Sharps Island Light

The Sharps Island Light is the third lighthouse to stand nearly 3 miles (5 km) south-southwest from the southern end of Tilghman Island in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. The structure is best known today for evoking the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a condition caused by an ice floe in 1977. The first lighthouse was built on Sharps Island in 1838, but due to the island's erosion it was moved in 1848. In a report from Stephen Pleasonton, the general superintendent of the United States Treasury Department's Lighthouse Establishment, the lighthouse was described as having:10 lamps; Jeremiah Valiant, keeper...Dwelling-house is built of wood, two stories high, with the lanterns on the roof. The plastering to the rooms is much cracked, but it is not of much consequence, as it is unoccupied. The keeper's son sleeps in it of nights to take care of the lights. Found the lamps and reflectors good and clean. This was replaced with a screwpile lighthouse in 1866 near the original location of the first structure. The second lighthouse lasted until 1881 when it was forced off its foundations by an ice floe. It floated nearly five miles down the Chesapeake—with its keepers still inside—until it ran aground, allowing the men to escape unharmed. The third light was manufactured by the Builder's Iron Company of Providence, Rhode Island. It consisted of a cylindrical caisson 30 feet (9.1 m) in diameter an

Building data from Wikidata (CC0); heights normalised. Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).