HISTORICALLY FAMOUS
LIGHTHOUSES
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page [Foreword] v ALASKA [Cape Sarichef Lighthouse, Unimak Island] 1 [Cape Spencer Lighthouse] 2 [Scotch Cap Lighthouse, Unimak Island] 3 CALIFORNIA [Farallon Lighthouse] 4 [Mile Rocks Lighthouse] 5 [Pigeon Point Lighthouse] 6 [St. George Reef Lighthouse] 7 [Trinidad Head Lighthouse] 8 CONNECTICUT [New London Harbor Lighthouse] 9, 10 DELAWARE [Cape Henlopen Lighthouse] 11 [Fenwick Island Lighthouse] 13 FLORIDA [American Shoal Lighthouse] 15 [Cape Florida Lighthouse] 16 [Cape San Blas Lighthouse] 18 GEORGIA [Tybee Lighthouse, Tybee Island, Savannah River] 21 HAWAII [Kilauea Point Lighthouse] 24 [Makapuu Point Lighthouse] 25 LOUISIANA [Timbalier Lighthouse] 26 [Boon Island Lighthouse] 27 MAINE [Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse] 28 [Dice Head Lighthouse] 30 [Portland Head Lighthouse] 31 [Saddleback Ledge Lighthouse] 32 MASSACHUSETTS [Boston Lighthouse, Little Brewster Island] 33 [Brant Point Lighthouse] 35 [Buzzards Bay Lighthouse] 38 [Cape Ann Lighthouse, Thatcher’s Island] 40 [Dumpling Rock Lighthouse, New Bedford Harbor] 41 [Eastern Point Lighthouse] 43 [Minots Ledge Lighthouse] 43 [Nantucket (Great Point) Lighthouse] 47 [Newburyport Harbor Lighthouse, Plum Island] 49 [Plymouth (Gurnet) Lighthouse] 50 MICHIGAN [Little Sable Lighthouse] 53 [Spectacle Reef Lighthouse] 54 [Standard Rock Lighthouse, Lake Superior] 56 MINNESOTA [Split Rock Lighthouse] 57 NEW HAMPSHIRE [Isle of Shoals Lighthouse] 59 [Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse] 61 NEW JERSEY [Navesink Lighthouse] 62 [Sandy Hook Lighthouse] 63 NEW YORK [Crown Point Memorial, Lake Champlain] 64 [Portland Harbor (Barcelona) Lighthouse, Lake Erie] 65 [Race Rock Lighthouse] 67 NORTH CAROLINA [Cape Fear Lighthouse “Bald Head Light”] 69 [Cape Hatteras Lighthouse] 71 [Cape Lookout Lighthouse] 73 [Ocracoke Lighthouse] 75 OREGON [Tillamook Rock Lighthouse] 77 RHODE ISLAND [Beavertail Lighthouse] 78 [Prudence Island Lighthouse] 78 SOUTH CAROLINA [Charleston Lighthouse, Morris Island] 80 TEXAS [Point Isabel Lighthouse] 82 VIRGINIA [Cape Charles Lighthouse] 83 [Cape Henry Lighthouse] 85 WASHINGTON [Cape Flattery Lighthouse] 87

Foreword

Under the supervision of the United States Coast Guard, there are today some 158 manned lighthouses in the nation. Another 60 are cared for by other Coast Guard units in the general area. There are hundreds of other lights of varied description that are operated automatically. And, as technology improves, more and more lighthouses are being operated without a full time crew. Indeed, many of the isolated lighthouses described in this booklet are scheduled for automation.

In the course of our history as a nation, and before that as British colonies, we have built hundreds of lighthouses, some of which still stand though now inactive, having been sold for private residential or other use. Many have been rebuilt and not a few have succumbed to the ravages of time. The history of our lighthouses thus parallels the history of our nation.

Since 1716, when the Province of Massachusetts built Boston Light, scarcely a year has passed that has not seen a new light structure erected somewhere along our sea coasts, on our navigable rivers, or along our lake shores. To tell the story of these lighthouses would be a major undertaking. These stories of some of them, however, have been selected chiefly for their historical interest. Others have been included because their unique locations or types of construction are of more than usual interest.

The lighthouse typifies maritime safety. As part of our early coastal defense system, they played a major role in important Coast Guard duties related to military readiness. Additionally, the light’s strategic locations along our coasts aided another early Coast Guard function, law enforcement, by making it possible for cutters to judge their distances from the coast and so prevent smuggling operations within the three-mile limit.

The stories of 56 lighthouses have been told here. The stories of hundreds of others, of equal interest, could have been included had space permitted.

The oldest lighthouse described is the Boston Light built in 1716. The newest in this booklet is Buzzards Bay Light which is located some five miles off the Massachusetts coast, replacing a lightship that had been there for many years.

The distance these lights are visible has been given in the geographical range. The theoretical visibility of a light in clear weather depends upon two factors, the height of the light above water, and its intensity. The height controls what is known as the geographic range, while the intensity controls what is known as the luminous range. As a rule, for the principal lights the luminous range is greater than the geographic, and the distance from which such lights are visible is limited by the earth’s curvature only. Under some atmospheric conditions the glare or loom of these lights, and occasionally the light itself, may be visible far beyond the computed geographic range. On the other hand, and unfortunately more frequently, these distances may be lessened by fog, rain, snow, haze, or smoke.

Some of the terms in this booklet may be new to readers. A short glossary of terms follows:

Candlepower—The luminous intensity of a light expressed in candles.

Lantern—The glassed-in enclosure on the top of an attended lighthouse which surrounds and protects the lens. Sometimes the entire piece of illuminating apparatus is referred to as the lantern.

Prism—A device for refracting light.

Radiobeacon—Electronic apparatus which transmits a radio signal for use in locating a mariner’s position.

Reflector—An optic which by reflection changes the direction of a beam of light.

Classification of lenses—Lenses are classified as to size by “order”, the first order being the largest and the sixth order the smallest. The actual size of a lens is expressed by its inside diameter. The following is a list of the standard lenses:

The numbers in parentheses in the text refer to source of information as indicated in the bibliography on [page 88].

Lighthouses are arranged alphabetically by states and by the name of the light within the state.

THE COAST GUARD

The United States Coast Guard is a unique service. It is one of the five branches of the armed forces of the U. S. During time of peace it operates under the Department of Transportation. During time of war, or at the direction of the President, it operates under the Secretary of the Navy. The Coast Guard is responsible for a number of missions, including search and rescue, oceanographic research, maintenance of aids to navigation, icebreaking, merchant marine safety, port safety, law enforcement and military readiness.

ALASKA
CAPE SARICHEF LIGHTHOUSE, UNIMAK ISLAND

Two primary lighthouses mark Unimak Pass, the principal passage through the Aleutian Islands into the Bering Sea. One of these, Cape Sarichef, originally built in 1904, is the only manned lighthouse on the shores of the Bering Sea. It is located on the west end of Unimak Island and with Scotch Cap Light Station, 17 miles away, is conceded to be one of the most isolated light stations in the Service. The only neighbor to the keepers, for many years was a trapper, 10 miles away.

The original light was on a wood tower on an octagonal wood building 45 feet high. The light was 126 feet above the sea. Although quarters were originally provided for them, families were not permitted to live at this and Scotch Cap Light, because of their isolation. The civilian keepers were granted 1 year’s leave each 4 years. Coast Guard personnel now serving at the light serve a year at a time at this isolated location. At the end of his year’s tour each man is transferred to a new duty station.

The reservation on which Cape Sarichef Light is built is 1,845 acres of primeval wilderness. The first lighthouse cost $80,000 to build. The tower has now been rebuilt and incorporated with a loran station.

The 700,000 candlepower, 375-millimeter electric white light is lit for 25 seconds and eclipsed for 5 seconds. There is also a fog horn and a radiobeacon. [(1)] [(2)]

ALASKA
CAPE SPENCER LIGHTHOUSE

At the entrance to Cross Sound.

