lookout was found by General Sherman at Raleigh," wrote Admiral Harwood." Hatteras was a revolving light, and was not among the lenses found in the Capitol--it remained lost! Among another box of index listings, of more than 1,000 slips of paper, were two, suspiciously marked with paper clips--and those two were the only listings that referred to the lost Hatteras lens. The revelation was like digging for a buried treasure and finding a greeting from someone who had been there before me. An archivist vaguely recalled a researcher who had also been looking for the lost Hatteras lens and who had recently made significant progress. Weak at the knees, I felt discouraged, defeated, and worried that months of work and sacrifice would soon be wasted. Then, I heard my name being called in the typically quiet Archives reading room and my self-pity evaporated. An emergency phone call was waiting, my father critically ill back home. Days later, my search for the lost light of Hatteras was shelved indefinitely while I grieved over the death of my father. Two months passed and I renewed my resolve to solve the mystery of the lost Henry-Lepaute lens and returned to the Library of Congress and the National Archives. Hundreds of clues began to surface and an amazing story emerged. Eventually I learned that the Hatteras lens was recovered by the Federal authorities, but not until months after the war and under mysterious circumstances. The apparatus was later returned to Henry-Lepaute & Company in Paris for repairs and then sent to New York for assignment to a new lighthouse. But where? I listed 15 lighthouses that could have received the original Hatteras lens after the Civil War and began research on each one to whittle-down the possibilities. It was, yet again, a daunting problem. As precious time slipped away, I began to doubt whether I would solve the final answer to the mystery, as other researchers were no doubt on the trail. As it happened, the ultimate destination in the incredible odyssey of the Cape Hatteras Fresnel lens was revealed when I was nearly ready to give up my search. I was on what I considered my final visit to the National Archives in Washington--it was time to pursue more lucrative work. Beside my table was a cart-full of ornately bound, handwritten letter books through which I had to search. Each volume contained more than 500 pages of correspondence. I flipped through page after page, once for a six-hour stretch without leaving my chair. The days passed and my time in Washington was nearly over; just one hour remained and still no answer. It was a Thursday evening. The Archives closed at 9 P.M., and I was one of only a few researchers remaining in the stone and oak vaulted room, the green shades of reading lights casting the only light. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, a military band and choir had been playing patriotic songs: "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "My Country 'Tis of Thee," "Stars and Stripes Forever." At 8:45 P.M., the security officer announced the Archives would close in 15 minutes. There was still no answer to the mystery of the "lost light." The choir began to sing "America the Beautiful," as the guard hovered impatiently behind me. I thought of giving up, but before I did, I turned one last page. There it was, the answer for which I searched. Thirty years after exploring a mysterious shipwreck in a black-water estuary, I had solved the mystery of the "lost lens." I was stunned when I realized that the crown-crystal, first-order Fresnel lens from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse -- battered, broken, and forgotten -- had been stored for half a century on the shelves of a darkened government warehouse less than 100 miles from the tower. Where had it been, how did it get there and in such poor condition? Well, it's a long story. That lens, the original Cape Hatteras Henry-Lepaute Fresnel will be reconstructed and displayed in the lobby of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, NC, by summer 2005. The exhibit will allow the public to appreciate the lens' size and artfulness, as well as how greed and a lack of consideration for cultural resources can destroy a fascinating machine crafted at the pinnacle of the industrial age. It will be fitting that this former "diamond in the sky," having survived its astonishing odyssey after decades of warning ships and mariners at sea of the dangers of Diamond Shoals, will guide future generations as a symbol of genius, dedication and compassion. Kevin Duffus is the author of, The Lost Light--A Civil War History of Extinguished Southern Sentinels and Hidden Lighthouse Lenses. Duffus' great-great grandfather, Michael O'Brien, Pvt. USA, defended the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse against Confederate troops intending to destroy the lighthouse during the "Chicamacomico Races" of October 1861.
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