A pile driver was set up on the deck of a vessel, but after waiting three weeks in the vicinity of the shoal for calm seas, the eight-month term of service to which the work party was committed expired, and they could not be persuaded to remain on site.Īnother work party was assembled and taken out to the shoal in early August, but after six weeks of rough weather, they were unable to initiate the work, and the project was abandoned for the season. The seabed, which was thought to have been mainly coral, turned out to be quite sandy, and it was determined that piles would have to be driven. After new materials were obtained, work on a second platform began, but it was lost when the trestle foundation settled unevenly in the sand. When they returned three days later, there was no trace of the platform. Work at the site commenced during the last week of April in 1855, and three weeks later, the platform, built on trestles, was nearly completed, when a violent gale forced the work party to seek refuge at Dry Tortugas. Due to a failure to procure mangrove piles for the platform and the lack of sufficient funds to complete the project, erection of the beacon had to be postponed until 1855. The Lighthouse Board sanctioned the work on January 10, 1854, and the necessary materials were shipped to Key West in May of that year. Meade examined the shoal in 1853 and then prepared and submitted plans for a day beacon later that year. The first attempt to mark Rebecca Shoal was in the 1850s, when Lt. Photograph courtesy State Archives of Florida Rebecca Shoal Lighthouse being approached Part of the two-acre Key Largo Lighthouse and Marina property in the Florida Keys, this lighthouse has far more significance than your typical faux lighthouse, for it incorporates the only known surviving piece of the famous but long-gone Rebecca Shoal Lighthouse. Thanks to the interest in and research by the owners of the lighthouse, David and Mariana McGraw, and work done by others, the history of this interesting lighthouse can now finally be pieced together.
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