Qualla: Hereford Inlet Lighthouse

Hereford Inlet Lighthouse: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit darlingtrk, CC BY 2.0. The first keeper of the Hereford Inlet Lighthouse died less than three months into the job. John Marche took up his post when the tower lit for the first time in 1874, and not long after, he made the routine crossing to the mainland by rowboat. The boat overturned. He drowned. His successor, a Civil War veteran named Freeling Hewitt who went by "Captain," took over and stayed for the next forty-five years. That tension - between the lighthouse keeper's quiet domestic routine and the violent water just yards from the porch - has defined Hereford Inlet from the first whale-hunters who used these waters in the 1600s to the modern tourists who climb the tower today.

Image: darlingtrk | CC BY 2.0

Hereford Inlet Lighthouse: A Lighthouse That Looks Like a House

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Didier Moïse, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most American lighthouses are sturdy brick or stone cylinders. Hereford is something rarer. Its fifty-foot tower rises out of a Stick-style Victorian frame house, all gables and decorative bracing and a wraparound porch - the same architectural language the painted Cape May cotta...

Image: Didier Moïse | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hereford Inlet Lighthouse: The Storm That Moved a Lighthouse

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit WhisperToMe, CC0. Hereford Inlet has always been an unstable place. Currents shift the sand; storms remake the shoreline. In August 1913 a hurricane drove water into the lighthouse foundation and threatened to take the whole structure with it. The Coast Guard's predecessor agency closed the light,...

Image: WhisperToMe | CC0

Hereford Inlet Lighthouse: Heinzman and the Garden Hose

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ted Kerwin, CC BY 2.0. In 1938 the keeper was Ferdinand Heinzman, and on the day in question he was painting the upper trim. A passing coastguardsman saw smoke coming out of an upstairs window and called the fire department. Heinzman tried to fight the flames from inside but was pushed back by the heat...

Image: Ted Kerwin | CC BY 2.0

Hereford Inlet Lighthouse: Decommissioned, Then Saved

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ted Kerwin, CC BY 2.0. In 1964 the Coast Guard decided automation was simpler than maintaining a keeper. They built a small skeletal tower nearby, transferred the light to it, and boarded up the lighthouse. For eighteen years the building sat dark. Salt and weather worked on the wood. The New Jersey St...

Image: Ted Kerwin | CC BY 2.0

Hereford Inlet Lighthouse: Anglesea and the Refuge

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SnapShotCapeMay, CC BY-SA 3.0. The lighthouse stands in what is now North Wildwood, but in the nineteenth century the local fishing village was called Anglesea. When storms struck, residents of Anglesea fled to the lighthouse for shelter - the only substantial building nearby with elevated rooms and stout wall...

Image: SnapShotCapeMay | CC BY-SA 3.0