Cape Spencer Lighthouse, Alaska, is a primary light, fog signal, and radiobeacon station, marking the northerly entrance from the Pacific Ocean into the inside passages of southeastern Alaska. It is on a route much frequented by vessels seeking to avoid the often stormy outside passage. Cape Spencer is one of the most isolated of Alaskan lighthouses, where the keepers must go 20 miles for their mail, and where the nearest town of any size is 150 miles away. The station was commissioned in 1925, and is fitted with the most modern types of signalling equipment. From the top of the tower is shown a light of 500,000 candlepower, and in time of fog a diaphone fog signal is sounded at regular intervals. The radiobeacon, established in 1926, and the first radiobeacon in Alaska, is of high power, with a range of 200 miles and more at sea. The station buildings are of reinforced concrete construction. [(1)] [(2)]

ALASKA
SCOTCH CAP LIGHTHOUSE, UNIMAK ISLAND

Scotch Cap Light was built in 1903. It consisted of a wood tower on an octagonal wood building 45 feet high and was 90 feet above the sea. It was located on the southwest end of Unimak Island and on the east side of the Unimak Pass into the Bering Sea. It was the first station established on the outside coast of Alaska. Prior to the introduction of the helicopter, access to the stations was so difficult that it was impractical to arrange for leave of absence in the ordinary way. Instead each keeper got one full year off in each 4 years of service. Coast Guard enlisted personnel now man this isolated unit on a rotating one year tour of duty.

During an earthquake and tidal wave of April 1, 1946, Scotch Cap Lighthouse slid into the sea and all five persons on the station were lost.

A temporary unwatched light was established in 1946, consisting of a small white house exhibiting a light of 300 candlepower maintaining the former station characteristic of flashing white every 15 seconds, flash 3 seconds, eclipse 12 seconds. A radiobeacon was temporarily reestablished at the radio direction finder station.

The new permanent structure was completed in the early part of 1950 and the temporary light and radiobeacon discontinued. The new station consists of a 800,000 candlepower light exhibited from a white rectangular building with flat roof, a diaphone fog signal, and a radiobeacon. [(1)] [(2)]

CALIFORNIA
FARALLON LIGHTHOUSE

Offshore, 25 miles off the Golden Gate.

This lighthouse, on the highest peak of the southeast Farallon, was built in 1855 in the busy days which followed the gold rush, when clipper ships and other sailing vessels were sailing in to San Francisco in large numbers. That there was need for a light on these dangerous rocks is evident when clippers like the Golden City which sailed from New York in 1852 reported that she was detained 5 days off the Farallons in fog. Stone for the construction of the lighthouse was quarried on the island and inside this masonry was a lining of brick. The extremely sharp slopes of the island and the jagged nature of the rock were serious obstacles to construction work. The bricks used in the tower were carried up the rock in bundles of four and five on the backs of men. After the completion of the tower a mule was kept on the island for years to carry supplies between the various parts of the station. At one time this mule was the oldest inhabitant. A number of years ago the gathering of birds’ eggs, which were sold on the San Francisco market, was carried on here extensively and seals were also hunted commercially. These practices were finally terminated by the Federal Government.

The Farallon Light Station is now equipped with a radiobeacon as well as with a powerful light and fog signal. [(1)] [(2)]

CALIFORNIA
MILE ROCKS LIGHTHOUSE

One-half mile off Landsend, in the Golden Gate.

This lighthouse was completed in 1906, after considerable difficulty caused by the heavy seas and strong currents occurring at this point. The rock upon which the lighthouse is built measured only 40 by 30 feet at high water. The base of the tower is a large block of concrete protected by steel plating. Steel and concrete in the foundation alone weighed 1,500 tons. The superstructure is of steel, and houses the fog signal apparatus and the quarters for the keepers, with the lantern above. It was on this rock that the Rio Janeiro was wrecked shortly before the building of the lighthouse. One hundred and twenty-eight persons out of a total of 209, lost their lives when the Rio Janeiro went down on February 2, 1901. The wreck has never been found. In 1966, the tower was removed, and the light automated. [(1)] [(2)]

CALIFORNIA
PIGEON POINT LIGHTHOUSE

On Coastal Highway, 5 miles south of Pescadero.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse is one of the most picturesque lighthouses on the Pacific coast, the 115-foot white masonry tower standing on a rocky promontory long a landmark for ships approaching San Francisco Bay from the southward.

This lighthouse was built in 1872, and is equipped with a lens of the first order producing a light of 500,000 candlepower. The station also has an electrically operated fog signal. This headland, and hence the lighthouse, took its name from the ship Carrier Pigeon wrecked here many years ago. [(1)] [(2)]

CALIFORNIA
ST. GEORGE REEF LIGHTHOUSE

Off shore, 6 miles off Point St. George, near Crescent City.

This lighthouse, built on a small rock only 300 feet in diameter, is one of the most exposed lighthouses on the Pacific coast. Extreme difficulties were encountered in constructing this tower, and 10 years were required before the work was completed. The total cost was $702,000 making it one of the most costly lighthouses ever constructed. The light was first displayed in 1892. The base of the tower is a solid block of concrete and granite, and the tower above is also built of granite blocks. The stone was quarried from granite boulders found on Mad River near Humboldt Bay. Probably the most violent storm experienced at this lighthouse was that of 1923, when huge seas from a northwesterly direction broke on the platform of the tower, 70 feet above water, with such violence as to tear the donkey-engine house from its foundation. Several men have been injured, and several men killed in transferring to this light by small boat. [(1)] [(2)]

CALIFORNIA
TRINIDAD HEAD LIGHTHOUSE

On headland near town of Trinidad.

This low, square, brick tower, painted white, was built in 1871. The light is only 20 feet above ground, but the headland on which it stands gives it an elevation of 196 feet above the sea. The location is one of the most picturesque on the California coast. Despite the great height of the tower above the sea, heavy seas have been known to reach it. In 1913, the keeper made the following report: “At 4:40 p. m. I observed a sea of unusual height. When it struck the bluff the jar was very heavy. The lens immediately stopped revolving. The sea shot up the face of the bluff and over it, until the solid sea seemed to me to be on a level with where I stood in the lantern. The sea itself fell over onto the top of the bluff and struck the tower about on a level with the balcony. The whole point between the tower and the bluff was buried in water.” [(1)] [(2)]

CONNECTICUT
NEW LONDON HARBOR LIGHTHOUSE

The original New London Harbor Lighthouse was built on the west side of the entrance to New London Harbor in 1760. The original lighthouse was probably of masonry. It apparently was completely removed when the stone tower which stands today was built in 1801. Following the act of August 7, 1789, the lighthouse, built in 1760, was ceded to the United States, according to the following “Memoranda of Cessions” by Connecticut:

“1790, May. Lighthouse at New London and certain rocks and ledges off against the harbor of New London, called Race Rock, Black Ledge, and Goshen Reef, together with buoys.”

On May 7, 1800, Congress appropriated $15,700 “for rebuilding, altering, and improving the lighthouse at New London, Conn.,” of which $15,547.90 was spent for the purpose in 1801, the balance being carried to the surplus fund.

On November 22, 1838, Lt. George M. Bache, U. S. N., made a report on the light which he described as a stationary light, situated on a rocky point to the westward of the entrance to the River Thames, and 2 miles from the town of New London. “It is of great importance as a leading light for vessels going in and out of the harbor of New London, which, on account of its position and security, is much resorted to during the heavy gales of winter.”

“The light is shown from an elevation of 111 feet, which, in clear weather, should render it visible 16½ miles. * * * The tower is a substantial building of freestone, smooth hammered, and laid in courses; it is 80 feet in height, and is ascended by an interior stairway of wood, having landings at convenient distances. * * *”

“The lighting apparatus consists of 11 lamps, with parabolic reflectors, disposed around 2 horizontal tables so as to throw the lights from WSW south about to N by E. The reflectors are 13 inches in diameter. This apparatus was furnished in 1834.”

In 1855 a fourth-order lens to illuminate 315° was recommended. In 1863 new dwellings for keepers were provided. In 1868 a road was opened by the city of New London across the lighthouse grounds, the road being fenced on both sides.

In 1874 a second-class fog signal with two 18-inch engines and a Daboll trumpet was installed. It was in operation 553 hours during 1875. In 1883 a first-class fog trumpet was substituted. On December 21, 1896, an improved fog signal consisting of two 3½-horsepower Hornsby-Akroyd oil engines, air compressors etc., was installed operating the first-class Daboll trumpet.

