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Editorial: Saving the lighthouse

New Point Comfort Light has stood since 1805 to mark the entrance from Chesapeake Bay to Mobjack Bay, and to warn mariners of the shoals surrounding the point.

The Coast Guard did not see its worth, discontinuing the light in 1963 and its upkeep as a day marker less than a decade later. An offshore beacon was implanted to do the job.

Mathews people, seeking to save their beloved beacon, asked the state and then the county to take over; and so, Mathews County became the owner of this ancient structure in the early 1970s.

By 1976, a committee of volunteers acquired funds and began to close up its gaping windows and doors, and to repair the masonry, and to repaint the tower. That effort and several others in subsequent decades probably saved the structure.

In the meantime, the seas continued encroaching. What once stood firmly on a sandy point is now situated well offshore on a rocky island, reinforced at least twice by additional stone.

Fast forward.

An article in last week’s...

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