Visit to Mathews
On Friday, October 18th the New Point Comfort Lighthouse had a special visit from Maryland Public Television’s (MPT) film crew. The Mathews County Visitor & Information Center was delighted to act as liaison for the outing for an upcoming documentary about the Lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay for MPT’s annual Chesapeake Bay Week coming April, 2020. Every April, MPT celebrates the Chesapeake Bay and highlights critical issues, its rich cultural fabric, heritage, and natural resources through special programs. This year’s program for example featured topics such as the Wild Ponies of Chincoteague, Saving Ellicott City, Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and even the Legacy of Gilbert Klinely: Man of Steel – a Gwynn’s Island naturalist, and boat builder, photographer, and local legend.
Lighthouses Featured in Chesapeake Bay Week
Though MPT is based in Maryland, often these programs reach Virginia’s Bay territory, and this Lighthouse series covers all the way to New and Old Cape Henry Lighthouses — Old Cape Henry Lighthouse was the first federally funded public works project of the newly formed United Sates government near “First Landing,” where English Settlers first set foot on their way to settle in Jamestown. Our own proud beacon, New Point Comfort, stands as the third oldest lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay commissioned by Thomas Jefferson, and is the 10th oldest in the United States. For two hours, the film crew circled the lighthouse to acquire footage for the episode on the beautiful “Miss Violet” deadrise thanks to the transportation services of Wayne Hudgins of Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina. Friday was a particularly windy day, so the crew was not able to board the dock or use drone photography, however the Producer John Paulson will be back to take aerial footage by helicopter.
To find out more about Chesapeake Bay Week, visit http://bayweek.mpt.org, if you are curios about the on going preservation project for New Point Comfort Lighthouse, visit Newpointcomfortlighthouse.org.
