MYSTERY PHOTO: Light and reflection

A reader sent in this phenomenal photo showing a South Carolina scene.  Where is it? For bonus points, identify the particular event for this scene.  Send your best guess to editor@charlestoncurrents.com. And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live.

Our last Mystery Photo, “Historic photo,” showed the ruins of the Charleston Lighthouse on Morris Island in 1863.  The photo was from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  The Smithsonian Institution recently released millions of old pictures for public use and available for download through its website.

Congratulations to those who recognized the image:  George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Jay Altman of Columbia; Marnie Huger of Richmond, Va.; and Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas.

Altman wrote: “This is an observation tower built in the 1860’s on the ruins of the Morris Island lighthouse. Confederate troops destroyed the lighthouse in 1862 to prevent  Union troops from using it as an observation post. Union troops occupied Morris Island in 1863, and built this observation tower.”

Graf shared this info, according to onlyinyourstate.com: “At least four light structures have been built on Morris Island, but it’s likely there were a total of five. The one shown was erected [in 1863] during the Civil War on top of the remains of the light destroyed by the government. It was an effort to destroy all lights along the southeast coast at the start of the Civil War to prevent Confederate troops from getting control over the lights. 

“The Union troops reported the Morris Island Light totally destroyed in 1862. Just prior to that, the lighthouse keeper was reportedly banished and ordered to leave the state entirely. Technically, the first navigational assistance was placed on Morris Island in 1673. It was a simple raised metal pan, filled with pitch and set afire at night. In 1767, the first light structure was erected. It was 40-feet tall.”

Peel gave a lot of detail about the actual photograph: “Today’s mystery photo is one created by Philip Haas (1808-1871) and Washington Peale (1825-1868) in August 1863, and shows the crude light and observation tower built by the Union Army on the site of what was once the original (circa-1767) Morris Island Lighthouse, on Morris Island, S.C.

“When South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union in December 1860, it took control of all of the lighthouses along its coastline so as to limit the Union’s ability to mount an attack from the sea. The Confederate Army of Engineers removed the Fresnel lens from the Morris Island Lighthouse, and the tower was converted into an observation post. In April 1861, the first shots of the Civil War were fired over Fort Sumter and by July 1983, General Quincy Gilmore had laid siege to Morris Island, destroying the original lighthouse and erecting a crude observation tower in its place.

“During the war, Haas and Peale had been tasked by the Union Army to document the lives and activities of the Union forces in South Carolina. Much of their work, including the photo featured today, was made using an early ‘wet glass plate negative’ technique, which at the time was described in Do-It-Yourself (DIY) manuals as ‘a simple method for creating lasting photographs consisting of just ten easy steps (!)’.”

Send us a mystery:  If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!)   Send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.