Ponce Inlet Lighthouse Timeline

1513

Ponce de Leon, sailing for King Phillip II of Spain, explores this area as one of his ships disappears at 29 degrees latitude. He enters an inlet where three rivers form a cross shape and names the area Rio De la Cruz. These rivers are thought to be the Halifax, Spruce Creek, and the Indian River.

1563

French explorer Jean Ribault enters the inlet and places a marker in the area to claim it for France. His pilot on this journey was Spanish and still loyal to Spain. The pilot alerts the Spanish who return the following year to destroy the French marker.

1565

By this date the Spanish have established a permanent settlement in Florida. The first attempt may have actually been at the New Smyrna area, but St. Augustine claims the honor.

1716

The first lighthouse in the American colonies was the Boston Light in Boston Harbor.

1754

Conflicts between the British and French over colonial territory begin to heat up. In 1756 official war is declared.

1763

The Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War, and the British victors take Florida from Spain.

1768

Dr. Andrew Turnbull brings nearly 1500 colonists from the Mediterranean area to Florida, landing in St. Augustine and marching to New Smyrna in the heat of the summer. This proves to be one of the largest colonial endeavors in the New World by the British. The Turnbull grant includes 50 acres on the north side of Mosquito Inlet. (Antonio Pons and Andreas Pacetti are part of the Turnbull group and will later figure in the history of what will eventually become the Light Station.) As troubles beset the colony, the settlers eventually move to St. Augustine.

1774

The British Royal Governor establishes a bonfire beacon on the north side of Mosquito Inlet to assist ships "crossing the bar".

1783

Second Treaty of Paris at the end of the American War of Independence returns Florida to Spanish rule as the British in America are defeated. The Spanish give land grants to those St. Augustine residents who were loyal to them and Antonio Pons receives land on the north side of Mosquito Inlet.

1789

The ninth law of the new government of the United States creates the Lighthouse Establishment. The Federal Government assumes responsibility for all aids to navigation and takes over all the lighthouses. Financing for lighthouses is placed within the Treasury Department, and direct control of the finances goes back and forth between the Commissioner of Revenue and the Secretary of the Treasury for many years.

1812

An ongoing and secret "Patriot's War" supported by President Madison in Florida has colonists trying to get rid of the Spanish rule and have Florida annexed as a US territory.

1820-1852

Aids to navigation fall under the control of the 5th Auditor of the Treasury Department, Stephen Pleasonton. He is notoriously thrifty, and lighthouse construction and upkeep falter under his leadership. He relies on inexperienced political appointees and friends for advice, and uses the lamp design of his friend Winslow Lewis for lighthouses rather than the superior Fresnel lens technology.

1821

The Spanish realize they cannot control Florida and turn it over to the US government.

1821

The Fresnel lens comes into use in France.

1835-1836

A lighthouse is constructed on the south side of Mosquito Inlet. This 45 foot tower was never illuminated since the oil needed for the lamp was never delivered. In 1835, the tower is first damaged by a violent hurricane and later ransacked by the Seminoles. In early 1836 the tower, whose foundation was previously undermined by storms, collapses into the sea.

1835

The Second Seminole War begins. (1842 is given as the date this war ended, but hostilities continue up until the 1890s.)

1843

Bartola C. Pacetti, a grandson of Andreas Pacetti, comes to the Mosquito Inlet land grant. Andreas' first marriage had been to Gertrude Pons and this may have been the connection that eventually resulted in Bartola becoming the owner of the Mosquito Inlet part of the Spanish grant to Antonio Pons.

1845

Florida becomes a state.

1852

Congress creates a nine-member US Lighthouse Board and the lighthouse service becomes more professional and standardized. U.S. Lighthouse Establishment Uniforms are introduced.

1860-1864

The American Civil War. The Mosquito Inlet area becomes a hiding place for Confederate Blockade Runners attempting to smuggle goods past Union blockade ships.

1860

Bartola Pacetti marries Martha Jane Wickwire.

1860

Union forces come to the area and bombard a salt factory nearby. Bartola takes his family to Spruce Creek for the duration of the Civil War.

