The Battle of North Point was fought on September 12, 1814, between General John Stricker's Maryland Militia and a British force led by Major-General Robert Ross. Although the Americans were driven from the field, they were able to do so in good order having inflicted significant casualties on the British, killing Ross and demoralizing the troops under his command. Some of Ross's units became lost among woods and swampy creeks during the battle, with others in similar states of confusion.

This combination of setbacks prompted Colonel Arthur Brooke to delay the British advance against Baltimore, buying valuable time to properly prepare for the defense of the city as Stricker retreated back to the main defenses to bolster the existing force. The engagement was a part of the larger Battle of Baltimore, an American victory in the War of 1812.

Background

British movements

Major General Robert Ross had been dispatched to Chesapeake Bay with a brigade of veterans from the Duke of Wellington's army early in 1814, reinforced with a battalion of Royal Marines. He had defeated a hastily assembled force of Maryland and District of Columbia militia at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814, and burned Washington. Having disrupted the American government, he withdrew to the waiting ships of the Royal Navy at the mouth of the Patuxent River before heading further up the Chesapeake Bay to the strategically more important port city of Baltimore, although the Americans managed to defeat a British landing at Caulk's Field before doing so.

Ross's army of 3,700 troops and 1,000 marines[5] landed at North Point at the end of the peninsula between the Patapsco River and the Back River on the morning of September 12, 1814, and began moving toward the city of Baltimore.

American defenses

Major General Samuel Smith of the Maryland militia anticipated the British move, and dispatched Brigadier General John Stricker's column to meet them. Stricker's force consisted of five regiments of Maryland militia, a small militia cavalry regiment from Maryland, a battalion of three volunteer rifle companies and a battery of six 4-pounder field guns.[7] Stricker deployed his brigade halfway between Hampstead Hill, just outside Baltimore, where there were earthworks and artillery emplacements, and North Point. At that point, several tidal creeks narrowed the peninsula to only a mile wide, and it was considered an ideal spot for opposing the British before they reached the main American defensive positions.

Stricker received intelligence that the British were camped at a farm just 3 miles from his headquarters. He deployed his men between Bear Creek and Bread and Cheese Creek, which offered cover from nearby woods, and had a long wooden fence near the main road. Stricker placed the 5th Maryland Regiment and the 27th Maryland Regiment and his six guns in the front defensive line, with two regiments (the 51st and 39th) in support, and one more (the 6th) in reserve. He placed his men in mutually supporting positions, relying on numerous swamps and the two streams to stop a British flank attack, all of which he hoped would help avoid another disaster such as Bladensburg.

The riflemen initially occupied a position some miles ahead of Stricker's main position, to delay the British advance. However, their commander, Captain William Dyer, hastily withdrew on hearing a rumor that British troops were landing from the Back River behind him, threatening to cut off his retreat. Stricker posted them instead on his right flank.

Opening skirmish

At about midday on the 12th, Stricker heard the British had halted while the soldiers had a meal, and some sailors attached to Ross's force plundered nearby farms. He decided it would be better to provoke a fight rather than wait for a possible British night attack. At 1:00 pm, he sent Major Richard Heath with 250 men and one cannon to draw the British to Stricker's main force.

Heath advanced down the road and soon began to engage the British pickets. When Ross heard the fighting, he quickly left his meal and ran to the scene. His men attempted to drive out the concealed American riflemen. Rear Admiral George Cockburn, second in command of the Royal Navy's American Station who usually accompanied Ross, was cautious about advancing without more support and Ross agreed that he would leave and bring back the main army. However, Ross never got the chance, as an American rifleman shot him in the chest. Mortally wounded, Ross turned command over to Colonel Arthur Brooke and died soon after.

