MCRD/ERR PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. -- The year is 1881, and a lighthouse keeper by the name of Martin Leavy has the task of keeping the front and rear beacon lighthouses lit at night so passing ships can navigate their way through the waters near Parris Island into Port Royal Sound.
Each night, he walks almost a mile away along a plank walkway to the rear beacon where he hoists a locomotive headlight through the window of a small oil house to the top of the 120-foot tower and then returns to his brick home nestled in the woody area between the two beacons. In the morning, he lowers the light from the tower and waits for nightfall to return.
The front and rear beacon lighthouses on Parris Island were in operation from 1881 until the early 1900s, when erosion took its toll on the lighthouses, deactivating them in 1912.
One hundred twenty-five years later, the small oil house, located at the site of the rear beacon lighthouse located across from several abandoned runways at Page Field, continues to be the oldest structure still standing on Parris Island, according to Dr. Bryan Howard, Depot archaeologist.
Because of Mother Nature's wrath over the years, however, the roof and windows on the rear beacon lighthouse had rotted away, leaving the old building susceptible to further deterioration, said Howard.
In order to remedy this, the Public Works office teamed up with Natural Resources and the Parris Island Museum to restore the old lighthouse to near-original condition.
Since the museum had original drawings of the lighthouse on hand to reference, the contractors were able to replicate parts of the original structure, said David Woodward, a Depot architect who worked on the lighthouse restoration.
The restoration took about three months and cost $50,000, according to Woodward.
Included in the restoration was the replacement of the roof, windows and doors, some of which were "painstakingly" handcrafted to replicate the original, said Woodward.
"It's the oldest structure still standing on Parris Island, so that's the reason we wanted to keep it preserved," said Howard. "You don't want to alter the historic integrity of a building like this."
The oil house stood at the base of the rear beacon lighthouse, a three-legged iron tower that looked similar to a radio antennae. The oil house had an "ingenius" system of pulleys that enabled the lighthouse keeper to hoist the locomotive light through the window and to the top of the tower and then lower it in the morning, according to information gathered at www.lighthousefriends.com.
Parris Island built this skeleton type lighthouse because Congress lacked the funds to build a traditional lighthouse, and "altogether, it is the most economical structure of its kind in the history of lighthouse construction," according to the Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board.
Unfortunately for the short-lived lighthouses, storms frequently damaged the site of the front beacon, which needed repairs every couple of years. In addition, the 1,400 feet of plank way the lighthouse keeper walked on to and from the beacons everyday had to be extensively repaired, according to the report.
It was also reported the front beacon was later abandoned and a new light exhibited near or at the keeper's dwelling until the lights were deactivated.
The only thing left of the light keeper's house is a mound of bricks in a wooded area of the History and Nature Trail behind the golf course, where the keeper lived until the lighthouses' demise.
Although there is no record of when exactly the lighthouses were dismantled, the little oil house that stood at the bottom of the rear beacon still stands to this day as strongly as it did over a century ago.