History
This Delaware Bay Lighthouse was named after a ship, the Ship
John. The vessel was built in Massachusetts, and was
under the command of Captain Folger, and was carrying a cargo
of glass, hollow ware, gin, iron sheeting cloth, toys, nails
and window glass from Hamburg, Germany to Philadelphia when
it grounded on a shoal near the mouth of the Cohansey Creek
in December, 1797.
Aboard were about 60 German passengers. Vessels from
Greenwich, New Jersey rescued the passengers and Captain, and
salvaged some of the cargo. By spring, the ship had been
cut through by heavy ice and storms and gradually it settled
into the sand. Drifting sand accumulated around the
wreckage increasing the area of the shoal. After the ship
was sunk a wooden lighthouse was placed there to mark the
shoal, but in 1876 the wooden lighthouse was destroyed by
ice.
A lighthouse was finally built in 1877 on a caisson
foundation. A steel cylinder was sunk 30 feet below the
surface of the water and filled with rock. This foundation
was then surrounded by rip-rap, to ward off ice cloes and
protect the structure from sea action.
The light flashes white on the channel side and red
on the shoal side, and is of 20,000 candle-power. The
lighthouse is also equipped with compressed aid fog-horns
which emit a blast every 20 seconds when in use. A
Victorian-style cottage sits atop the caisson foundation, and
has a copper roof, and quaint paned windows. On a rip-rap
island next to the lighthouse are tanks for fuel.
The Cumberland County Historical Society has the wooden
figurehead of the Ship John as well as a bell from the Ship
John Lighthouse.
The Cape May Historical and Genealogical Society Museum
at Cape May Court House, New Jersey, has the frame of the
ships rudder, which was retrieved some years ago when it
appeared in an oyster dredge and was brought to the surface
by Captain Zadak Sharp. It was presented to the museum in
1930.
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