Main battle

Brooke reorganized the British troops and prepared to assault the American positions at 3:00 pm. He decided to use his three cannon to cover an attempt by his 4th Regiment to get around the American flank, while two more regiments and the naval brigade would assault the American center. The British frontal assault took heavy casualties as the American riflemen fired into the British ranks, and lacking canister the Americans loaded their cannon with broken locks, nails and horseshoes, firing scrap metal at the British advance. Nevertheless, the British 4th Regiment managed to outflank the American positions and sent many of the American regiments fleeing. Stricker was able to conduct an organized retreat, with his men firing volleys as they continued to fall back. This proved effective, killing one of the British commanders and leaving some units lost among woods and swampy creeks, with others in confusion.

Not all the militia regiments performed with equal distinction. The 51st Regiment and some men of the 39th broke and ran under fire. However, the 5th and 27th held their ground and retreated in good order, having inflicted significant casualties on the enemy.[11] Only one American gun was lost.

Corporal John McHenry of the 5th Regiment wrote of the battle:

Our Regiment, the 5th, carried off the praise from the other regiments engaged, so did the company to which I have the honor to belong cover itself with glory. When compared to the [other] Regiments we were the last that left the ground... had our Regiment not retreated at the time it did we should have been cut off in two minutes.

Brooke did not follow the retreating Americans. He had advanced to within a mile of the main American position, but he had suffered heavier casualties than the Americans. As it was getting dark, he chose to wait until Fort McHenry was expected to be neutralized, while Stricker withdrew to Baltimore's main defenses.

Casualties

The official British Army casualty report, signed by Major Henry Debbeig, gives 39 killed and 251 wounded. Of these, 28 killed and 217 wounded belonged to the British Army; 6 killed and 20 wounded belonged to the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Royal Marines; 4 killed and 11 wounded belonged to the contingents of Royal Marines detached from Cockburn's fleet; and 1 killed (Elias Taylor) and 3 wounded belonged to the Royal Marine Artillery. As was normal, the Royal Navy submitted a separate casualty return for the engagement, signed by Rear-Admiral Cockburn, which gives 4 sailors killed and 28 wounded but contradicts the British Army casualty report by giving 3 killed (1 and 2 from HMS Madagascar and HMS Ramillies respectively) and 15 wounded for the Royal Marines detached from the ships of the Naval fleet. A subsequent casualty return from Cochrane to the Admiralty, dated September 22, 1814, gives 6 sailors killed, 1 missing and 32 wounded, with Royal Marines casualties of 1 killed and 16 wounded. The total British losses, as officially reported, were 43 killed and 279 wounded; 42 killed and 283 wounded; or 44 killed, 287 wounded and 1 missing: depending upon which of the versions of the casualty returns was accurate. Historian Franklin R. Mullaly gives still another version of the British casualties, 46 killed and 295 wounded, despite using these same sources. The American loss was 24 killed, 139 wounded and 50 taken prisoner.

Aftermath

Political cartoon JOHN BULL and the BALTIMOREANS (1814) by William Charles, praising the stiff resistance in Baltimore, and satirizing the British retreat.

The battle had been costly for the British. Apart from the other casualties, losing General Ross was a critical blow to the British. He was a respected leader of British forces in the Peninsular War and the War of 1812. Ross's death proved a blow to British morale as well. The combined effect of the blow suffered at North Point and the failure of the Royal Navy to capture or get past Fort McHenry at the entrance to Baltimore harbor, despite a 25-hour bombardment, proved to be the turning point of the Battle of Baltimore. During the bombardment on Fort McHenry, Francis Scott Key was detained on a British ship at the entrance to Baltimore and penned the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner".

The day after the battle, Brooke advanced cautiously towards Baltimore. There was no more opposition from Stricker, but when the British came into view of the main defenses of Baltimore, Brooke estimated them to be manned by up to 22,000 militia, with 100 cannon. He prepared to make a night assault against the defenses at Loudenslager Hill, but asked Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane to send boats and bomb ketches to silence an American battery, "Roger's Bastion", on the flank of his proposed attack. Despite a stiff fight between the boats, commanded by Captain Charles John Napier and the American batteries, the Bastion was unharmed and Brooke called off the attack and withdrew before dawn. The British re-embarked at North Point.

