Commentary: First proof that African American laborers helped build the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
By John Havel
As a researcher and historian of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, one question that has been asked of me several times is, “Do we know if any Black laborers were involved in the building of the lighthouse?” Invariably, my response has been, “No, not that I am aware of.”
The broader question of whether African Americans helped build and/or served in American lighthouses, (as well as life-saving stations), has of course led to a fair amount of research on these interesting and important topics.
In 2011, lighthouse historian Thomas Tag published an article, “Black Lighthouse Keepers” in which he tells the story of a young African American servant in England named Mingoe who became a lighthouse keeper when his owner died in the mid-1660s. Then, turning to American lighthouses, Tag names three known African American keepers, Aaron Carter (1830s), Robert Darnell (1870), and William Gunter (1893) as well as two others who were apparently unnamed.
In 2019, William Thiesen, U.S. Coast Guard historian for the Atlantic region, published “Early African-American Service: First to Serve, First to Sacrifice,” in which he cast a larger net to include African-Americans who had served in the Revenue Cutter and Life-Saving Services as well as at lighthouses. Thiesen mentions both Carter and Darnell, but also extends his narrative to include Richard Etheridge, keeper of the all-African American Pea Island Life-Saving Station in North Carolina.
But neither of these pieces address African American workmen or builders of lighthouses.
Kevin Duffus, noted North Carolina film-maker, author, and historian, published an article in The Island Free Press in 2021, “Standing Watch in the Shadows of History,” in which he suggests that since numerous white keepers of Carolina’s lighthouses were slave owners, and there are documented accounts that some keepers did use their slaves for various lighthouse-related duties, we may presume that slaves were involved in the operation, maintenance, and even the building of some of Carolina’s early lighthouses.
Although it is not in North Carolina, there is one image that I like to cite of the St. Simons Lighthouse, 400 miles south of Cape Hatteras on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia.
On the St. Simons Lighthouse website, which includes a comprehensive history of both the old (1810) and new (1872) lights, it is stated that although the overall project was supervised by Orlando Poe, chief engineer for the U.S. Lighthouse Board at the time, a well-respected local architect by the name of Charles Cluskey was hired as the superintendent of construction.
In addition, there is an excellent photograph of the newer lighthouse under construction – with an all-African American construction crew – dated May 1871. There are eighteen laborers pictured, plus at the far left of the photo, one lone white man, dressed in a coat and vest – possibly Mr. Cluskey – standing apart from the laborers. What we also learn from the website’s history is that there was a cotton plantation on St. Simon Island during the 1800s, and that a Mr. Gould, the owner of the plantation, was appointed as the first keeper of the first St. Simons lighthouse, and that he did use slaves to maintain that light. The builders in the 1871 photo appear to be skilled laborers hired to build this tower.
Returning to my own research, one of the many enduring mysteries of the 1870 Cape Hatteras Tower is why there are no photos of its construction, despite numerous accounts during its planning and building of just how important and indispensable it was meant to be.
Even after its construction, no one has ever found any photographs of this architectural masterpiece until 23 years (1893) after it was first lit! So, to date, we have known nothing of the men, white or Black, who built this lighthouse.
That is until now.
While doing general research on the population of the Cape Hatteras area during the time of the construction of the lighthouse, I reviewed the Dare County census for 1870.
I was particularly interested in the information for Hatteras Township, which included the villages known today as Buxton, Frisco, and Hatteras Village. I then isolated the male residents of a suitable age that might be employed as part of the building crew for a lighthouse. This exercise resulted in a list of 168 men, aged 17 through 72, who might have been available to be hired in late 1868 through late 1870 for the various jobs involved in the building of the lighthouse and surrounding structures.
Of these men, 102 listed their profession as fishing, 29 as sailors, 13 were simply listed as “at home,” nine were carpenters, eight were listed as pilots (of boats), two as retail merchants, and one as a teacher. In addition, the census singled out one person as keeper of the “Cape Light House,” and three men as “Asst. Keeper Lighthouse.”
The column for “color” contained a “W’ for white, or a “B” for Black. I did learn that the 1870 census was the first to include African Americans by name along with the rest of the population, but relationships such as son or daughter, came later. Previously, African Americans were counted, but had a separate census; the 1870 census was the first to include both races together. In addition, census enumerators in 1870 could also enter “M” for Mulatto, “C” for Chinese (which included all East Asians), or “I” for American Indian. For the Hatteras Township, Dare County census, there were only whites and Blacks listed. Of the 168 men on my list, 8 were marked as Black.
I then turned to searching through copies of the handwritten correspondence that is Record Group 26 in the National Archives.
RG26, as it is known, is the group of records from the U.S. Coast Guard, and contains within it the original records from the U.S. Lighthouse Service which was absorbed into the Coast Guard in 1939.
In approximately 2007 or 2008, the National Park Service Outer Banks Group contracted with veteran historians Candace Clifford and her mother to copy everything they could find at the National Archives pertaining to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the Bodie Island Lighthouse, and certain other Hatteras Island records. This research comprises approximately 6,000 pages of correspondence!
I obtained a digital copy of these records in 2012 and they have been the source of many of my unique discoveries regarding the building and later maintenance and operation of the Cape Hatteras Light. Each document or page is an image file of the original handwritten letters, so many, if not most of them, are quite challenging to read, decipher, and transcribe, not only due to the ornate script writing of each individual, but also due to very light and faint writing, as well as some that are dark and obscure.