1867

A first order Fresnel lens is ordered by the US government and sits in storage in France until it is sent to the Mosquito Inlet Light 20 years later.

1876

The Light House Service begins distributing small boxed libraries to the lighthouses. These are exchanged during the quarterly inspections of the stations. The libraries contain a mix of novels, histories, biographies, adventure stories, religion, and magazines.

1882

F. Hopkinson Smith is contracted to design a new lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet.

1883

Congress approves $30,000 for the purchase of land and construction materials for a new lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet. Chief Engineer Orville Babcock and a party of surveyors come to the inlet to locate a site for the new lighthouse.

1884

Ten acres of land is purchased for $400 from Bartola Pacetti for the light station. Orville Babcock, former Personal Secretary of President U.S. Grant and Chief Engineer, is drowned in the inlet as he attempts to row ashore just as the project is about to begin. Major Jared A. Smith is appointed Chief Engineer.

1886

An issue of the weekly Halifax Journal reports that "out of the eight or ten schooners employed in the lighthouse work five have been wrecked..." on the bar or in the river. As many as six men had been drowned.

1886

Congress approves an additional $50,000 for the light station.

1886

The Charleston earthquake cracks the tower.

1886

Bartola Pacetti builds the Pacetti boarding house with his profits from the sale of land for the light station. His son Henry loses a leg while helping to bring in bricks for the construction of the lighthouse and later dies of complications related to the injury.

1887

The light station is completed and the first order fixed Fresnel lens is lit on November 1. The first Head Keeper is William Rowlinski who is paid about $720 per year plus a quarterly food allotment which was to include salt pork and beef, flour, brown sugar, coffee, tea, rice and beans or peas. In 1890 the quarterly rations are stopped and the keeper's salary is increased to $760 per year.

1887-1893

William Rowlinski is Head Keeper at Mosquito Inlet.

1893-1905

Thomas O'Hagan is Head Keeper.

1897

Stephen Crane, author of the "Red Badge of Courage", sails on the Commodore filibuster expedition to Cuba as an undercover journalist. The Commodore sinks about 12 miles off Daytona Beach, and survivors, including Crane, row to the Mosquito Inlet light. Crane later publishes a renowned short story about his experience titled "The Open Boat".

1898

The Spanish-American War results from about 50 years of Spanish/Cuban conflict.

1898

Repairs and upgrades are made to the tower. A spar with halyards for ship to shore communication is added to the balcony railing.

1898

Bartola Pacetti dies.

1890s

At about this time a one-room schoolhouse is created at Ponce Park. In 1903 Ianthe Bond Hebel comes to Ponce Park as school mistress. Her salary is $30 a month for the five-month term. She boards first with the Rowlinski family.

1905

Head Keeper Thomas O'Hagan leaves Ponce Inlet. With the departure of O'Hagan and his twelve children, there is no more need for the one- room school at Ponce Park.

1905-1924

John Lindquist is Head Keeper.

1907

The entire Light Station is repaired and renovated. A windmill is added to the Light Station to ease the collection of water from the station's sulphur-water well. The windmill never works properly and is torn down in 1914. The windmill pumped water up into a cypress wood tank atop a water tower. The water tower remained until about 1952. A keeper's log notation mentions that telephones were received, but there is no further mention of telephones at the Light Station until 1917. A wood frame boathouse and dock are constructed at the river landing. An original thatch-roof boathouse on shore remains and comes to be called the "Buoy House" in the keeper's logs.

1909

On the morning of December 29 at 7 am, Head Keeper John Lindquist records a temperature of 8 degrees below zero at the top of the tower.

1912-1935

The Light House Board becomes the Bureau of Lighthouses.

1914-1918

World War I. In 1917 the US formally declares war on Germany. Woodrow Wilson is president.

1915

The US Revenue Cutter Service and the US Lifesaving Service are merged into the newly founded U.S. Coast Guard .

1916

A road connecting Daytona to the Light Station is completed.

1917

Martha Jane Wickwire Pacetti dies.