Legacy

The battle is commemorated through the Maryland state holiday of Defenders Day, as well as on the patch of the Baltimore County Sheriff's Office. The lineage of the 5th Maryland is perpetuated by the 175th Infantry Regiment (MD ARNG), one of nineteen Army National Guard units with campaign credit for the War of 1812.

The Maryland Museum of Military History, housed in the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore, Maryland, features an exhibit on the Battle of Baltimore which was installed to mark the 200th anniversary of the battle.

Sparrows Point is an industrial area in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland adjacent to Edgemere. Named after Thomas Sparrow, landowner, it was the site of a very large industrial complex owned by Bethlehem Steel, known for steelmaking and shipbuilding. In its heyday in the mid-20th century, it was the largest steel mill in the world. The site of the former Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard and steel mill is now renamed Tradepoint Atlantic in a revitalization program to clean up the environment and make it one of the largest ports on the East Coast. Today Sparrows Point is home to many distribution centers, fulfillment centers, training lots, storage lots, and the like, including those operated by Under Armour, Amazon, Home Depot, Volkswagen, and McCormick & Company.

History

Sparrows Point was originally marshland home to Native American tribes until being granted to one Thomas Sparrow Jr. (1620 - 1674) by Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, around 1652. His son Solomon Sparrow made a home there, calling it "Sparrow's Nest". In the 1700s the area became home to other families, who farmed and raised crops, building homes and hunting lodges. Among the many wealthy residents of Baltimore who owned property there was Major General George H. Steuart, who hosted the social reformer Dorothea Dix at Sparrows Point. By the 1860s much of the land, about 385 acres was owned by the Fitzell family.

Sparrows Point remained largely rural until 1887, when an engineer named Frederick Wood realized that the marshy inlet would make an excellent deep-water port for the Pennsylvania Steel Company The Fitzell’s were reluctant to part with their peach orchards but were eventually persuaded to sell.

Following World War II, many rural economic migrants settled in Sparrows Point, coming from Southern and Appalachian states. These migrants came to work at the Bethlehem Steel plant. Many of these workers were from rural areas and mining towns of West Virginia and Central Pennsylvania.

Steel

Steel was first made at Sparrows Point in 1889 by the Maryland Steel Company, a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Steel Company.

20th century

In 1916, Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, purchased the mill. The mill's steel was used as girders in the Golden Gate Bridge and in cables for the George Washington Bridge, and was a vital part of war production during World War I and World War II. The mill was served by four railroads: the Western Maryland, Pennsylvania, Baltimore & Ohio, and the local Patapsco & Back River Railroad, which was responsible for yard work.

In the mid-1950s, the plant operated 10 blast furnaces and had a rated capacity of 8,200,000 short tons of ingot steel per year, making the Sparrows Point waterfront plant the largest steel mill in the world at the time, stretching 4 miles from end to end and employing 30,000 workers. Most of the iron ore consumed at the plant came via ship, imported from mines in South America and Labrador. Limestone and coal were brought in from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia via rail. Steel was produced in 35 open hearth furnaces and cast into ingots, which were then reheated in soaking pits to be rolled into blooms or slabs via a large reversing rolling mill. Blooms were then rolled into long products like welded pipe, rebar, wire products, and nails. Slabs were rolled into sheets in a continuous rolling mill and plate in a reversing mill. The facility also featured a 66" cold rolling mill, a galvanizing line, and a tinplating line for sheet products. Additionally, the plant's coke ovens were also set up to capture certain coke byproducts like tar and toluene for resale.

Changes in the steel industry over the following decades, including a rise in imports and a move toward the use of simpler oxygen furnaces and the recycling of scrap, along with the intrinsically time and labor-intensive process of open-hearth steelmaking, led to a decline in the use of the Sparrows Point complex during the 1970s and 1980s.

