Non-screwpile (straightpile) tubular skeletal tower lighthouses were built

Non-screwpile (straightpile) tubular skeletal tower lighthouses were built, usually of cast-iron but also of wrought-iron piles, both onshore and offshore, typically on soft bottoms such as mud, sand, and swamp. Alexander Mitchell invented the screwpile, a major improvement over the standard straightpile construction type. With his son, he patented his wrought-iron screwpile design in England in the 1830s. The first screwpile lighthouse type built in the United States was at Brandywine Shoal, Delaware Bay, an area served by a lightship since 1823 and an ordinary straightpile lighthouse which stood briefly there in 1828 but was destroyed by ice. Major Hartman Bache, a distinguished engineer of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, began work in 1848 and completed the task in 1850, at a construction cost of $53,317. Alexander Mitchell served as consultant. The screwpiles were turned by a 4-foot capstan worked by 30 men. To protect the structure from ice floes an ice-breaker consisting of a pier of 30 iron screwpiles 23 feet long and five inches in diameter were screwed down into the bottom and interconnected at their heads above the water reinforcing them together. Subsequently, though, the use of caisson lighthouses proved more durable in locations subject to ice.

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