Back on the 10th and 11th, I wrote about the recent rebirth of Sand Island off the coast of Mobile Bay, Alabama.
In the 1800s, the island had consisted of some 400 acres and that had washed away until last year the only left was the lighthouse and the base it sat upon.
By the 1850s, the 1830 lighthouse had been deemed as inadequate and even by that decade, the island had been losing land.
US Army Engineer Danville Leadbetter constructed a conical brick structure some 200 feet high in 1858, the tallest ever built along the Gulf Coast and a First Order Fresnel Lens was installed at the top.
It was in use just two years when Alabama seceded and it was occupied by Confederate soldiers who removed the 9-foot tall lens and placed it in storage before the US reoccupied the island. The Federals did retake the island and on December 20, 1862, installed a Fourth Order Fresnel Lens in the tower and began using the lighthouse as a lookout tower to observe Confederate operations in Mobile Bay.
Irritated, Confederates under John W. Glenn rowed from nearby Fort Gaines and destroyed some structures on the island before being driven off by the USS Pembina. They returned about a month later, Feb. 23, 1863, and this time put 70 pounds of gunpowder under the tower and blew it up.
Glenn wrote the report of the lighthouse's destruction to his superior officer, one Danville Leadbetter, the man who had built it.
Knock Down MY LIGHTHOUSE, Will You!! --Old B-R'er
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