1917

A pump house replaces the old well site at the Light Station. This pump is electrified. (We still use this same well today for landscape irrigation purposes.) A telephone is installed that connects the Mosquito Inlet Light Station to the Jupiter Inlet Light Station to the south.

1919

Joseph Davis, the First Assistant Keeper, dies in the tower and has to be carried down by Ben Stone, the Second Assistant Keeper.

1920-1933

The 18th amendment of 1920 prohibits the importing, exporting, transporting, selling and manufacturing of alcohol. The amendment is followed by an act authored by Andrew Volstead which defines intoxicating liquor as anything having an alcohol content of 0.5 or above. The Volstead Act also sets up guidelines for the enforcement of prohibition. The result is the creation of a huge illegal industry revolving around alcohol production and sales. Mosquito Inlet becomes an important location for rum runners who bring rum from Cuba and the Bahamas into the inlet area and bury it there until needed. The McCoy brothers of Holly Hill are the most notorious of the local rum runners. Their product is so respected on the east coast that the phrase "the real McCoy" originates in response to their product's quality.

1921

Indoor bathrooms are added to the keepers' dwellings. The brick walkways are redone into their present configuration. A wooden pump house is seen in a 1921 photograph of the First Assistant Keeper's dwelling. We speculate that a pump to move water from the cistern to the sink was located there. We believe that this little structure was removed by 1925 because it no longer appears in any photographs of the Light Station after that date.

1922

William Lindquist, son of and assistant to, Principal Keeper John Lindquist, is kicked by a horse and eventually dies of his injuries.

1923

The keeper's dwellings are electrified by a new Fairbanks-Morse Light Plant. Ceramic knob and tube wiring insulators are installed. The new generator could run on either kerosene or gasoline, but gasoline proved to be the best fuel for the job because it caused fewer problems with the motor.

1925

A photograph shows a screen enclosure on the east half of the front porch of the First Assistant Keeper's Dwelling.

1925

A foundation capable of supporting new oil tanks that will replace the old 5 gallon oil cans is laid in the Oil Storage Building

1924-1926

Charles Sisson is head keeper.

1926-1937

John Butler is head keeper.

1926

Mosquito Inlet is renamed Ponce de Leon Inlet. Electric lights are installed at the Light Station. One history states that the windmill was removed at this time, but the application for National Historic Landmark status lists the windmill as being dismantled in 1914 with the water tower remaining until the 1950s.

1927

A storm damages the Oil Storage Building. It receives a new roof and new oil tanks are installed.

1933

The Light Station is electrified. The Bureau of Lighthouses decides to change the characteristic of the Ponce Inlet light, and a new third order rotating Fresnel lens is installed. The beacon's new characteristic is a white light with six half-second flashes in 15 seconds followed by a 15 second eclipse. The new lens is illuminated by a 500 watt electric lamp. The old first order lens is shipped to the Light House supply depot at Staten Island, New York. This lens disappears until the 1990s when it is discovered at the Mystic Seaport Museum and returned to us by the Coast Guard in 1997.

1939

The U.S. Coast Guard takes over the Lighthouse Service and assumes responsibility for the maintenance and operation of all aids to navigation. Former Lighthouse Service personnel are given the option of retiring or joining the Coast Guard.

1937-1943

Edward Meyer is Principal Keeper. He chooses to join the Coast Guard in 1939 and becomes Officer in Charge of the Ponce de Leon Inlet Light Station until 1943.

1940

A radio room is established by the Coast Guard possibly in the main bedroom of the First Assitant Keeper's Dwelling. A lightning strike in July burns out the fuses and the radio beacon does not go into operation until August. The station's call letters are WWCX and it transmits the Morse Code numeral 1 (dit dah dah dah dah) at 290 kilocycles on the twenty second and fifty second minute of every hour in fair weather. In bad weather the signal is sent every three minutes. Mariners use the signals from Ponce Inlet and Cape Canaveral to navigate around Hetzal Shoals.

1941-1945

World War II.