From 1984 through 1986, an effort to modernize resulted in the successful installation of a basic oxygen furnace (BOF), continuous caster and supporting management information systems. However, this effort to save the plant and Bethlehem Steel was, perhaps, too little too late.

21st century

In 2005, the Sparrows Point plant was acquired by Mittal Steel as part of its acquisition of Bethlehem Steel's successor company International Steel Group after Bethlehem Steel's bankruptcy.

In March 2008, Mittal Steel sold the plant to the Russian company Severstal for $810 million. By 2008, the steelmaking capacity at Sparrows Point had dropped to 3.6 million tons per year, and it sold 2.3 million tons of finished products.

In 2012, the Sparrows Point steel mill was purchased along with other mills in Ohio and West Virginia by Ira Rennert's Renco Group for $1.2 billion. This made Renco the fifth owner in the past ten years. RG Steel, LLC, a unit of Renco, ran the facility until it filed for bankruptcy on May 31, 2012.

The Sparrows Point steel mill was purchased by Hilco Trading during RG Steel's liquidation in August 2012, and the cold mill assets were purchased by Nucor, who in 2012 and 2013 dismantled the cold mill, intending to use its parts to support their existing sheet mills.

In September 2014, the 3,100-acre property was purchased by Sparrows Point Terminal, LLC (SPT).[17] SPT entered into agreements with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the EPA, under which SPT agreed to develop and execute plans to complete the environmental cleanup of the site.

The agreements require SPT to establish a $43 million trust fund and provide MDE with a $5 million letter of credit to ensure that the cleanup work is completed, but the company remains obligated to complete the remediation work in accordance with those agreements, even if the cost exceeds $48 million. SPT also agreed to provide the EPA with $3 million to perform additional offshore investigation and, if necessary, offshore remediation. Both the purchase of the property by SPT and the company's agreements with MDE and USEPA were hailed by government and business leaders as a positive turning point for Sparrows Point. Maryland's Secretary of the Environment, Robert M. Summers, described the agreements as providing a "clear path to completion" of the environmental cleanup and an "extraordinary level of protection for the environment and public health." Viewing the environmental cleanup as the first step toward major economic revitalization for Sparrows Point and the surrounding region, Baltimore County Executive Kevin B. Kamenetz stated that "the future for returning thousands of family-supporting jobs to Sparrows Point looks brighter than it has in many decades." According to one of SPT's executives, the company's plans for redevelopment include transforming the site into "one of the largest ports on the East Coast".

In September, 2018, Amazon opened a fulfillment center on the property as part of the Tradepoint Atlantic industrial complex. In 2020 it opened a second fulfillment center next door.

In July, 2020 Volkswagen Group of America opened its port operations in Sparrows Point. At this location, the Volkswagen Group imports vehicles for the Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini and Porsche Brands. The facility serves the mid-Atlantic area and supports over 300 dealerships from North Carolina to Michigan and up to New York. The Volkswagen Group took a 20 year lease on a 115 acre parcel inside of Tradepoint Atlantic complex.

In 2023, it was announced that the US Department of Transportation Maritime Administration had allocated $47.4 million to redevelop the site of the former steel mill into an offshore wind turbine fabrication facility called Sparrows Point Steel.

Ships

The Sparrows Point Shipyard site was a major center for shipbuilding and ship repair. Maryland Steel Company established the Sparrows Point yard in 1889, and it delivered its first ship in 1891. Bethlehem Steel Corporation acquired the Sparrows Point shipyard in 1917. During the mid-twentieth century, Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding (BethShip)'s Sparrows Point yard was one of the most active shipbuilders in the United States, delivering 116 ships in the seven-year period between 1939 and 1946.