A fog-signal house was built in 1903 and 13-horsepower oil engines, with trumpet, siren etc., were installed in the following year. The fog signal was discontinued on September 5, 1911. On July 20, 1912, the light was changed to acetylene, unattended.

The lighthouse is a white, octagonal pyramidal tower, 90 feet above ground and 89 feet above water, the light being visible for 15 miles, and located on the west side of the entrance to New London Harbor. The light is a 6,000-candlepower fourth-order electric light flashing white every 4 seconds, with a red 1,300-candlepower sector from 0° to 41°, covering Sarah Ledge and the shoals to the westward. [(1)] [(2)]

DELAWARE
CAPE HENLOPEN LIGHTHOUSE

Cape Henlopen Lighthouse was completed in 1767, part of the funds to erect it being raised by a £3,000 lottery. Even though the structure was within the limits of Delaware, the 200 acres on which it was erected was granted by the “late proprietors of Pennsylvania to the Board of Wardens for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse on Cape Henlopen.” The estimated cost of the original lighthouse was £7,674/3/2.

In 1777 the lighthouse was practically completely burned down by the British. On the return of peace in 1783, the wardens proceeded to repair the damage and it was relighted in 1784.

On September 28, 1789, the lighthouse together with all beacons, buoys, and public piers, lands, tenements and jurisdiction was ceded to the Federal Government by the State of Delaware in accordance with the act of Congress of August 7, 1789.

As early as 1788 evidence of wind erosion in the sandy area in which the tower was constructed, had been noted and steps taken, by planting “under-wood and weeds of every kind,” to prevent the sand from blowing away. There seemed to be no encroachment from the sea at that time.

Abraham Hargis was the keeper from 1797 to 1813 and his successor John Ware served until 1827. Following him Kendall Baston served until 1838, with a Mr. McCracken serving for a short period, until December 1839, when Asa Clifton, of Lewes, Del., took charge. William Elligood took over as keeper in 1849.

In 1851 sand was reported advancing toward the tower and the keeper’s house. A first-order lens was installed in 1856 due to the “numerous accidents that have occurred in consequence of the inferiority of the lighting apparatus from confounding a light which, from position, should be one of the principal seacoast lights, for the lightship off Five Fathom bank * * *”

In 1863 a new keeper’s dwelling was built, “the old one being threatened with destruction by the speedy progress in that direction of a remarkable sand hill, which has been moving inflexibly in a certain course at a constant rate of speed for many years, presenting in its existence and movement a most singular natural phenomenon.”

In 1868 “the big sand hill” situated at the north of the tower, formed of drifting sand, was found to have moved southward at the rate of 11 feet a year. The application of brushwood to exposed places was thought to have stopped the movement by 1872.

In 1883, the sea, in a storm, encroached upon the ocean side of the station, until the high water line came under the lighthouse and the question of the protection of the structure was taken under consideration. In that year the bark Minnie Hunter came ashore 550 feet north of the lighthouse and acted as a jetty so that the level of the sand under the lighthouse structure was raised some 20 inches. Erosion continued, however, and by 1885 the beacon, which had become unsafe from undermining, had to be removed to Delaware Breakwater.

In 1897 the sand dune surrounding the tower was reported to be steadily blowing away and by 1905 “several tons of brush were placed about the tower and oil house to prevent the foundations and brick walls from being undermined by the drifting away of the sand.”

All measures to protect the tower failed, however, and on April 13, 1926, a northeast storm undermined the tower and caused it to fall seaward. Its value to shipping, however, had already been superseded by the light and fog signal station on the Delaware Breakwater and by the lightships and lighted buoys marking the entrance to Delaware Bay. [(1)] [(2)] [(7)]

DELAWARE
FENWICK ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE

Congress authorized the erection of a lighthouse on Fenwick Island, Del., in 1856. The site for the light adjoined the south boundary of Delaware on the Delaware-Maryland boundary line in the vicinity of Fishing Harbor. Immediately behind the storehouse of the light station is a stone monument or marker, apparently of granite, having the arms of William Penn carved on the north side and the arms of Lord Baltimore on the south side. This stone is the first stone erected in connection with the Mason and Dixon’s line survey. It is the only and original first stone set up in 1751.

When King Charles of England granted Penn his 29,000,000 acres in 1681 which now form the State of Pennsylvania, a controversy immediately began with Lord Baltimore, who owned the Maryland territory, as to the boundary line. As Penn acquired, also, what is now Delaware, it affected the line of that territory as well. This controversy raged through three or four generations and was not finally settled until 1768. By 1750, however, the only line the disputants were not quarreling over was the lower east-west line, so they appointed two surveyors to go the spot, determine the compass variation, and start the survey of the line, which was and is the present lower line of Delaware State. The surveyors arrived at Fenwick Island in December 1750. They drove a stake at a point 139 perches west of the “Main Ocean” at a group of four mulberry trees where the lighthouse now stands. Then they measured east to the “Verge of the Ocean” and began the line there. They could put no permanent mark at the water’s edge, but they measured some 6 miles west and then quit for the weather was bad, their cabin had burned up, and the exposure was great.

In April 1751, all hands again met at Fenwick Island. The commissioners were shown the work of the previous December and approved it and on April 26, 1751, a stone was set where the stake had been, having the arms of Lord Baltimore on the south side and of Penn on the north. This is the stone that stands there today.

Other stones were erected at 5-mile intervals and the west line of the State of Delaware was set up. Soon after this Lord Baltimore died and his death delayed things. Nothing was done for about 10 years, when under a new agreement in 1760, between the then generations of Penns and Baltimores, surveys were started again on this north line, the object being to lay it out so as to hit the 12-mile circle, 81 miles above, determined upon as the northern boundary of Delaware, with New Castle as its center. The surveyors made such a poor job of it, despite several efforts, after 3 years, that Penn and Baltimore in England hired Mason and Dixon, two engineers of note, to go over to America, take charge and do the job. They arrived in 1763, accepted the lower or east and west line across the peninsula as correct, reran the north line and ran the line from the northeast corner of Maryland west, for about 223 miles. This is the generally understood Mason and Dixon’s line. They also ran the north and south line which is the western boundary of Delaware. Five years were occupied in this and not until 1768 was the last stone set, which ended the controversy of nearly a century.

By 1857 the site for the lighthouse had been selected and marked and the tower was completed early in 1859, being first lit on August 1, 1859. The total cost was $23,748.96.

In 1932 a strip of land 60 feet wide, extending east and west across the site, was deeded to the State of Delaware for roadway purposes and in 1940 about three-fourths of the site was sold including the entire northern wooded half and 2.71 acres of the southern half.

The white lighthouse tower now stands 0.3 mile inshore on the coast, the tower being 83 feet above water and the top of the lantern 87 feet above ground. A 25,000-candlepower light flashes white every 3 seconds and is visible 15 miles at sea. [(1)] [(2)]

FLORIDA
AMERICAN SHOAL LIGHTHOUSE

Off shore, visible from Overseas Highway at Saddlebunch Keys.

As early as 1851 plans were made for the erection of a series of great offshore lighthouses to mark the dangerous Florida Reefs. These towers, all of skeleton iron construction, to resist hurricanes, were eventually built one at a time over a period of years, that on American Shoal completed in 1880, being the most recently constructed. The ironwork for this light was fabricated in the North, and along with other necessary supplies and materials, was shipped to Key West, which was made the base of operations. The site of the lighthouse was 15 miles to the eastward, on the outermost reefs, and was covered with 4 feet of water. Construction continued for about 2 years, and the tower when completed cost about $94,000. The lighthouse was first lighted on the night of July 15, 1880, and has since helped to bring about a substantial reduction in the number of shipwrecks occurring along this dangerous coast. The light is 109 feet above the water, and is visible on a clear night for 16 miles. American Shoal Lighthouse is almost exactly like the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse situated near Miami. [(1)] [(2)]

FLORIDA
CAPE FLORIDA LIGHTHOUSE

The Cape Florida Lighthouse was completed in 1825. It was 65 feet high, of solid brick, 5 feet thick at the base. For years it guided the mariner as he passed the dangerous Florida Reef and led him into Cape Florida Channel to a safe anchorage from violent gales in the lee of Key Biscayne.

