Cape Florida - Key Biscayne, FL

Photographer: Merle Bishop

Cape Florida

Key Biscayne, FL

Built: 1825,1855

Construction: Cylindrical, Brick

Status: Active

Height: 65 / 95 feet

Location: South end of Key Biscayne, FL

Directions: From U.S. 1, take the Rickenbacker Causeway in Miami to Key Biscayne. There is a toll of $1.00 per car on the causeway. Continue South on Grandon Boulevard and follow to the end. There are signs leading to the lighthouse. Rangers give guided tours of the light station twice a day, at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., from Thursday through Monday.

Lighthouse History: The Cape Florida lighthouse was built in 1825 on the southeastern tip of Key Biscayne to mark the reef four miles offshore and guide ships through the Florida Channel and into the leeward side of Key Biscayne.

The tower was originally built to a height of 65 feet with a design that called for solid walls of brick five feet thick at the base, tapering to two feet at the top. However, the builder scrimped on the materials.

A few white settlers lived on Key Biscayne for the next ten years in isolation. The outbreak of the Seminole War in 1835 brought Indian attacks on white soldiers and settlers in Florida and the murder of the family of the temporary light-keeper, William Cooley. Survivors fled to the lighthouse for safety and Southwest to Key West, where the Cape Florida Lighthouse assigned keeper, James Dubose, was staying while the Indian threat remained. Having just lost his family, the distraught William Cooley left the lighthouse. The lighthouse was then cared for by his assistant, John Thompson, and a helper named Henry.

Photographer: Merle Bishop

Indians besieged the lighthouse on July 23, 1836. Thompson and Henry fled to the tower where Thompson stationed himself by the second window, from which he fired his three muskets at the Indians, keeping them at bay until nightfall. The Indians set fire to the lighthouse door, which soon ignited a 225 gallon oil tank. Thompson and Henry took a keg of gunpowder, bullets,
and a musket to the top of the tower and began cutting away the ladder to prevent the Indians from climbing it. The fire forced the two men onto the two-foot-wide outside platform. Henry died from bullet wounds. Thompson had been shot three times in each foot. Thinking that suicide was the best way out, Thompson threw the keg of gunpowder down the lighthouse shaft. The keg exploded and shook the tower but did not kill him. Thompson considered killing himself by jumping off the tower but noticed a shift in the wind and an abatement of the fire. Thinking he was dead, the Indians left the lighthouse, plundered his house, and set it on fire before paddling off the island. As Thompson later recalled: "I was almost as bad off as before; a burning fever on me, my feet shot to pieces, no clothes to cover me, nothing to eat or drink, a hot sun and placed between 70 and 80 feet from the earth with no chance of getting down. My situation was truly horrible." The explosion of the keg of gunpowder in the lighthouse shaft had been so loud that U.S. sailors 12 miles away heard it. They sailed to the lighthouse and found the half-dead Thompson that afternoon. It took another day before the men on the ground could figure a way to get Thompson down from the top of the tower. They managed to get him down by firing a ramrod from a musket with a length of twine attached. Thompson was able to secure the twine and haul up a rope. Two men hoisted themselves to the top and then lowered Thompson to the ground.

When an inspector visited the lighthouse to survey the damage, he found that the lighthouse builders had built hollow walls for the tower instead of the solid one contracted for.

Photographer: Merle Bishop

The continued Indian threat in the area delayed the rebuilding of the lighthouse until 1846. Even then the tower was not tall enough for the light to be seen beyond the Florida Reefs. Surveyors warned that ships would run ashore looking for the light. In 1855, engineers raised the tower from 65 feet to 95 feet, but this still did not prevent ships from wrecking on the reefs. At this time the lighthouse held a Second Order Fresnel lens.

Confederate sympathizers destroyed the light in 1861. It was repaired in 1866, but nine years later the Lighthouse Board decided to replace it with an iron-pile structure on Fowey Rocks, seven miles southeast of Key Biscayne. When the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse went into operation in 1878, the Cape Florida light closed down.

Restoration: In 1966, the state bought the 406 acre tract at the tip of Key Biscayne and established a state recreation area. Two years later, the Army Corps of Engineers placed huge stones in the ocean fronting the lighthouse to protect from storm waves and erosion. On July 4, 1978, 100 years after the light was darkened, the Coast Guard reinstalled a light to serve as a navigational aid and to reduce demands for rescue services from boaters running aground while searching for the entrance to the Cape Florida channel at night. It now has a day-mark of white with a black lantern.

The tower is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The house that replaced the one that the Indians burned down in 1863, was rebuilt in the 1970's. It has two fire places and a sloped roof to keep the snow off, a clear indication that the house was modeled after home in New England.

Submitted by: Merle Bishop 1105 South Floral Ave. Bartow, FL 33830 MBtbone@mindspring.com