During the 1970s, Bethlehem Steel invested millions of dollars in upgrades and improvements to the Sparrow' Point yard, making it one of the most modern shipbuilding facilities in the country. This included the construction of a large graving dock to allow for the construction of supertankers up to 1,200 feet in length and 265,000 short tons in size.

Bethlehem Steel lurched from one financial crisis to another throughout the 1980s and 1990s, selling the Sparrows Point yard to Baltimore Marine Industries Inc., a subsidiary of Veritas Capital, in 1997 as part of an unsuccessful restructuring attempt. Baltimore Marine operated the facility as a ship repair and refurbishment yard until 2003, when Baltimore Marine Industries collapsed in bankruptcy.

The Sparrows Point shipyard complex was sold at auction to Barletta Industries Inc. in 2004. Barletta is attempting a redevelopment of the site for use as a business and technology park, and plans to revive shipbuilding on at least part of the site, making use of the modern graving dock added in the 1970s.

Liquefied natural gas

In 2007, the international energy company AES Corporation applied to the federal government for a certificate to build and operate a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Sparrows Point. The AES Sparrows Point LNG development would consist of three 160,000-cubic meter storage tanks and vessel offloading systems for LNG tankers. AES would also construct a new natural gas pipeline, the Mid-Atlantic Express, which would run north from Maryland into Pennsylvania, crossing under the Susquehanna River to connect with existing natural gas pipelines. The 33-inch-diameter buried pipeline would be 88 miles long. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the project in January 2009, over the objections of state and county officials in Maryland and Pennsylvania. FERC chairman Jon Wellinghoff cast a dissenting vote, stating that in his opinion the region’s energy needs could be better met without including LNG in the mix. The Maryland Department of the Environment denied Sparrows Point a water-quality permit that would allow the company to dredge in Baltimore Harbor. A citizens' group, the LNG Opposition Group, also opposed the project.

Company town

The steelmaking complex included a company town in its midst, initially planned by Frederick Wood and his brother Rufus Wood in the 1890s for Maryland Steel's thousands of workers. It had company stores, churches, and residential streets, with larger homes provided for upper-level managers and rowhouses for other employees. By the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the company town had 9,000 residents. As employment levels grew in the 1910s, workers also commuted to the Sparrows Point industrial complex from communities such as Dundalk and Baltimore City, with the Pennsylvania Railroad operating passenger train service from Baltimore in the early years. Baltimore's United Railways & Electric Company (organized in 1899 and renamed the Baltimore Transit Company in 1935), provided fast, electrified trolley service on its #26 line, which operated over a dedicated, double-track right-of-way for much of its length to the steel mill and shipyard.

The Fort Howard Veterans Hospital sat on the site of Fort Howard, a site that saw military action dating back to the War of 1812 when the British landed thousands of men there as the precursor to the Battle of Baltimore. In August 1940 the Veterans Administration (VA) acquired the title to the fort, and began moving operations there in January 1941. When the VA took over the site, the Medical Corps building was renovated to be the nurses’ home, infirmary, and attendants’ quarters. From 1925 to 1928 that nurses' home was the headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur. The hospital officially opened for patient care in 1943.

Starting in 1958, the hospital was a major health services research site in the VA's early effort to increase care and efficiency in its hospital system in what became known as the Fort Howard Program. The program was the initiation of the Health Services R&D Service (HSR&D). During the program, the HSR&D established the VA's first intensive care unit to test the value of individual monitoring.

The hospital closed in the early 2000s and the VA is leasing the site for mixed-use development for veterans.

In 2014, vandals set fire to the main hospital building, resulting in significant damage to the structure. After this incident, the property was guarded by private security due to arsonists previously setting fire to several of the buildings.

