Civil War-era lighthouse lens goes home

Chris Weber of the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge inspects the repaired lighthouse lens assembly.

Ponce Inlet A lens that sat atop a North Florida lighthouse from the end of the Civil War until last November was crated in a plywood box and lifted to the bed of a white pickup truck Thursday to begin its long drive home.

The Fresnel lens assembly, made in Paris by Henry-Lepaute Company between 1854 and 1860, had arrived weathered and deteriorated. It was cleaned, repaired and stabilized at the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and Museum, a project that took four months.

Over 500 hours work, said Ellen Henry, curator at the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse who did much of that labor.

Ed Gunn, executive director of the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and Museum, said the museum is donating the effort as our gift to the lighthouse community. It is one of the few facilities in the nation with experience in this kind of project.

Wow! exclaimed Chris Weber, facilities operation manager for the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, when he first saw the assembly. This looks right.

St. Marks is Floridas second-oldest operating lighthouse, built in 1842, three years before Florida became a state. The three-foot, egg-shaped lens assembly weighs about 150 pounds and was installed in 1867.

A Fresnel lens focuses the diffuse light from a lighthouse lamp in this case, it was originally a whale-oil lamp into a tight beam you can see for miles.

Made of rows of greenish glass prisms wedged into a bronze skeleton, the assembly had suffered metal deterioration and broken prisms after almost 150 years atop the lighthouse, which is now undergoing a $1.5 million renovation.

A lot of bad things happen over the years, and you start to lose your parts, said Henry.

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Civil War-era lighthouse lens goes home