A Diamond in the Sky: The Odyssey of the Cape Hatteras Fresnel Lens

The mystifying message was like a beacon that flashed an irresistible invitation to solve a 140-year-old Civil War mystery and to search for the “holy grail” of American lighthouses. Who knew where the winding path would lead as it faded into the darkness of time?

The message – “I have had the apparatus removed to a good storehouse in the county and safely stored” – was hand-written by 36-year-old Washington, NC, physician David T. Tayloe. It was Easter weekend in 1862 and Tayloe had just escaped the acrid odors of war – black powder and the smoke and ashes of forts, homes, and churches. Surviving a grueling, five-day journey by rail to Granville County, Tayloe was in possession of 44 pine crates containing bronze frames and crown-crystal prisms that were once the illuminating apparatus from the 1803 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

In its wake, the lens left a trail of destruction, defiance, and recrimination – careers were lost, property was seized or destroyed, and the steamboat that transported the apparatus was captured and sunk. The Hatteras lighthouse lens had become a pawn in the Civil War. Confederates took it to lay claim to what they believed was their lawful property. The Federal government wanted the lens returned and the Hatteras light re-established for humanitarian reasons, but more importantly, as a symbolic pronouncement proving that the Union, like the lighthouse, would prevail.

So began an intriguing mystery that endured for 140 years – what became of the 6,000-pound, 12-foot tall, bronze and crystal Fresnel lens from the original Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, hidden by Dr. Tayloe during the Civil War? By horse-drawn carts, pole-propelled flats, steamboats, and the rickety rails of the Confederate railroad, the lens – considered by some to be the “holy grail” of American lighthouses – vanished into obscurity, a mystery made of myths, urban legends, and a sea of faded and fire-damaged documents. According to Lighthouse Digest, the whereabouts of the Cape Hatteras lens had remained “one of the great-unsolved mysteries of American lighthouse history.”

It is a mystery no more. In 2002, Wake County-based history detective, filmmaker, and author Kevin Duffus solved the mystery and discovered the missing, first-order Fresnel lens from the 1803 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

But Duffus discovered more than the storied Hatteras lens – he compiled a staggering volume of research that, for the first time, accurately portrays the fate of the South’s lighthouses during the Civil War. These days, when he speaks to audiences across the state, Duffus tells an inspirational tale of perseverance, passion, imagination, and luck as he weaves a fascinating story that reaches back into his own family history when his great-great grandfather participated in the defense of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse against Confederate saboteurs.

Thirty years earlier, Duffus found his first clue to the riddle while researching an unidentified shipwreck in the black waters of an eastern North Carolina creek – what proved to be an unfinished Confederate gunboat launched from the same waterfront and on the same evening the Hatteras lens was spirited away from Washington. What started then as a search for the identity of a mysterious shipwreck, three decades later turned into a quest for the “lost light” of Cape Hatteras.

Where was Dr. Tayloe’s “good storehouse?” Over months, Duffus searched the tangled woods and decaying log tobacco barns surrounding the Tayloe family’s wartime refuge of Hibernia Plantation, part of which is now submerged under Kerr Lake. Local legends that the lens had been hidden in a mine or a cave proved false. Eventually, Duffus wondered if the solution to the mystery lay among the dusty records within the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. There, he searched for clues to the mystery of the lens through thousands of original, handwritten documents, letterbooks and maps, rolls and rolls of microfilm of War Department letters, and the published memoirs of Civil War generals and governors. Numerous letters yielded tiny clues. The vast puzzle of extinguished Southern lighthouses and missing lenses began to take shape, but the solution to the mystery of the Cape Hatteras lens remained elusive.

When he thought he was close to determining the whereabouts of the lens, Duffus was surprised by yet another abrupt turn in the story. The collection of research and its analysis became an obsession.

As it happened, the ultimate destination in the incredible odyssey of the Cape Hatteras Fresnel lens was revealed when Duffus had nearly given up his search. He was on his final visit to the National Archives in Washington. Because of the substantial costs of research, his long-time quest was at an end (at least, that’s what he promised his wife, Susan who works at the Heritage sales office to help support his adventures). Beside Duffus’ table was a cart – full of large, ornately bound, handwritten letterbooks through which he had to search. Each volume contained more than 500 pages of correspondence. Turning page after page, once for seven continuous hours, the days and hours passed quickly. His time in Washington was nearly up; just one hour remained and Duffus still had no answer. The Archives closed at 9 p.m., and he was one of only a few researchers remaining in the stone and oak vaulted room on the second floor. The green shades of reading lights cast the only light. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, at the Navy Memorial, a military band and choir had been playing well-known, patriotic songs: “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” “Stars and Stripes Forever.” At 8:45 p.m., the security officer announced the Archives would be closing in 15 minutes. There was still no answer to the mystery of the “lost light.” The choir began to sing “America the Beautiful.” Duffus thought of giving up, but before he did, something told him to turn one more page. And there it was – a letter that provided the evidence needed, the answer for which he searched. Thirty years after exploring a mysterious shipwreck in a black-water estuary, Kevin Duffus had solved the mystery of the “lost lens.” He was astonished when he realized what became of the crown-crystal, first-order Fresnel lens from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse – battered, broken, and forgotten, it had been stored for half a century on the shelves of a darkened government warehouse less than 100 miles from the tower. 

Where had it been and how did it get there, in such poor condition? Well, it’s a long story (sorry … you’ll have to read the book!). The lens has now been reconstructed and is on display in the lobby of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, NC. Nationally recognized lighthouse lampist James Woodward of Cleveland, OH, who supervised its conservation, called the lens “a national treasure.” The project team was assisted by volunteers from the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society. “Despite the abuse the lens has suffered, the public will still be able to appreciate its size and artfullness,” said Woodward. “They will also be able to appreciate how greed and a lack of consideration for history and heritage can almost destroy a fascinating machine crafted at the pinnacle of the industrial age.” Duffus, president of the museum’s board of directors said, “It will be fitting that this remarkable symbol of our nation’s lighthouse history, having guided seafarers and saved countless lives over two centuries, will guide future generations on a voyage of discovery and understanding of our rich maritime past. It was once truly, a diamond in the sky.”

Kevin Duffus is the author of The Lost Light –A Civil War History of Extinguished Southern Sentinels and Hidden Lighthouse Lenses and numerous award-winning documentary films about the Outer Banks. For more information call 1-800-647-3536, or visit <www.thelostlight.com>. ©2005 Looking Glass Productions, Inc.