St. Mary’s County will mark National Lighthouse Weekend with free admission at the Piney Point Lighthouse Museum & Historic Park on Aug. 8 and 9, giving visitors a rare no-cost chance to climb the oldest lighthouse tower on the Potomac River.
The St. Mary’s County Museum Division is opening Piney Point’s museum and lighthouse tower from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, with free tours of the lighthouse tower, the keeper’s quarters, the Potomac River Maritime Exhibit’s collection of full-sized workboats, and two floors of exhibits in the main museum building. Admission and tours are free for the weekend only; the museum is asking visitors to consider a donation to support its programs.
Built in 1836 by master lighthouse builder John Donahoo, the Piney Point Lighthouse stands roughly 14 miles up the Potomac from the Chesapeake Bay and has long carried the nickname “Lighthouse of the Presidents,” a reference to the area’s history as a fashionable summer retreat for Washington’s elite in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The tower replaced a lightship that had marked the area’s shoals since 1821; Congress appropriated $5,000 in 1835 for a permanent structure, and Donahoo built the 35-foot brick tower and an attached keeper’s dwelling for a contracted price of $3,888. The light was automated in the 20th century and the station was ultimately decommissioned by the Coast Guard in 1964. The federal government deeded the property to St. Mary’s County in 1980, and the county’s Museum Division began restoring the site in 1990. The lighthouse and its grounds are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Visitors during the celebration are also encouraged to make the trip to St. Clement’s Island to see a full-scale replica of the Blackistone Lighthouse, which once stood on the island’s southern tip. The original Blackistone Lighthouse, also built by Donahoo, was completed in 1851 and served the Potomac until it was decommissioned in 1932; it burned down in 1956 after standing vacant for decades, ending more than a century of continuous service that included a Confederate raid during the Civil War and 37 years under keeper Josephine McWilliams Freeman, one of only 49 women to serve as a U.S. lighthouse keeper. A community group called the St. Clement’s Hundred rebuilt the lighthouse from Donahoo’s original plans, completing the roughly $800,000 replica in 2008 after a bequest from Freeman’s granddaughter, Josephine Mattingly, helped launch the effort.
The replica lighthouse is reachable only by the St. Clement’s Island Museum’s water taxi, which will run from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. during the celebration weekend, with the 2 p.m. departure marking the last trip to the island. The water taxi costs $7 per person for all ages. Because weather and other factors can affect the boat’s schedule, the museum is advising visitors to call 301-769-2222 ahead of a planned trip to confirm the taxi is running.
The weekend celebration is timed to National Lighthouse Day, which Congress designated in 1989 to mark the anniversary of an act signed Aug. 7, 1789 establishing federal support for the nation’s lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public piers — one of the first pieces of legislation passed under the new federal government. The date also marks the commissioning of the country’s first federally funded lighthouse.
Piney Point and the Blackistone replica are both part of St. Mary’s County’s broader network of historic maritime sites, alongside the county’s other Donahoo-built lighthouse landmarks along the Potomac and Chesapeake shorelines. Piney Point’s museum grounds also include the Potomac River Maritime Exhibit and interpretive displays on the World War II-era German submarine U-1105, which now rests offshore as Maryland’s first designated historic shipwreck dive preserve.
More information on the Piney Point Lighthouse Museum is available by calling 301-994-1471 or visiting facebook.com/1836Light. Information on the St. Clement’s Island water taxi and museum is available at 301-769-2222.
Both sites are operated through St. Mary’s County’s Recreation and Parks Museum Division, with support from the nonprofit Friends of St. Clement’s Island and Piney Point Museums, which runs museum store proceeds back into preservation and educational programming at both locations.