Hart-Miller Island is a 1,100-acre island located in Baltimore County on the Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of Middle River and is a must see for those who want to get away from it all. The island was originally part of a peninsula that extended from Edgemere, Maryland. The two islands, Hart and Miller, were joined by the construction of a dike in 1981, and until 2009, the impoundment was filled with dredge material from Baltimore Harbor, eventually creating Hart-Miller island. In recent years, Hart-Miller Island has become a haven for boaters in the northern Chesapeake Bay, providing the public opportunities to encounter many different species of plants, insects and wildlife along with other fun recreational activities.

The western shore of the island offers safe mooring, wading and access to a 3,000-foot sandy beach. Hart-Miller Island State Park also includes Hawk Cove and Pleasure Island, which also provide recreational opportunities and camping. The park is well-known for its abundant migrating bird populations.

History

The park occupies the southeastern portion of Patapsco River Neck, a peninsula of historically agricultural use. Evidence suggests that the area was first occupied by humans 9000 years ago. Members of the Susquehannock, a tribe of the Iroquois nation, inhabited the area. During the War of 1812, it was on the route traveled by British troops intent on invading Baltimore from the southeast and several skirmishes were fought there. The site was used for farming for some three and a half centuries before becoming the site of Bay Shore Amusement Park, a popular destination for summer visitors from 1906 through 1947.

Bay Shore Amusement Park (or Bay Shore Park) was built on 30 acres in 1906 by the United Railways and Electric Company of Baltimore using plans drawn up by architects Otto Simonson and Theodore Wells Pietsch.[ During its time, the park was a lively and attractive place offering a variety of recreations and relaxation along the Chesapeake Bay. Activities included a dance hall, bowling alley, restaurant, and pier. In addition to the trolley/streetcar from Baltimore, visitors could reach the park by steamboat from Baltimore to the park pier. Jimmy Doolittle won the Schneider Trophy seaplane race held at the park in 1925, an event attended by aviation pioneers Orville Wright and Glenn L. Martin.

In 1947, Bethlehem Steel bought and tore down the amusement park. The attractions were moved to a new park, Bay Island Beach, in the 1950s, which was then torn down by Bethlehem Steel in the 1960s. In 1987, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources purchased the land from Bethlehem Steel for five million dollars to create what was then known as Black Marsh State Park.

Because the park was a big proponent of the use of streetcars and used them for recreation, in 1992, Bay Shore Amusement Park and its trolley station were evaluated by the Maryland Historical Trust for the National Register of Historic Places. They were found eligible because of their association with streetcar-related recreation.

Activities and amenities

The park has several piers and provides beach access to visitors for wading and swimming. There are picnic tables and grills on site. The historical fountain has been restored, as well as the old trolley station, which is used by permit for large gatherings.

The Takos Visitor Center, which opened in 2002, was named in honor of Volunteer Ranger Steve Takos who spearheaded the renovation efforts at the park. It was designed to resemble the amusement's park former hotel and restaurant, and boasts an educational science room, multiple history and nature-oriented exhibits, including a large saltwater fish tank, and a conference room.

North Point has been continuously farmed for almost 350 years, with evidence of human occupation dating back almost 9,000 years. During the War of 1812, local militia skirmished with British troops seeking to invade Baltimore. The British route to Baltimore passed through the present-day park and is known today as the Defenders Trail.

During the first half of the 20th century, a small part of the park was the site of the Bay Shore Amusement Park. Built in 1906, Bay Shore was a bustling and attractive park offering recreation and relaxation in a setting of gardens, pathways and Edwardian architecture. The park included a dance hall, bowling alley, restaurant and a 1000-ft. pier jutting out into the Chesapeake Bay. Bay Shore Park was accessible by trolley from Baltimore.

Bay Shore Park was demolished in the late 1940s when Bethlehem Steel bought the land. The property was acquired by Maryland Department of Natural Resources in 1987 to provide resource protection and limited access to the bay. The area is now known as North Point State Park, located on North Point Road.

Craighill Channel Lower Rear Lighthouse is now more commonly known as the Millers Island Lighthouse.