During the Seminole War, on July 23, 1836, John W. B. Thompson was the assistant keeper. It was on that day that the lighthouse was attacked by Indians. “About 4 p. m.” Thompson writes “as I was going from the kitchen to the dwelling house, I discovered a large body of Indians within 20 yards of me, back of the kitchen. I ran for the lighthouse, and called out to the old Negro man that was with me to run, for the Indians were near. At that moment they discharged a volley of rifle balls, which cut my clothes and hat and perforated the door in many places. We got in, and as I was turning the key the savages had hold of the door.” Thompson stationed the Negro at the door and then began firing his three muskets loaded with ball and buckshot, at them from a window. They answered with war cries and musket balls.

Thompson fired at them from some of the other windows and from the top of the lighthouse. “I kept them from the house until dark,” he related. “They then poured in a heavy fire at all the windows and lantern; that was the time they set fire to the door and to the window even with the ground. The window was boarded up with planks and filled with stone inside; but the flames spread fast, being fed with yellow pine wood. Their balls had perforated the tin tanks of oil, consisting of 225 gallons. My bedding, clothing, and in fact everything I had was soaked in oil.”

Thompson took one musket with powder keg and balls to the top of the lighthouse, then went below and began to cut away the stairs about half way up from the bottom. “I had difficulty in getting the old Negro up the space I had already cut, but the flames now drove me from my labor, and I retreated to the top of the house.”

The keeper covered over the scuttle that led to the lantern, which kept the fire from him for some time. “At last the awful moment arrived,” he went on, “the crackling flames burst around me. The savages at the same time began their hellish yells. My poor Negro looked at me with tears in his eyes, but he could not speak. We went out of the lantern and down on the edge of the platform, 2 feet wide. The lantern was now full of flame, the lamps and glasses bursting and flying in all directions, my clothes on fire, and to move from the place where I was, would be instant death from their rifles. My flesh was roasting, and to put an end to my horrible suffering I got up and threw the keg of gunpowder down the scuttle. Instantly it exploded and shook the tower from top to bottom.”

“It had not the desired effect of blowing me into eternity, but it threw down the stairs and all the woodenwork near the top of the house; it damped the fire for a moment, but it soon blazed as fierce as ever.”

The Negro man called out, “I’m wounded.” Then spoke no more. Those were his last words. By this time, Thompson had also received many wounds and was literally roasting alive. He decided to jump off the tower.

“I got up, went inside the iron railing, recommending my soul to God, and was on the point of going head foremost on the rock below when something dictated to me to return and lie down again. I did so, and in 2 minutes the fire fell to the bottom of the house.”

A few minutes later a stiff breeze sprung up from the southward which was a great relief to the heat-tortured keeper. The Indians, thinking him dead, left the lighthouse and set fire to the dwelling and began carrying their plunder to the beach, where they made off with it in the keeper’s sloop about 2 a. m.

“I was now almost as bad off as before,” the keeper continued, “a burning fever on me, my feet shot to pieces, no clothes to cover me, nothing to eat or drink, a hot sun overhead, a dead man by my side, no friend near or any to expect, and placed between 70 and 80 feet from the earth with no chance of getting down.”

The old Negro’s body had literally been roasted but there was a piece of his trousers that had escaped the flames by being wet with his blood. With this Thompson made a signal. Some time in the afternoon he saw two boats, with his sloop in tow, coming to the landing. They were the boats of the U. S. schooner Motto, Captain Armstrong, with a detachment of seamen and marines, under the command of Lieutenant Lloyd, of the sloop-of-war Concord. They had retaken Thompson’s sloop, after the Indians had stripped her of sails and rigging. They had heard the explosion, 12 miles off, and had come to his assistance, scarcely expecting to find him alive.

The problem now arose of how to get the keeper down. During the night they made a kite thinking to fly a line to him but to no effect. Then they fired twine from their muskets, made fast to a ramrod, which the keeper received and with it hauled up a tail block, making it fast around an iron stanchion, enabling two men to be hoisted up from below. The keeper was then lowered and was soon on terra firma. He was taken to the military hospital.

Rebuilding of the Cape Florida Light, authorized in 1837, was not completed until 1846 because hostile Indians remained nearby in the Everglades. In 1855 the tower was raised to 95 feet.

The lighting apparatus was destroyed in 1861, during the Civil War, and was not restored until 1867.

Cape Florida Light was discontinued in 1878 when Fowey Rock Light was established, and the tower and property sold to Mr. James Deering of Chicago, Ill. [(8)]

FLORIDA
CAPE SAN BLAS LIGHTHOUSE

The Cape San Blas Lighthouse was completed in 1849 with an appropriation of $8,000 made 2 years earlier. The shoals running out from the cape extended 4 or 5 miles and made it dangerous for all vessels nearing the coast. If the light had been high enough it could have been seen for 20 miles and afforded protection to vessels going to and from Tortugas to New Orleans, but the light from the 85- or 90-foot tower was visible only half that distance. The site was “deemed to be entirely secure from overflow or inundation” by the collector of customs at Apalachicola, Fla., who selected it, with the assistance of “two of our most experienced pilots.”

The lighthouse erected in 1849 “fell down during a gale in the autumn of 1851” and on August 31, 1852, Congress appropriated $12,000 for rebuilding it. The new structure was completed in 1856.

It had been completed only a few months when during the severe storm of August 30, 1856, it too was totally destroyed. “The sea rose so high,” the Lighthouse Board reported, “that the waves struck the floor of the keeper’s dwelling, elevated 8 feet above the ground, and about 14 feet above the ordinary tides. A lagoon now occupies the site of the lighthouse.”

On March 3, 1857, Congress, for the third time, appropriated money for a lighthouse at Cape San Blas. This appropriation was for $20,000 and the new lighthouse was first lighted with a third-order lens on May 1, 1858.

The light station sustained serious damage at the hands of Southern troops during the Civil War. The keeper’s dwelling was completely destroyed and the door frames and sashes of the tower were torn or burnt out. Repairs were made, a new illuminating apparatus was provided, and the light was reexhibited on July 23, 1865.

In 1869 the beach in front of the lighthouse was reported to be washing away and would need protection against encroachments of the sea during heavy storms. In 1877 Congress appropriated $2,000 for protecting the site after the Lighthouse Board had reported 2 years earlier “The base of the tower is very nearly at the same level as the sea, which is but little more than 150 feet distant, the shore being of shifting sand. In a violent hurricane, it is feared, the tower may be undermined.” The Board had asked for $5,000 to protect the site and reported in 1879 that, as it was found “impracticable to build a jetty for $2,000 that can protect the site from the encroachment of the sea, no further action has been taken in the matter.”

Finally in 1881 the Board reported “The sea has been encroaching on this tower until its base is in the water. Brush mattresses were made, pinned down to the sand with small iron screw piles, covered with sand and occasionally blocks of concrete, to further check such encroachment, but the almost constant surf, beating against the mattresses, tore them to pieces. * * * An appropriation for a new tower, further inland is badly needed. It is recommended that a skeleton iron tower be erected; then if the sea again encroaches, it could be taken down and reerected. The new tower will cost $25,000.” The following year the Board noted “No appropriation was made; the site remained unprotected and on July 3, 1882, the tower was overthrown and completely destroyed.” The Board strongly recommended that the tower be replaced on a safe site at an early date, there being no intervening light between San Blas and Pensacola, 120 miles distant.

An appropriation for a fourth tower was made available in 1883. The remains of the third tower were then 400 feet distant from the shore, and the sea continued to erode the beach. By 1885 a fourth tower, a skeleton tower of iron, and two dwellings for keepers had been erected and the light was first displayed on June 30, 1885. The light had a third-order lens, showing alternate red and white flashes with 30 seconds intervals. The focal plane, 98 feet above sea level, lit the entire horizon.

In 1887 the sea was reported again gradually cutting away the shore and during the year had washed away about one-third the distance to where the new tower had been built (300 feet). Two years later only 200 feet of beach remained and the Board reported “It is more than probable that this will be mostly washed away in the next 4 months.” It was, therefore, recommended “that the tower and dwellings be taken down and removed to a point on the inside of the peninsula a little less than 1½ miles, about northwest from its present position where there is a good site and 8½ feet of water, in St. Joseph’s Bay, within 400 or 500 yards of it. This location is such that the bearing of the San Blas Shoals will be the same as now, and the increase of 1½ miles in the distance from the shore will be of little importance so far as its value as a coast light is concerned. It is estimated that to make the change will cost $20,000. The present site cannot be saved except at great cost.”

