The Sea Rovers

by Rufus Rockwell Wilson

Fog often obscures the rays of the most powerful light, and it is then that the fog signal and the whistling buoy come into play. The most effective fog signal is the American siren, a steam machine worked under seventy pounds pressure, and from which a series of noises come forth that can be heard from two to four miles. Certain intervals in the sounds designate the nearest light and afford a welcome and often much-needed guide to the mariner enveloped in a cloak of fog. This system of fog signals extends along the entire seaboard, extra precautions being taken on the Northern Atlantic coast.

Mineral oil is the principal illuminant used in our lighthouses. It is selected with the greatest care, and is subjected to three several tests before being accepted. Gas has been tried as a lighthouse illuminant, but with inferior success, and there are at the present time only three lighthouses in which it is used. Experiments with electricity have also been only fairly successful, its light blinding instead of giving aid to the pilot. The lighthouse station on Staten Island is a busy place, and much work is done there, but the wheels of industry are so well oiled and run so smoothly, that a deep peace seems always to brood over the establishment. Day after day and year after year the work, moving in well-marked channels, goes on with quiet and certainty. Everywhere the neatness and order prevail that mark all departments of the lighthouse service.

Indeed, in no branch of the government service is stricter discipline and closer attention to duty insisted upon than is demanded from the brave and devoted men who tend our lighthouses. The pay of these keepers ranges from $1,000 to $100, the average, by an Act of Congress passed some years ago, being $600. The Lighthouse Board, which controls the service, selects as keepers the best men obtainable, preference being always given to men who have served for lengthy periods in the army and navy.

Members of this class know what discipline means, and hard experience has taught them that orders are to be obeyed to the letter. Many an old veteran, whose scars tell of valiant service in the Civil War or on the Western frontier, and many an old shipmaster or mate, whose weather-beaten face bespeaks long years spent on the quarter-deck, as lighthouse keepers now do duty on solitary and barren beacon rocks, where for months at a time, aside from their own voices and those of their families, the roar and moan of the ocean, as it beats against the breakers below, are the only sounds that are heard.

The life of the keeper—though many who follow it seem wholly contented with it, and doubtless would not leave it for any other calling—is thus a lonely and arduous one. Two breaches of the rules which govern the keeper's conduct bring as a penalty immediate dismissal from the service. The absence of a light for a single moment may bring disaster to life and property on the seas, and neither excuse nor previous good conduct can save from instant dismissal the keeper who allows his light to go out. He may plead that his wife or child was dying, but he is told that he must subordinate his light to nothing. And he must not only keep his light burning, but stay by it so long as the lighthouse stands. Some years ago an ice pack lifted from its foundations, overturned and carried away the Sharp's Island lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay. The two keepers had a staunch boat and could have made their way to shore. Instead, they bravely chose to remain at their post of duty, and for sixteen hours, without food or fire, drifted with the wreck at the mercy of the ice cakes. When the wreck finally grounded the keepers carried ashore all the movable portions of the light, the oil, and everything else they could take with them.

At the same time the keepers of another light, fearing danger, left their post and went ashore. They pleaded that the ice had rendered the light useless for the time being, but this excuse had no weight with their superiors. They had proven recreant to their trust and were dismissed from the service, the places they had filled being given to the two keepers who had refused to leave their post of duty, even when to remain seemed certain death. Drunkenness, when detected, also leads to removal from the service. That and allowing one's light to go out are the two unpardonable sins in the eyes of the lighthouse inspector.

Aside from his duties at night, the keeper finds plenty of work to do. Promptly at a given hour in the morning the lights must be extinguished; and during the day all put in order for the coming night. In the lantern room the lenses must be kept free from speck or tarnish, and the reflectors, the brass railings and the gun metal carefully burnished and polished to the last degree of brightness. The oil tanks must also be filled and the wick trimmed. Carelessness or negligence in any of these particulars is dangerous, for the visits of the inspectors are always unannounced, and may occur at any moment.

Most important of all, the lamp must be lighted on time, for a delay of even a few minutes will not escape notice. Each keeper is required to record the time the lights appear in the stations within his range, and tardiness in this particular is noted by watchful eyes, and at once reported. At inaccessible stations, as a rule, from three to four keepers are employed. In stormy months, when communication with the mainland is impossible, one or more of the keepers may die or be disabled, and experience has taught that, to insure safety, three men at least must be posted at every dangerous station.

No keeper is allowed to engage in any business which may interfere with his presence at the lighthouse. However, there are some keepers who work at tailoring, shoemaking, and similar trades; and there are others who are preachers, school-teachers and justices of the peace. The keeper whose lighthouse is located on land is encouraged to keep a garden, and a barn is provided for his horses and cattle. Until a few years ago many keepers greatly increased their incomes by taking boarders in the summer—life in a lighthouse has a strong attraction for those fond of the romantic—but the Lighthouse Board finally prohibited the renting of quarters to outsiders in buildings owned and constructed by the Government, and this pleasant and convenient source of revenue was cut off.