|
|
 |
 |
|
|
 |
Headlines |
MRC News |
News Around the Lagoon |
Workshop Issues |
MRC Programs |
The Lagoon Monitor |
Lagoon History |
Species Spotlight |
|
|
Spring 2004 - V.19 N.1 Table of Content |
The Jupiter Lighthouse - 1850s and 1860s from Five Thousand Years on the Loxahatchee: A Pictorial History of Jupiter/ Tequesta, Florida by James D Synder | ||||||||
|
Lagoon History Archives Dredging Indian River Lagoon Wetlands 1920 - 1950s Cruising the Lagoon 1884 The Lagoon Enters the Rocket Age 1950 Indian River Lagoon Region 1880’s, A Country of Pineapple Plantations Indian River Lagoon early 1900's - The Dreaded Ashley Gang Never a River like St. Lucie was Back Then (1910-1920) Florida's War on the Seminoles - South Lagoon and Everglades 1830-1840 from Florida Old and New by Frederick W. Dau Steam Boats on the Indian River Lagoon - 1870s by Florida Decades by James J. Horgan and Lewis N. Wynne |
|
||||||||
| © 2003 Marine Resources Council of East Florida |
Shortly after the Second Seminole Indian War the army built a crude stockade where today's Pennock Point looks out toward Jupiter Inlet two and a half miles down stream. In 1856 an army report listed only eight families living from Miami to a line 190 miles north. By February 1856 a new army garrison had returned to Jupiter, vowing to resume the Indian roundup and protect the workers. Disdaining the crumbling first fort, they built a new one on a sandbar. The inlet had been closed for a couple of years. The river became clogged with decaying debris and the stagnant water bred the scourge of the tropics in full profusion (mosquitoes). The soldiers and workers could only grasp at the cause and called it "Jupiter Fever" (malaria). The workers became so debilitated they could scarcely haul another brick. Soon most of the Fort Jupiter contingent transferred north to Fort Capron, just north of Fort Pierce, to be near the only doctor for miles around.
On July 10, 1860, the Jupiter Lighthouse shined its light for the first time. On a clear night it could be seen by ships as far as 24 miles out to sea. The tower stood 108 feet atop the 48-foot dune. It was double walled for greater strength against a hurricane. Inside the circular balcony, 79 feet up the tower, was the watchroom containing the pedestal on which rested the lens and turning mechanism. To keep the outer mechanism rotating on its ball bearings, the keeper wound the cable to a 250-pound lead weight around a large cylinder. A first order lens stood eight feet, six inches in diameter and weighed 12,800 pounds and manufactured in Paris using state of the art Fresnel prism technology. On April 12 Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, S.C., igniting the War Between the States. When President Lincoln ordered a naval blockade of all federal ports, Jupiter Inlet suddenly became a center of activity-not because it was a population center, but because it was not.