2003 37c Southeastern Lighthouses: Morris Island, South Carolina

The entrance to Charleston Harbor has been marked by some form of navigational light since 1673, when early colonists lit fires in raised metal pans to guide ships safely into the growing settlement. The first permanent lighthouse on Morris Island rose in 1767, a 42 foot tower built by the South Carolina colony at a time when roughly 800 ships entered the harbor each year. That original light went dark during the Revolutionary War to avoid aiding British ships, then passed to federal ownership in 1789 under one of the new nation's earliest public works acts, before South Carolina seized it again as tensions built toward the Civil War.

A replacement tower built in 1837 stood 102 feet tall and served Charleston's growing maritime traffic for decades, surviving a devastating hurricane in 1854 before Confederate forces destroyed it in 1862 to keep it from aiding the Union naval blockade during the lengthy siege of Morris Island. After the war, Congress approved funding in three separate allocations beginning in 1873 to construct an entirely new lighthouse, this time built to the south of the earlier towers. Workers discovered the ruins of the original 1767 lighthouse on the very site chosen for construction. The new tower, rising 161 feet, was completed and lit in 1876.

The lighthouse guided ships safely into Charleston Harbor for the better part of a century, but the construction of protective jetties in 1889 altered ocean currents in ways that gradually eroded Morris Island itself. By 1938 the encroaching shoreline had reached the lighthouse, forcing officials to automate the light since it was no longer safe to keep it staffed. The Morris Island Light was formally decommissioned in 1962 and replaced by a new light on Sullivan's Island, leaving the historic tower standing alone in the surf, now surrounded entirely by water and preserved through ongoing efforts to protect it from the erosion that continues to threaten its foundation.