2003 37c Southeastern Lighthouses: Old Cape Henry, Virginia

U.S. #3787
37¢ Cape Henry, VA
Southeastern Lighthouses
Issue Date: June 13, 2003
City: Tybee Island, GA
Quantity: 125,000,000
Printed By: American Packaging Corporation for Sennett Security Products
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: Serpentine Die Cut 10.75 x 10.25
Color: Multicolored

In 2003, the romance of lighthouses was reflected in a strip of five commemorative stamps picturing historic beacons from America’s southeast (U.S. #3787-91). This stamp features Cape Henry Light.

In August 1789, the newly formed United States Congress voted to transfer responsibility for the colonial lighthouses, along with construction of new ones, to the federal government. The first project taken on under this new authority was the Cape Henry Lighthouse, commissioned by President George Washington, with construction funding of $15,200 approved on March 26, 1790. New York architect and stonemason John McComb Jr. won the contract, selecting an octagonal design built largely from Aquia sandstone that had been delivered to the site years earlier, though much of it had since become buried in drifting sand and had to be dug out before construction could begin.

By late October 1792, the ninety foot sandstone tower stood complete, becoming both the first lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay and the first ever built by the federal government. The lighthouse marked the entrance to a shipping corridor that had claimed dozens of vessels in the years before its construction, guiding ships safely past the treacherous waters where the bay meets the open Atlantic. The structure remained in active service for nearly a century, until concerns over cracking in its walls led officials to construct a taller replacement lighthouse nearby in 1881.

Rather than demolish the original tower, as was customary once a lighthouse had outlived its usefulness, officials chose to preserve it alongside its replacement given its historical significance as the nation's first federal lighthouse. In 1930, the federal government transferred ownership of the old lighthouse to Preservation Virginia, ensuring the structure's continued upkeep as a historic landmark. Today the tower still stands watch over the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, a lasting monument to one of the young nation's earliest public works achievements.