DATE: Monday, September 29, 1997            TAG: 9709261013

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   22 lines

CAPE HENRY LIGHTHOUSE AND ITS KEEPERS, 1885

This evocative scene of lighthouse keepers and their families and friends was taken in 1885, only four years after the present cast iron, black-and-white painted lighthouse at Cape Henry had replaced the 1791 sandstone-constructed beacon on the same site. This photograph recently was shown during the ``Lighthouses and Keepers'' exhibit at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News. Since all the men, with the exception of the suspenders-wearing older man seated in the doorway, are sporting straw boaters, it is obvious the picture was taken during the summer. The mule-powered buggy in which the two women are seated is typical of the transportation used then to reach the lighthouse site. The wasp-waisted young woman on the porch also shows that corsets were then very much in vogue. The Chesapeake Bay is just behind the sand dunes in the background.

- George Tucker

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