1942

Keepers' families are removed from the Light Station and the Station becomes a Coast Guard barracks. The tower beacon is dimmed to 50 watts (from its pre-war 500 watts), and the tower is used as a lookout post. Coast Guard weather monitoring equipment is added to the top of the tower. Coast Guard personnel man observation posts along the coast and patrol the beach.

1943

In December, Keeper Meyer turns the station over to CBM T.T. Galloway. The radio room addition to the generator building is added in April, May, and June. The radio beacon set-up is moved from the First Assistant Keeper's Dwelling to this new location.

1945

Florida Power and Light installs electric service in the area and the Station goes "on the grid".

1945-1949

Charner Smith is Officer in Charge (OIC) of the Light Station. His daughter Suzanne is the last child born at the Ponce Inlet Light Station.

1950-1952

Coast Guardsman Henry Jones is the OIC. His family and also his assistant, Herbert F. Smith, live on the Station. After 1952, the Coast Guard families move to the south side of the inlet and there are no more resident keepers.

1953

The beacon is by now fully automated. Keepers are no longer needed and the Light Station is abandoned except for weekly visits from the Coast Guard. The property deteriorates through vandalism and neglect.

1963

The town of Ponce Inlet is incorporated and uses the Second Assistant Keeper's house as a town hall.

1967

The Coast Guard installs a new apparatus with 2 1000-watt lamps into the third order Fresnel Lens.

1968

The Coast Guard installs a light on a 50 foot tower on the south side of the inlet.

1970

The beacon at Ponce Inlet is extinguished. The third order lens is removed to protect it from vandals. Concerned Ponce Inlet residents form the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse Preservation Association to try to save the Light Station.

1972

The Coast Guard declares the Light Station to be surplus property and deeds it to the Town of Ponce Inlet. The Station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and eventually becomes a National Historic Landmark under the management of the Preservation Association.

1982

The Coast Guard officially reactivates the Light Station beacon when a new condominium building blocks their tower light. The new lamp is a modern aero/marine beacon with a range of about 25 nautical miles. A partial restoration of the tower is done at this time.

Mid-1980s

The Coast Guard installs an FA 250 AC rotating beacon in the tower.

1989

The Oil Storage Building is restored. (The building had been burned and vandalized in 1970.)

1992

A new entrance/gift shop building is added to the Light Station. The Gift Shop is based on 1884 plans for a single multi-family keepers' dwelling that had been originally designed for the Station but never built due to increasing complaints by lighthouse personnel regarding the lack of privacy created by multi-family dwellings at other light stations. .

1994-1995

Ayres Davies Lens Exhibit Building is constructed.

1996

Lightning hits the tower and destroys the beacon. A Vega-VRB-25 beacon replaces the destroyed FA 250. This 1000-watt marine beacon rotates and features a characteristic of one flash every ten seconds.

1997

The Station's original first order lens is returned by the Coast Guard and restoration of the damaged lens is begun by the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse Preservation Association's Restoration Team.

1999

The courts grant ownership of the Commodore wreck site to the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse Association and to Don Serbousek, a diver who originally located and identified the wreck.

2000-2001

The Light Station tower is restored.

Spring, 2001

The Administration Building is completed.

2002

The Generator Building is stabilized after its foundation is threatened by the digging of a retention pond nearby.

2003

Restoration of the Light Station's original fixed first order lens is complete and the lens is placed in the museum. Restoration of the original 1933 third order Fresnel lens begins.

2004

In April, the restored third order Fresnel lens is returned to active service in the tower. The beacon's characteristic is 6 half-second flashes in 15 seconds followed by a 15 second eclipse. The Ponce de Leon Inlet Light Station becomes a private aid to navigation, and the beacon is now maintained by museum staff.

2005

In May, a new tour entrance and restroom facility is completed. In October, a building that once served as the main entrance to the Light Station is converted to an education workshop.

2006

The Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse Preservation Association relinquishes its partial ownership of the Commodore wrecksite. Full ownership of the historic site reverts to Don Serbousek. A weather monitoring station is installed in the Generator and Radio Room Building.

2007

The Coast Guard Radio Beacon House is restored and a new World War II exhibit is installed.