HARBOR OF REFUGE-CAPE HENLOPEN, DELAWARE

Note: In the distance to the left is the Delaware Breakwater lighthouse off shore Cape Henlopen

 

Note : In the far distance to the right is the Cape May Lighthouse across the bay in New Jersey

                                                (Photographic quality limited due to weather and ocean environment)

                                                                        

Years of abuse had taken their toll on the original Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse built in 1908. In its place, three-story cast-iron tower, fabricated by the Smyser-Royer Company, was erected in time for its light to first be exhibited on November 15, 1926. The following description of the new lighthouse was given by the Lighthouse Service: The structure as remodeled consists of a conical tower supporting a watch room and lantern and supported by a cylindrical pier with a flaring upper course of plates to run the sea during rough weather. The tower shell of the pier and tower is made of cast-iron plates, the pier lined inside with reinforced concrete, and the tower proper with brick. The interior of the pier houses the fog signal, machinery, and air tanks. The tower proper, in three stories, contains the keepers’ quarters, and the fog signal apparatus is located on the third floor. The whole structure is supported upon a heavy block of concrete lying within the breakwater. The illuminating apparatus consists of a four-panel fourth-order lens with type-A incandescent oil-vapor lamp, giving a single flash of 22,0000 candlepower every 10 seconds. The lens revolves on ball bearings and is driven by clockwork actuated by weights within the hollow central iron column of the structure. The fog signal consists of a compressed-air siren, with two-way horns, projecting from the third floor on the channel side of the tower. The characteristic is a group of 3 blasts, each 2 seconds, every 45 seconds. The entire fog-signal installation, from engines to horns, is in duplicate. A DCB-36 aerobeacon replaced the Fresnel lens in the lantern room in 1947, and in 1996, a Vega VRB-25 replaced the aerobeacon. Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse was automated in December 1973. In the years after automation, Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse received only periodic maintenance, and then only the most essential repairs were made. The lighthouse did receive a major overhaul in 1998-1999, when the station’s exterior metalwork and concrete foundation were rehabilitated at a cost of roughly a quarter million dollars.