Nothing had been done, however, by Congress and by early 1890 the tower was only 144 feet from the sea at high water mark. Later that year, however, an appropriation of $20,000 was made to remove the tower and dwellings to the point inside the peninsula. Condemnation proceedings to obtain title to the new site, however, dragged on until 1894 when on October 8 and 9 a gale badly damaged the lighthouse extinguishing the light and wrecking the keeper’s dwelling. So much of the cape was washed away that the tower now stood in the water.

Before the tower could be removed to the new site, it was decided in 1895 to remove the station to Black’s Island, in St. Joseph’s Bay, which the President ordered reserved for lighthouse purposes. The work of dismantling the skeleton iron tower was begun in February 1896 and carried on until April 30 of that year when it was stopped because the appropriation was exhausted. The two keeper’s houses had been relocated on Black’s Island, the foundation for the tower was in place and three-fourths of the concrete work had been done, when it was estimated that $4,500 more would be required to finish the work. This was appropriated in June 1897.

Four months later, however, the light had been reestablished in the old tower, now in the water at the south point of Cape San Blas. In 1899 the Board reported “after careful consideration of all the conditions affecting the choice of a proper site, the Board has concluded that the light should be reconstructed on the shell ridge about 1⅜ miles N. by W. from its present location. It is estimated that this can be done at a cost not exceeding $15,000.” This sum was appropriated on June 6, 1900, at which time the Board reported: “that the property and material stored at Black’s Island was being cared for by a watchman appointed for the purpose.”

By 1901 nothing had been done about moving the tower and the Board reported “the advisability of removing the station to a new site is being considered, or of building a permanent keeper’s dwelling in place of the present temporary buildings, repairing the present light tower and permitting it to remain in the old location. The point of land on which the tower stands has made out until the beach at the nearest point is 100 or more feet distant from the tower. As this movement is increasing, it may become necessary to move the structure of the station to a new site.” In 1903 the Board sought and obtained authority from Congress to use $7,000 of the $15,000 appropriated for moving the tower, to erect two keeper’s dwellings at the old site. These were completed in 1905.

The light remained in the old tower until 1919. In 1916 it was reported “The sea is again making inroads on the station and a project for its removal has been tentatively approved.” The new site was one-fourth mile north of the old tower on the peninsula and on land heretofore reserved for military purposes, which the President forthwith reserved for lighthouse purposes. The tower was moved to this site in 1919.

In 1923 the Black’s Island reservation was sold. There were no buildings on the island at the time.

The light is now in a white, square skeleton tower, enclosing a stair cylinder, with the lantern 96 feet above ground and 101 feet above water. The 800,000 candlepower 3½-order electric light flashes white every 20 seconds and is visible 16 miles. A radiobeacon was established at the station in 1939. [(1)] [(2)]

GEORGIA
TYBEE LIGHTHOUSE, TYBEE ISLAND, SAVANNAH RIVER

Tybee Light was under construction by the State of Georgia when that State became part of the Federal Union in 1788.

The lighthouse was believed to have been ceded to the Federal Government in December 1791, although no records to substantiate this are available.

In 1791 it appears that the tower was in commission under a keeper named Higgins and that spermaceti candles were being used in the lantern.

In 1838 the lighthouse was described as being “a fixed light, 15 lamps, 15-inch reflectors. Height of lantern above the sea, 100 feet. Height of tower from base to lantern, 95 feet.” The light was refitted with 16-inch reflectors in 1841.

In 1857 the light was renovated and fitted with a second-order lens. In 1862, during the Civil War, the interior of the tower and the lantern were destroyed by fire and the lens was removed. By 1865, the beacon had been relighted but not the main light.

In 1866, $20,000 and, in 1867, $34,443 more, was appropriated for rebuilding the tower and keeper’s dwelling. “The work was progressing satisfactorily” the Lighthouse Board reports “until the 18th of July 1866, when all labor was interrupted by panic among the workmen, caused by the arrival of a detachment of U. S. troops on the island, with cholera prevailing among them. The foreman in charge of the work, and four of the mechanics died of the epidemic and the work was suspended. The troops, while on the island, did much damage to the lighthouse establishment; an additional appropriation for this work is therefore desired.”

Tybee Light had formerly been a second-class station but in reestablishing it, it was made into a first-order light, having a focal plane 150 feet above the sea. “When the rebels extinguished the light” the Lighthouse Board reported in 1867, “they attempted to destroy the old tower by fire, but without complete success, and it was found that a considerable part of it could be used. It was consequently torn down to the proper point, and the new masonry carried up from there to the requisite height.” The new light was first exhibited October 1, 1867. The old tower had been finished in wood. The new one consisted of masonry and metal only and was completely fireproof.

In 1869 Tybee beacon was moved back 165 feet as the site was threatened “by washings of every gale.”

In 1871 gales, which had caused great damage along the southern coast, had so greatly damaged the lighthouse tower as to render it unsafe “and require the speedy erection of a new tower.” The tower was reported cracked and liable to fall at any time. “Its great age (78 years), the frequent necessary repairs to it during the time it has been standing, and its total neglect during the war of the rebellion, render it impossible to properly repair the present tower.”

The encroachment of the sea upon the southerly point of Tybee Island made it necessary to remove the front beacon, a skeleton frame structure, and set it back 400 feet on a new foundation in 1873. It had to be moved still farther back in 1879.

Between 1871 and 1879 the recommendations for a new structure were repeated annually by the Lighthouse Board. In 1879 the Board reported “During the September 1878 gale, the tower vibrated to an alarming extent and the cracks, which had been pointed up, opened and extended.”

Nothing, however, was ever done to replace the structure and it stands today as it was rebuilt in 1867.

In 1884 the illuminating apparatus was changed to burn mineral instead of lard oil.

The earthquake of August 1886 extended the cracks in the tower but not to any dangerous extent. The quake displaced the lens and broke the attachments to its upper ring.

The octagonal brick tower now rises 145 feet above ground and 144 feet above water, exhibiting a fixed white electric light of 70,000 candlepower from a first-order lens visible for 18 miles. [(1)] [(2)] [(7)]

HAWAII
KILAUEA POINT LIGHTHOUSE

On the northernmost point of Kauai Island.

This important landfall light, providing a leading mark for ships bound to Honolulu from the Orient, was built in 1913. The tower is of reinforced concrete, and is but 52 feet high, but it stands on a cliff which elevates the light to 216 feet above the water. The moving parts of the lens weigh 4 tons, and this mass turns on a mercury float, making a complete revolution every 20 seconds and giving each 10 seconds a double flash of 1,000,000 candlepower. The lens was built in France and cost about $12,000. Kilauea Lighthouse is also a radio-beacon station providing radio signals for the guidance of ships.

This light was the first landfall made in the first flight by aeroplane from the Pacific coast of the United States to the Hawaiian Islands, in 1927, it being picked up from the air at a distance of 90 miles. [(1)] [(2)]

HAWAII
MAKAPUU POINT LIGHTHOUSE

On the eastern extremity of Oahu Island.

All the commerce from the west coast of North America bound to Honolulu passes Makapuu Lighthouse. The largest lens in a lighthouse of the United States known as a hyper-radiant lens, is in use at this lighthouse. The inside diameter is 8½ feet, sufficient for several men to stand within. Although the tower is only 46 feet high the light is 420 feet above the sea. The 115,000 candlepower light can be seen for 28 miles. The effectiveness of this lighthouse has been greatly increased in recent years through the establishment of a radiobeacon at the station. The radio signals may be heard two hundred and more miles at sea. [(1)] [(2)]

LOUISIANA
TIMBALIER LIGHTHOUSE

On August 3, 1854, Congress appropriated $15,000 “for a light station to mark the entrance to Timbalier Bay and for coast purposes.” The lighthouse was reported completed in 1857.