In examining and studying these documents, I found two separate letters, one dated May 13, 1870, and another dated August 18, 1871.
Both contained numbers related to the payment of wages to individuals for the building of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and later, the Bodie Island Lighthouse.
These are significant because, as far as I can determine, neither listings of the names of laborers nor payroll records for the workers have ever been found. So, we have never known the number or names of these noteworthy individuals who built these monuments.
The May 13th document is seven pages long, written by chief engineer of the Fifth Lighthouse District, James Hervey Simpson, and addressed to the superintendent of construction, Dexter Stetson.
The second letter was just two pages and was written by chief engineer Peter C. Hains, who had taken over from Simpson, but was also addressed to Mr. Stetson. Stetson went on from Cape Hatteras to build both the Bodie Island and Currituck Beach Lighthouses.
A quick note here on the size of construction crews for lighthouses. I have only ever found eight photographs of lighthouses being built and showing a crew at work. The number of workers I counted in these photos range from eleven to twenty men. However, it is pure speculation to try and say how many men worked on the construction of the Cape Hatteras tower. Two things we know for certain. One is that a core group of skilled workers came down from Baltimore with Dexter Stetson, as it was reported that “A working party departed Baltimore for Cape Hatteras on October 19, 1868.” And the second thing we know for certain is that the building crew varied in size from month to month, and season to season, as there are numerous letters and reports of men getting ill. (the illness was malaria from mosquitos, but it was not known at the time), and also of times when supplies and materials that were ordered did not arrive on time and Stetson sent workers home until the necessary supplies arrived.
Now, with those particulars in mind, we return to the May 13th letter. This letter lists 25 individuals, including the superintendent of construction, Dexter Stetson. The letter states “Enclosed are the following amounts due persons for services &c at new light house at Cape Hatteras for the months of March and April 1870.” When I compared this list of 25 men with my list of eight African American men, three names matched.
The names were: Jerry Farrow, age 21, profession listed as “at house” on the Dare County census and living in the home of a Harry Farrow, 52 years old (so most likely Harry’s son); George Warner, 63 years old, also listed as “at house;” and Augustus Midgett, age 46, listed as a sailor.
Now, looking at engineer Simpson’s letter to Mr. Stetson, we find Jerry Farrow due $86.00 for his services for the months of March and April. George Warner, the eldest gentleman, is due $29.75, and Augustus Midgett is owed $90.00 for these two months of work.
During this research, I remembered another report I had saved some years ago that contained information on African Americans living on the Outer Banks in the past. The report was written for the N.C. Department of Transportation in 2015 and had the unusual and memorable title of “Before They Opened the Valve: Dare County’s Outer Banks 1865-1963.” Marvin A. Brown is listed as the “principal investigator” with URS Corporation in Morrisville, N.C. The report was meant to give a perspective into the island’s heritage and what life was like before the first Bonner Bridge was built at Oregon Inlet.
On page 82 of the report, Brown starts a chapter named “Life-Savers, Ice Cream Makers, and other African Americans on the Banks.” His facts and statistics are carefully footnoted, so we can attach some level of trust to his statements. The history of African Americans on Hatteras is very brief, but does give us a glimpse of the population during the 1850s through the 1870s and the changes the Civil War brought. Here are some excerpts, all from page 82:
“In 1850 about 84 slaves and four free blacks resided on Hatteras Island. They accounted for less than seven percent of the island’s total population (Stick 1958:89). In 1860, when Dare County was still part of Hyde, Hatteras appears to have had no free black residents, although it did have enslaved African-Americans.”
“The census of 1870, by which time Dare County had been carved out of Hyde, includes a small number of African-American on Hatteras Island. Five black families lived in Hatteras Township. Their heads-of house were Harry Farrow (age 52), a fisherman (household of six); George Warner (63), at home (household of four, including 100-year-old Edella (?); Smith Pugh (43), a fisherman (household of eight); Lewis Midgett, still a fisherman at 82 (household of three); and Augustus Midyett—Lewis’ neighbor—a 46-year-old sailor (household of three).” [emphasis by author]
Brown located the same names and families on the island in 1870 that I did from the census, and except for the spelling of “Midgett/ Midyett” – I have learned that the descender of the written script “g” was often mistaken for a “y” – this verifies these men further.
Brown goes on to say,
“The common Hatteras Island surnames of Midgett or Midyett, Farrow, O’Neal, and Gray suggest that most of the island’s 29 black residents in 1870 were Hatteras natives and had been born into slavery. Otherwise, they do not stand out from their neighbors. All were native North Carolinians, as was everyone else on the island. Most were illiterate, but that was common on the island. Some owned real estate valued at the modest sum of $50, others little to nothing, all of which were not uncommon. And many of the males of working age, along with their fellow Bankers, fished or sailed the sea. …. As the nineteenth century wore on, the number of blacks on Hatteras Island diminished to close to zero.”
For the sake of history, it is gratifying and rewarding to set this question to rest once and for all.
As the May 13, 1870 letter and the 1870 Census are primary source documents, it is certain that these three individuals played a role in building the tallest and one of the most notable lighthouses in America.
There is no doubt that diving deeper into these men and their family’s genealogy would uncover possible descendants and more paths to follow, but, for now, we can honor them and their contributions.
About the Author: John Havel is an acclaimed lighthouse researcher and historian, and an active member of the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society (OBLHS) alongside his wife, Aida Havel, who serves on the OBLHS Board of Directors.
