Drum Point Lighthouse
14805 Patuxent Ave, Solomons, MD
Solomons, MD
A hexagonal red-roofed cottage on iron legs, one of the last of the screwpile lighthouses that once dotted the shallows of the Chesapeake Bay.
Drum Point Lighthouse is one of the last survivors of a vanished world. In the late nineteenth century the shallow, shifting waters of the Chesapeake Bay were dotted with screwpile lighthouses, hexagonal cottages perched on iron legs that were literally screwed into the soft mud of the bay bottom. Drum Point was built in 1883 to mark the entrance to the Patuxent River, and it is now one of only a handful of these distinctive lights still standing.
Rather than let it rot in place, the lighthouse was moved to the grounds of the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, where it has been carefully restored and furnished to show how a keeper and his family lived in its cramped, cozy rooms. Touring it feels like stepping into a small floating home, and it anchors one of Southern Maryland's most engaging museums.
What Guests Love
- Stepping inside a rare surviving cottage lighthouse furnished as a keeper's family once lived
- Learning how these odd houses on stilts were screwed right into the bay's soft bottom
- Pairing the lighthouse with the Calvert Marine Museum's fossils, boats, and marsh life
- The easygoing waterfront charm of the town of Solomons all around it
Worth Knowing
- The lighthouse was moved here from its original spot to save it, and now sits at the museum for visitors to tour
- Tours of the interior may run on a set schedule, so check with the museum when you arrive
- It is one stop within the larger Calvert Marine Museum, well worth pairing with the fossil and estuary exhibits
- The steps up into the cottage are steep and narrow in the way of a real working lighthouse
Details
Solomons, MD
Learn about Drum Point Lighthouse
Houses on stilts in the bay
The Chesapeake Bay is broad but often very shallow, with shoals and soft muddy bottoms that made building solid stone lighthouses difficult and expensive. The clever answer was the screwpile design: a set of iron piles with broad screw-like flanges that could be turned down into the soft bottom to anchor a lightweight wooden cottage above the water. From the 1850s onward, dozens of these were placed across the bay's tricky spots.
Drum Point Lighthouse was raised in 1883 to guard the northern side of the mouth of the Patuxent River, warning vessels off the point and guiding them into the river's channel. Its hexagonal cottage held both the light above and living quarters for the keeper, a self-contained little station standing out in the open water on its spidery iron legs.
Life inside a cottage lighthouse
Keeping a screwpile light meant living far out over the water in a compact wooden house, tending the lamp, sounding the fog bell in bad weather, and keeping careful watch through storms. The restored interior at Drum Point shows this life in detail, with the keeper's bedroom, kitchen, and sitting room furnished as they might have been, and the lantern room above reached by a steep stair.
The rooms are small and the space tight, a reminder that these were working homes as much as navigation aids. In heavy weather the whole structure could shudder in wind and ice, and keepers sometimes had to leave when the bay froze. Standing inside, you can imagine the isolation and the quiet duty of the families who lived here.
Saved by moving it ashore
By the mid-twentieth century modern navigation had made the old screwpile lights obsolete, and one by one they were dismantled, burned by ice, or left to decay. Drum Point was decommissioned and faced the same fate, but a community effort rescued it, floating the cottage off its original site and bringing it to the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons for preservation.
There it was restored and opened for visitors, one of only a small number of Chesapeake screwpile lighthouses that survive at all. Its rescue is a story of local determination to hold onto a piece of the bay's maritime heritage that would otherwise have vanished entirely.
The museum and town around it
Drum Point Lighthouse is part of the Calvert Marine Museum, whose exhibits range from the fossil-rich cliffs of the nearby bay shore, where sharks' teeth and prehistoric whale bones turn up, to the living creatures of the tidal marsh and the working watercraft of the Patuxent. The lighthouse gives the museum's maritime story a dramatic centerpiece.
The surrounding town of Solomons is a relaxed waterfront community at the tip of a narrow peninsula, with a walkable boardwalk, seafood restaurants, and marinas full of pleasure boats and workboats alike. It makes an easy and pleasant base for exploring this quiet corner where the Patuxent meets the Chesapeake.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Solomons
Calvert Marine Museum
At the lighthouse
A museum of the Patuxent and Chesapeake, with prehistoric fossils, an estuary aquarium, and historic bay watercraft.
Solomons waterfront
A short walk
A boardwalk along a sheltered harbor lined with seafood restaurants, shops, and marinas.
Calvert Cliffs State Park
About 12 miles
A bay-shore park where visitors hunt for fossil sharks' teeth along the beach beneath tall cliffs.
Annmarie Sculpture Garden
About 3 miles
A wooded park of outdoor sculpture and winding paths near the water in Solomons.