The Washington herald., 1911-03-12
SEA-BATTERED CAPE HENRY AS DESERTED
AS WHEN JOHN SMITH SAILED INTO BAY

| oughly gone into by the War Depart.
ment That it will be erected is a GER
tainty. What is to be developed is tht
final size of it and the future of Fort
Monroe, which is now regarded as being
as impotent to prevent an enemy's
feet from ravaging the tidewater coun'
try of the Chesapeake and its tributaries
as were the arrows of those Indians
who opposed the original settlers.
With a modern fort armed with high
powered rifles at Cape Henry, govern
ment experts hold that Fort Monroe will
be no longer needed, and it may be that
it will be turned over to the navy az a
training station on account of the adapt
ability of Hampton Roads as a fleet rem
devious and the climatic conditions being
ideal throughout the year. The proxim-
ity of the Norfolk Navy Yard to Wash
ington and Annapolis also is given
as an argument in favor of such pro-
gramme This would make Hampton
Roads and Norfolk the chief naval sta
ton of the nation.
War Department Plans.
The work of erecting a fort at Cape
Henry has been considered by War De-
rartment engineers. In themselves the
big sand dunes afford excellent natural
protection for batteries, but their con-
slant drift and surface shifting present
a problem that is puzzling. 1t will be
child's play compared with the Panama
Canal however, and Uncle Sam antici-
pates no difficulty in pushing the work
through, once he has decided upon what
he wants and how it should be done.
The erection of a fort at Cape Henry
will mean the development of that place
in way undreamed of until the project
was launched. Also, it will mean the
destruction of much that is beautiful in
nature and picturesque in history.
At the cape to-day to the north and
east and south there is an unbroken eX-
panse of sea. An old brick tower and a
modern steel one rise beside each other
from a waste of sand. About them are
scattered some frame cottages, a wealth
or observatory, and a Casino" this last
being the Stunted growth of a summer
resort project. A mile down the shore is
life-saving station with its attendant
settlement of surfmen's homes. Some
hundred yards inland from north to south
line of struggling steel rails. punctu-
ated by weather-beating poles. wriggling
around sand dunes marks the western
boundary of visible civilization and life.
Beyond there is nothing but sand to be
seen
This is Cape Henry. This is where
John Smith, Christopher Newport, Ga
brieI Archer, George Percy, and other
sturdy voyagers from the Old World
first set foot upon the New Worlds soil
800 years ago. and, finding it a barren
spot, sailed onward to jamestown Island.
TreacherOus Shoals.
Not until years after the first landing,
when the thrift of the jamestown colony
brought more ships out of the East, did
the peril and treachery of the ever-shift-
ing shoals off Cape Henry become
known. Something was needed to warn
hardy mariners. and a light tower was
built. Its bricks were brought from the
mother country, with its lamp and queer
ref1ectOrS and the little square glass
panes for its hood. Early in the seven
teen hundreds was this. and since then
that stretch of coast from Cape Henry
to Cape HatteraS has been known as the
graveyard of shipping" Each year its
;hoals have claimed their toll in lives.