Craighill Channel, so named for William Price Craighill, a key figure on the Lighthouse Board who supervised the engineering surveys of the channel, forms the first leg of the maintained channel from Chesapeake Bay to the Patapsco River and leads from the mouth of the Magothy River to Seven Foot Knoll and the Brewerton Channel.

The rising importance of Baltimore as a port persuaded Congress to set aside $50,000 in 1870 to widen Craighill Channel to 500 feet and deepen it to 22 feet. Without range lights, the channel was unusable at night, and the Lighthouse Board moved to remedy this situation in 1871 writing, “this channel has the advantage of saving about five miles in distance to large vessels bound to Baltimore from the lower bay; avoids much, if not all, of the dangers usually experienced from the accumulation of ice in the lower part of the Brewerton Channel during the winter; is much easier navigated, or would be if range beacons were established.” While eventually two sets of range lights would be constructed along the channel, totaling four lighthouses in all and forming an upper and lower range, the original plans called only for the lower range lights.

Due to the location of the Craighill Channel, it would have been problematic to construct range lights onshore and so the decision was made to build them on the bay. The original design called for standard screwpile foundations for both of the range lighthouses, however, before construction could begin, potentially dangerous ice conditions at the site of the front range were observed over the winter of 1872-73. This hazard prompted the Lighthouse to alter their plans and construct a small caisson structure for the front range and a granite pier foundation for the rear range using $45,000

The precise location of the rear light took careful planning to ensure the necessary alignment with the front range light, which was positioned 2.4 miles to the south. Once the location was determined, a sampling of the substratum was taken as noted in the Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board. “A careful examination showed that the soil was firm, hard sand, to a depth of two feet. Below this was a thick layer of sand and mud, mixed with stones, then soft mud to a depth of fifteen feet.” Based on these findings, a pile and grillage foundation was designed to support the piers on which the dwelling and the columns of the frame-work tower would rest.

In April 1873, a sixty-foot-square cofferdam was built around the site in two feet of water, and the interior was then pumped dry. Foundation piles were driven into the muddy bottom, cut off evenly, and topped with a grillage of timbers. Atop this foundation, nine piers, arranged in three rows of three, were constructed of Port Deposit granite to support the lighthouse.

Due to the expense of the foundations at both the front and rear locations, the initial funding was depleted before much work on the actual superstructures had started. A temporary light was established atop the granite piers of the rear range light on November 20, 1873, and the associated keeper lived ashore in the quarters used by the construction crew. The keeper of the light was forced to live in makeshift accommodations until additional funding was obtained, and the lighthouse was finally completed in early 1875. Congress provided $20,000 on March 3, 1873 and $45,000 on June 23, 1874 to finish the range lights, bringing the total cost of the two structures to $110,000.

The lighthouse constructed atop the granite piers resembled a four-sided pyramid, with the residence located inside the base of the framework. The keeper’s house was a one-and-a-half-story, wooden structure built in a Victorian style with dormer windows. An enclosed square, wooden, stairway extended from the residence to the elevated service room, watchroom, and finally the lantern room. A cantilevered deck surrounded both the watchroom and lantern room, and a small heating stove was located in the watchroom. The tower’s exoskeleton was made of cast iron, while the interior portion was made of wood.

Craighill Channel Lower Rear Lighthouse measures 105 feet tall, making it the tallest light in Maryland and one of the tallest on Chesapeake Bay. A fourth-order Henry-Lepaute Fresnel range lens installed in the lantern room produced a fixed white light, and the lighthouse itself was described in 1884 as an open-frame pyramid of four sides with its lower portion straw-color, its upper part brown, and its lantern red.

According to historical records, extensive repairs, necessitated by the decay of nearly all of the tower’s wooden braces, were made to the structure in 1884. Metal beam braces replaced the wooden ones, and during this work, new boat davits were installed and the entire tower was painted. On August 21, 1888, a cyclone tore away the dwelling’s roof, its copper smokestack, and portions of the covering of the stairway shaft, but all of the damage was quickly repaired over the next two months.

