Jupiter Lighthouse Focus Of County’s Sole Civil War Skirmish

Q: Were there any Civil War battles in Palm Beach County?
A: Just one, but it wasn’t much of one. It was the battle of the Jupiter Lighthouse. The light was established July 10, 1860. Gen. George Meade, who would later win the battle of Gettysburg, designed it to guide mariners over the treacherous shallows. During the Civil War, Confederate blockade-runners familiar with the waters didn’t need the light and didn’t want it revealing them to Union patrols. Assistant keeper August Oswald Lang, a German immigrant now a proud citizen of the Confederate States of America, ordered his boss to surrender the lighting mechanism. Keeper J.F. Papy, loyal to his federal paycheck, said no, but was convinced otherwise. The rebels hid the light, and it was recovered after the war. It was relighted June 28, 1866 and, except for a brief failure during the great 1928 hurricane and some electrical problems in the late 1980s, has sent its beam sweeping 18 miles across the dark seas ever since.
Read more: The History of Jupiter Lighthouse, by Bessie Wilson Dubois.
Florida History Center and Museum: (561) 747-6639. Delray Beach Historical Society: (561) 274-9578