During the Civil War the light was discontinued. Upon the occupation of the southern portion of Texas by Union forces in 1864, application was made by the military authorities for the reestablishment of the Timbalier light. Measures were promptly inaugurated to ascertain the condition and necessities of the station and suitable illuminating apparatus was sent to be put in position when requisite repairs had been completed.

The tower was described in 1867 as built upon a low sand beach near the point of Timbalier Island which, by that year, had been encroached upon by the sea until it was entirely surrounded by water. By February 1867 the tower was in danger of falling and workmen were sent to take down the lens and establish a beacon on top of the dwelling. On the 29th and 30th of March 1867, during a hurricane, the dwelling, together with the tower, and everything about the station was leveled to the ground and covered with 3 to 6 feet of water. The keepers barely escaped with their lives and lived for some days in an iron can buoy.

Congress appropriated $50,000 for a new lighthouse on March 3, 1869, followed by two similar amounts in 1871 and 1873. A final appropriation of $15,000 was made in 1874. With $120,000 of these appropriations a new iron screw-pile lighthouse, with focal plane 125 feet above sea level, was completed by January 1875. The new lighthouse was placed in the water inside the island, which acted as an effective breakwater. The design was a skeleton frame work with a spiral stairway, enclosed by sheet iron, giving access to the lantern and provided with a keeper’s dwelling in the lower part of the tower. The lens was a second-order, showing a fixed white light varied by red flashes.

In 1894 the light tower was undermined by the scouring of the channel and on the morning of January 23, 1894, it canted over. The illuminating apparatus was saved but was in damaged condition. An attempt was made to take the dismantled tower to pieces and save it, but owing to the inability of the lighthouse tender to approach near enough to the wreck, the work was discontinued and the lighthouse was abandoned. The lighthouse Board decided that requirements of navigation were not such as to justify the rebuilding of the tower, but decided to use instead a lens-lantern light.

The present structure was rebuilt in 1917. It is a white square tower on a wooden dwelling built on piles and stands in 6 feet of water off the north side of the east end of the island. The light was changed to unwatched operation in 1939 and consisted of an 850-candlepower light which was 56 feet above the water and could be seen 13 miles, flashing white every 4 seconds. The building is now used as a daybeacon. [(1)] [(2)]

MAINE
BOON ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE

President James Madison authorized the building of Boon Island Lighthouse during the War of 1812. A new lighthouse tower was erected near the old tower in 1855, consisting of a gray granite conical tower, 133 feet above the water, 6½ miles off the coast of Maine.

As Boon Island is a very flat piece of land, well surrounded by ledges, the tower appears at times to be springing up from the sea from a submerged ledge, especially when low clouds are flying. One of the most isolated stations off the Maine coast, it is also one of the most dangerous.

One story is told of how the keepers were once marooned on the island for several weeks because of storms and rough weather. Their food supplies were low and starvation seemed to be staring them in the face. Just at the point of desperation a boat appeared and they signaled for help. The keeper’s message in a bottle was picked up by the passing schooner which hove to and anchored until the sea went down. Then the crew packed some food in a mackerel barrel and set it afloat. It drifted right into a little cove on the island and then the sea caught it and bounced it well up on the bank, out of the way of the surf. The hunger of the keepers was appeased until they were able to go ashore and get supplies at the village of York.

Today the fixed white electric light on Boon Island shows its 120,000 candlepower from a second-order lens for a distance of 18 miles. [(6)]

MAINE
CAPE ELIZABETH LIGHTHOUSE

Two rubblestone towers were first erected on Cape Elizabeth in 1828 at a cost of $4,250. President John Quincy Adams appointed Elisha Jordan as the first keeper in October 1828 at a salary of $450 per year. In 1855 Fresnel lenses were installed and in 1869 a giant steam whistle was set up for use in foggy weather. In 1873 the rubble towers were taken down and two cast-iron edifices erected, 300 yards apart. One was a fixed and one a flashing light. A fog siren replaced the locomotive whistle.

One of the most thrilling episodes in the history of the lighthouse occurred on January 28, 1885, when Keeper Marcus A. Hanna saved two crew members of the schooner Australia which had grounded on the ledge near the fog signal station. The two men had taken to the rigging and were coated with ice, unable to move. The captain was drowned as a huge comber washed the deck. Keeper Hanna, securing a heavy iron weight to the end of a stout line, attempted time and again to reach the men with it. Suddenly a towering wave struck the schooner and smashed her against the rocks, putting her on her beam ends. Keeper Hanna again threw his line and watched it land on the schooner. One of the seamen managed to reach it and bent it around his waist. Then he jumped into the sea and the keeper, with great effort, pulled him up over the rocky ledge. The keeper now heaved the line a second time and finally it reached the second seaman who wound it around his icy body. Then he too jumped into the ocean. Just as the keeper’s strength was exhausted in trying to haul ashore the second man, help came in the shape of the keeper’s assistant and two neighbors, who helped haul the man to safety.

In the 1920’s the west tower of Cape Elizabeth Light was dismantled.

The light, at the south entrance to Portland Harbor, is equipped with a 1,800,000 candlepower light visible for 17 miles. The white conical tower is 67 feet above ground and 129 feet above water. [(5)]

MAINE
DICE HEAD LIGHTHOUSE

On the tip end of the peninsula that forms the mouth of the Penobscot River stands the now unwatched Dice Head Lighthouse. Built in 1829 and remodeled in 1858, the lighthouse is now just one more monument to the historic “Pentagoet” region. Here the first white settlers of 1614, French traders under La Tour, gave way to the British from the Plymouth colony led by Isaac Allerton in 1629. The French retook Castine in 1635 only to be again driven out by the British in 1654. Sixteen years later Hubert d’Andigny once more occupied this strategic key town to the Penobscot River for the French. In 1674, a Flemish corsair captured the garrison. Two years later the wealthy and adventurous Baron de St. Castine took over the town, which still bears his name. Married to the daughter of the Indian Chief, Madoca-wando, he became a powerful influence among the Indians and the town became a thriving shipping port.

Six years after the original light was built in 1829 Capt. Henry D. Hunter of the United States revenue cutter Jackson inspected it. “This light,” he reported, “should be located on the northern head of Holbrook Island, at the eastern entrance to Castine Harbor. It would then answer as a guide up the Penobscot River and a harbor light.” The lighthouse was rebuilt in 1937 and is now a white skeleton tower on the north side of the entrance to Castine Harbor, 27 feet above water. Its 8,000-candlepower acetelyne light flashes white every 4 seconds and is visible for 10 miles. [(6)]

MAINE
PORTLAND HEAD LIGHTHOUSE

George Washington engaged two masons from the town of Portland in 1787, while Maine was still part of the colony of Massachusetts, and instructed them to take charge of the construction of a lighthouse on Portland Head. They were Jonathan Bryant and John Nichols. George Washington reminded them that the colonial Government was poor and that the materials used to build the lighthouse should be taken from the fields and shores. They could be handled nicely when hauled by oxen on a drag, he said.

The old tower, built of rubblestone, still stands as one of the four colonial lighthouses that have never been rebuilt. Washington gave the masons 4 years to build the tower. While it was under construction the Federal Government was formed in 1789 and it looked for a while, as though the lighthouse would not be finished. But the first Congress made an appropriation and authorized Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, to inform the mechanics that they could go on with the completion of the tower. The tower was completed during the year 1790 and first lighted January 10, 1791.

During the Civil War, raids on shipping in and out of Portland Harbor became commonplace, and because of the necessity for ships at sea to sight Portland Head Light as soon as possible, the tower was raised 8 feet.

Today Portland Head Light stands 80 feet above ground and 101 feet above water, its white conical tower being connected with a dwelling. The 200,000 candlepower, second-order electric light, is visible 16 miles. An air-chime diaphragm horn blasts every 20 seconds, for 4 seconds during fog. [(6)]

MAINE
SADDLEBACK LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE

Built in 1839, Saddleback Ledge Lighthouse is one of the most lonely outposts on the Maine coast. I. W. P. Lewis, who inspected the lighthouse in the early fifties characterized it as “the only establishment on the coast of Maine that possesses any claim whatever to superiority. * * * The sea breaks quite over the lantern in a southwest gale * * * it is the most economical and durable structure that came under my observation * * * the only one ever erected in New England by an architect and engineer.”