In 1888, Nicholas S. Hill, an owner of land on Millers Island near the lighthouse, sued the federal government for unauthorized occupation of the lighthouse site, which the owner claimed under the laws of riparian rights. A district court ruled against the owner, stating that the government “had the absolute right to erect and maintain a light-house wherever it was necessary, on any submerged land in navigable waters.”

The rear light was converted to acetylene and automated in 1923, and the keeper’s dwelling was then reportedly rented out until it was dismantled in 1938. The wooden stairway is believed to have been covered with its corrugated metal sheets when the dwelling was torn down.

The rear light was electrified in April 1929, at which time a submarine cable was used to connect the tower to commercial electricity. A 94-watt railway headlight bulb was placed inside the fourth-order range lens, increasing the candlepower from 20,000 to 140,000, which was important as the rear tower is situated roughly ten miles from the entrance to Craighill Channel.

A Coast Guard engineering survey of the rear tower made on April 20, 1994 reported that the wooden portion of the tower “will rapidly become a serious safety hazard to service personnel” and recommend the Coast Guard “shouldn’t spend any more money trying to maintain it.” Instead, the engineer advised that the wooden stairway should be demolished and replaced with a device to lower the light for required service. To date, the central column of the tower remains intact, and the tower has been determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, which may protect the tower from any alterations.

On August 11, 2010, Coast Guard personnel removed the historic Fresnel lens from the rear lighthouse, after stabilizing each of its prisms with archival tape. Portions of the lens’ annular rings are missing, and the original central bull’s-eye has been replaced by a Pyrex version. Once the lens was removed from its pedestal, it was carried down a staircase to the service room, where it was packed in a crate before being lowered by rope down the tower’s central shaft. A sixteen-foot Coast Guard boat transported the lens to shore, and a government van carried the artifact to the Coast Guard Exhibit Center for storage.

Keepers:

• Head: Henry Buckless (1873 – 1874), Joel W. McDonald (1874 – 1887), Bernhard Berends (1887 – 1901), William K. Slacum (1902 – 1908), Henry H. Wills (1908 – 1923).
• Assistant: Uriah R. Nichols (1873 – 1874), Robert Williams (1874 – at least 1917), Robert Kuhn (at least 1919), William W. Bozman ( – 1921), Joseph D. Barnett (1921 – 1922), John M. Stowe (1922 – 1923).

Eastpoint Mall is a one-level regional enclosed shopping center located in Baltimore County. Eastpoint Mall was one of Baltimore’s first shopping centers and has been serving the community since 1956.

In the current location of the Eastpoint mall was an open mall with outdoor walk ways connecting it, which included stores such as Hutzler's and Hochschild Kohn's department store. In the 1970s, this open mall was enclosed, thereby making the location the present enclosed mall. JCPenney came to the mall in 1974. In 1981, a Record Bar store opened at the mall. The Hutzler's store closed in 1984 and became a food court in 1991, while Sears was also added. Value City and Value City Furniture later split the old Hochschild Kohn's building. Ames was also added as an anchor, later becoming Steve & Barry's. Steve & Barry's closed in 2008, becoming DSW and Shoppers World in 2010. DSW since closed in early 2016. The mall's fountain was based on Robert Woodward's El Alamein Fountain in Sydney. A half-dandelion version was at Towson Town Center. On November 2, 2017, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 63 stores nationwide. The store closed in January 2018.

More recently, Eastpoint Mall has been anchored by JCPenney, Burlington, Gabe's, and Value City Furniture. The Mall featured over 120 specialty shops, restaurants, and services including Foot Locker, Bath & Body Works, AT&T Wireless, Shoe City, Chick-fil-A, The Children’s Place, McDonald's, Shoe Show, Cricket Wireless, and Rue21.