“The weirdest experience I have had since being in the service,” reported Keeper W. W. Wells in 1935 “was the bombardment we got on a February night way back in 1927, when to my surprise I picked up 124 sea birds around the tower. They were ducks and drakes. Some were alive but the most were dead. * * * Darkness had come on and with it came all the evidence that we were going to get a sou’easter. As the storm struck so did the cannonading * * * Crash ... and a bird came sailing through a pane of glass, dropping at my feet. He began fluttering around the floor with one wing broken and his bill telescoped almost through his head. He did not live long. In came another and away went another windowpane. The phenomenon was repeated again and again until the birds began to pile up like a mound.”

“Just when I thought the cannonading had ceased, one big sea drake struck the plate glass in the tower lantern and came through without asking for a transfer. When he struck he broke up the works. Before he stopped he put out the light and broke prisms out of the lens. The bird weighed 10 pounds.”

After he had made repairs and got the light burning again, a strange sight greeted the keeper. At the base of the tower was a tremendous heap of sea birds, some dead others alive. “Those that were just dazed” he recounted “and needed to recuperate, we placed in the boathouse and next day they went on their way.”

The conical gray tower, with a white base stands 42 feet above ground and 54 feet above water. The 2,000 candlepower, fourth-order incandescent oil vapor fixed white light is visible for 13 miles. [(6)]

MASSACHUSETTS
BOSTON LIGHTHOUSE, LITTLE BREWSTER ISLAND

The first lighthouse established in America was on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor and was first lit September 14, 1716. A tonnage tax of 1 penny per ton on all vessels, except coasters, moving in or out of Boston Harbor, paid for maintaining the light.

The first keeper, George Worthylake, with a salary of £50 a year, also acted as pilot for vessels entering the harbor. In 1718 he and his wife and daughter, with two men, were drowned when the lighthouse boat capsized as they were returning to the island from Boston. Young Benjamin Franklin, then a printer in Boston, wrote a ballad about the incident entitled “Lighthouse Tragedy” and sold it on the streets of Boston.

The pay of Keeper John Hayes was raised to £70 in 1718 so that he would not be obliged to entertain mariners on the island for extra money which he found “prejudicial to himself as well as to the town of Boston.” In 1719 he asked “That a great Gun may be placed on Said Island to answer Ships in a Fogg” and one was supplied that year on which the date 1700 was engraved. The gun is shown on a mezzo-tint engraving of Boston Light made by Burgess in 1729.

Hayes’ successor in 1734 was Robert Ball who petitioned the general court for preference in piloting vessels into the harbor. The court designated him as “established pilot” of the harbor for the next 3 years. In 1751 the lighthouse was badly damaged by fire so that only the walls remained.

In 1774 the British took over the island and in 1775 the harbor was blocked and the lighthouse became useless. On July 20, 1775, a small detachment of American troops under Major Voss visited the island and burned the wooden parts of the lighthouse. The British began to repair it under a marine guard, when General Washington dispatched Major Tupper with 300 men in whale-boats on July 31, 1775, who defeated the guard and destroyed the repair work done. They were intercepted on leaving by British small boats and attacked. A direct hit on one of the English boats by an American field piece on Nantasket Head, caused the British to retire to their boats with comparatively heavy losses. Only one American was killed. Major Tupper and his men were commended by General Washington.

When the British left Boston, March 17, 1776, a number of their ships remained in the harbor. On June 13, 1776, American soldiers landed on Long Island, Boston Harbor, and at Nantasket Hill and opened fire on this fleet who were soon at their mercy. Before sailing away, the British sent a boat ashore at Boston Light and left a time charge which blew up the lighthouse. The top of the old lighthouse was used to supply ladles for American cannon.

In 1783 the Massachusetts Legislature supplied £1,450 to erect a new lighthouse on the site of the old. This new lighthouse, which still stands, was 75 feet high with walls 7½ feet thick at the base, tapering to 2 feet 6 inches at the top. The octagonal lantern was 15 feet high and 8 feet in diameter. Thomas Knox was appointed keeper.

On June 10, 1790, the Boston Light was ceded to the new Federal Government. In 1811, Jonathan Bruce became keeper. He and his wife witnessed the thrilling encounter between the American ship Chesapeake and the British ship Shannon on June 1, 1813, when Captain Lawrence, of the Chesapeake muttered the immortal words “Don’t give up the ship,” as he was being lowered, mortally wounded, through the companionway. Nine minutes later, however, his crew was forced to surrender.

While Captain Tobias Cook of Cohasset was keeper in 1844 a “Spanish” cigar factory was set up on the island, with young girls brought from Boston to work in it, in an effort to deceive Boston smokers that the cigars manufactured there were imported. This business was soon broken up, however, as a fraud.

In 1856, the height of the tower was raised to 98 feet and it was listed as a second-order station. On November 2, 1861, the square rigger Maritana, 991 tons, which had sailed from Liverpool 38 days earlier, with Captain Williams, ran into heavy seas in Massachusetts Bay and approached Boston in a blinding snow, driven by a howling southeaster. At 1 o’clock in the morning of November 3, she sighted Boston Light and headed for it, but crashed on Shag Rocks soon after, with passengers and crew ordered into the weather chains after the crew had cut the masts away. The ship broke in two and Captain Williams was crushed to death, but seven persons floated to Shag Rocks atop the pilot house, while five others swam to the ledge, as fragments of the wreckage started coming ashore on both sides of Little Brewster Island. A dory from the pilot boat rescued the survivors from the rocks.

When the Fanny Pike went ashore on Shag Rocks in 1882, Keeper Thomas Bates rowed out and took the crew safely off the ledge.

In 1893 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sent 20 or 30 students to live on the island, while experiments were made with various types of foghorns in an endeavor to find one that would penetrate the area known as the “Ghost Walk” 6 or 7 miles to the east.

On Christmas Day 1909 the five-masted schooner Davis Palmer, heavily loaded with coal, hit Finn’s ledge and went down with all hands.

When the U. S. S. Alacrity was wrecked on the ice-covered ledges off the island on February 3, 1918, Keeper Jennings and his assistants made four attempts to shoot a rope to the doomed ship but each time the rope parted. Jennings brought the lighthouse dory to the shore, and, assisted by two naval reservists, pushed it over the ice and into the surf. Twenty-four men were clinging to the wreck in perilous positions when he reached it after a dangerous trip. Flinging a line aboard, they began the rescue of the half-frozen sailors, four times running the gantlet of ice, rocks, and surf until all 24 men were saved. For this Jennings received a letter of commendation from Secretary Redfield.

During World War II the light was extinguished as a security measure, but was again placed in operation July 2, 1945. The station is equipped with a 1,800,000 candlepower light visible for 16 miles. [(5)]

MASSACHUSETTS
BRANT POINT LIGHTHOUSE

According to all available records, the lighthouse at Brant Point, located on the south side of Nantucket Harbor, Mass., has been rebuilt seven times in addition to three beacons, since it was originally established in 1746. At a town meeting at Nantucket on January 24, 1746, the sea captains of the island spoke out for a lighthouse and 200 English pounds were voted for the purpose “in supposition that the owners of, or others concerned in, shipping will maintain a light therein.” However, the expenses of maintaining the light were actually defrayed by the town. This earliest lighthouse was destroyed by fire in 1758.

At another town meeting held shortly afterward, the rebuilding of the light was agreed to and another light was built in 1759. This stood until 1774. In the March 12, 1774, issue of The Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser appears this item: “We hear from Nantucket that on Wednesday the 9th of March Instant (1774) at about 8 o’clock in the Morning, they had a most violent Gust of Wind that perhaps was ever known there, but it lasted only about a Minute. It seemed to come in a narrow Vein, and in its progress blew down and totally destroyed the Light-House on that Island, besides several Shops, Barns, etc. Had the Gust continued fifteen Minutes it is thought it would not have left more than half the Buildings standing, in the Course that it passed. But we don’t hear of any Persons receiving much hurt, nor much Damage done, except the loss of the Light-House which in every respect is considerable.”

Two weeks later the citizens met and agreed to rebuild the lighthouse for the third time “as High as the former one that blew down lately * * * at the Town’s Expense.” As many of the captains from other ports objected to the system of lighthouse dues, the townsmen petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts for permission to levy tonnage dues, and, beginning August 1, 1774, that court ordered that any vessel over 15 tons was subject to a charge of 6 shillings the first time each year it entered or left Nantucket Harbor. In 1783, the lighthouse was burned to the ground in a third disaster.

The first three lighthouses had been cheaply constructed, but the fourth light, for economy’s sake, was practically nothing but a beacon built even more cheaply. A wooden lantern, with glass windows was hoisted, in 1783, between two spars, with grooves to protect and steady the lantern. This lamp gave a very dim light often compared by mariners to a lightning bug; hence it received the name “bug light.” This “bug light” did not prove satisfactory.

A fifth beaconlike light was substituted for this in 1786. It was merely a frame, fitted at the top for lamps. This outfit was wrecked in a heavy storm in 1788.

In August 1789 Congress passed the act transferring the colonial lights to the Federal Government. Some time between 1788 and 1795 another lighthouse was erected on Brant Point. According to a “Memoranda of Cessions by Massachusetts,” dated 1795, “The lighthouse on Brant Point with the tenements and land thereto belonging, owned by the State, was ceded to the United States in 1795.”

This building, the sixth to be erected on this site, grew old with the years and was condemned in 1825.

A small tower framework, the seventh light, was built on top of the keeper’s dwelling in 1825. This had eight lamps arranged in a double row, six in the lower series and two in the upper tier. Behind each of these lamps were 12½-inch reflectors.

On November 9, 1853, C. A. Ogden, Major, Topographical Engineers, recommended to the Lighthouse Board the erection, as the eighth light, a sixth tower for a second-class lens light at Brant Point, Nantucket, at a cost of $15,000. “The frame of the light tower at Brant Point is so completely rotted as to require reconstruction with the least possible delay,” the letter continued, “and believing it to be the wise policy of the Board to make all its future construction permanent, I have asked the above amount for the tower. The dwelling house is much decayed, but has a nearly new roof and weather boarding on it, and may last for some years yet.” A similar recommendation to the Board dated October 22, 1853, from Even W. Allen, collector and superintendent, district of Nantucket, reads in part “The whole establishment at Brant Point is very much out of repair, and from the age, material, and construction of the building, I should not consider it good economy to repair it; the interests of the Government and all concerned, seem to demand a more permanent and commodious structure.” Accordingly, on August 3, 1854, Congress appropriated $15,000 “for rebuilding the lighthouse at Brandt’s Point, Nantucket, State of Massachusetts.” This appropriation was spent, $6,383.85 in 1856 and $8,616.15 in 1857, for the erection of the new tower. The following is a description of this tower. “The foundation of the tower is of concrete cement 2 feet thick, and 18 feet in diameter. The base is of hammered granite, laid in courses 2 feet thick to the height of 12 feet. The interior of the base forms a cistern, where water may be caught for household purposes. The column forming the tower is of brick laid in cement, with an airspace within the walls for ventilation. The lamp is of cast iron, with 12 lights of plate glass. A circular iron stairway winds its spiral way up to a floor of iron, where rests the lantern, 58 feet above the foundation and 47 feet above the ground.”

The lamp was a catadioptric apparatus of the fourth order, commonly called the Fresnel light. The light was first exhibited December 10, 1856.

In 1900 a fixed red lens-lantern beacon light was installed at the extremity of Brant Point, 600 feet from the tower, it having been found necessary to move the light outward, owing to changes in the channel leading into the harbor of Nantucket. This was the ninth light to be located on the Brant Point site.

In 1901 a new tower, the tenth light and seventh tower, was built at the extremity of the point, and the light exhibited there for the first time on January 31, 1901. This is still in use as a white cylindrical (wooden) tower, with foot bridge to shore on which is a 1300 candlepower, fourth-order electric light, fixed red, 26 feet above the water, visible 10 miles. This is the lowest lighthouse in New England. It is located on the west side of the entrance to Nantucket Harbor. A fog bell completes the equipment at this station.

A long-standing dispute begun in 1887, over the boundaries of the land constituting the lighthouse site, which belonged to the United States, was finally settled in 1901 when five lots, embracing 5.9 acres, on which three summer dwellings and part of a hotel were located, were sold, as no longer needed for lighthouse purposes and the proceeds paid into the Treasury. [(5)]

MASSACHUSETTS
BUZZARDS BAY LIGHTHOUSE

In 1960 the Coast Guard announced that it was replacing certain lightships with fixed offshore structures. The structures they noted, would provide more efficient optics and would provide greater luminous range than was possible with lightships.

The first lightship to be replaced was the Buzzards Bay Lightship located in Buzzards Bay approximately five miles south of Gooseberry Neck, Mass., in 61 feet of water. The station was commissioned on November 1, 1961.

The underwater portion of the structure is a framework consisting of four 33 inch steel pipe members cross braced with 16 inch and 18 inch diameter steel pipe horizontally and diagonally. Through each of the 33 inch main pipe members, 30 inch cylindrical steel piles were driven and seated to bed rock at a depth of 268 feet below mean low water. A portion of the piles is filled with concrete.

The platform above water rises 66 feet above mean low water. The platform is two decks high, the lower deck housing fuel and water tanks and the upper deck consisting of quarters for the five Coast Guardsmen who man the station. The structure is equipped with a helicopter landing deck.

The light at the station is 101 feet above water. A light of 5,000,000 candlepower is shown during periods of low visibility while a 400,000 candlepower light is normally in operation. The light can be seen for 16 miles. The station is also equipped with a radiobeacon and a fog horn. The piles are floodlighted from sunset to sunrise.

Since this first offshore structure, the Coast Guard has placed five more lights of this type in operation.

MASSACHUSETTS
CAPE ANN LIGHTHOUSE, THATCHER’S ISLAND

Thatcher’s Island was named for the Rev. Anthony Thatcher who, on the night of August 14, 1635, was shipwrecked there. Of the 21 persons on board, including his 4 children, only the minister and his wife were saved.

On April 22, 1771, the Province of Massachusetts Bay Council authorized the erection of twin lighthouses on Thatcher’s Island. Captain Kirkwood was appointed keeper on December 21, 1771, but, being a Tory, was removed from the island by the Minute Men during the early days of the Revolution. The lights remained dark all during that war.

The lighthouses were among those turned over to the Federal Government under the act of August 7, 1789. From 1792 to 1814 Capt. Joseph Sayward was keeper and he was succeeded by Aaron Wheeler, who served 20 years. One of Wheeler’s tasks was to clear the 300 yards between the towers of large boulders and surface down the smaller ones. A bonus of $100 was paid him for this work. Charles Wheeler, who succeeded him served until 1845. A fog bell was installed in 1853.

In 1859 Congress authorized the rebuilding of the two lighthouse towers and two new towers, of cut granite, were built in 1860-61. Each was 124 feet high and fitted with a Fresnel lens of the first order.

A Civil War veteran named Bray was appointed keeper in 1865 and on the day before Christmas, that year, took his assistant, who was running a fever, ashore. While he was away a heavy snow storm came up and he could not return. His wife, with two babies, alone on the island, fought her way between snow drifts, to keep the lights in the two towers burning. When her husband returned Christmas morning, it was only because she had, by almost superhuman effort, kept the lights burning that he was able to find his way and not miss the island altogether in the blinding storm.

In 1891, Mr. John Farley, assistant keeper, was killed while landing at the station in a heavy sea. In 1919, when President Wilson was returning to the United States on the S. S. America, the great vessel narrowly escaped the rocks on the island in a fog. Only the fog horn, heard at the last minute, enabled the captain to change his course in time.

In 1932 the light on the northern tower was discontinued and that in the southeast tower was electrified by means of a 6,000-foot submarine cable to the mainland.

A gray stone tower, 124 feet above land and 166 feet above water, now houses the 70,000-candlepower first-order electric light, which is visible 19 miles. An air-diaphone fog signal is also located at the station. [(5)] [(7)]

MASSACHUSETTS
DUMPLING ROCK LIGHTHOUSE, NEW BEDFORD HARBOR

The appropriation act of May 23, 1828, provided “That the Secretary of the Treasury be empowered to provide by contract, for building a lighthouse on Dumpling Rock, south of the mouth of Aponegansett River, in the State of Massachusetts—$4,000.” Of this amount $3,832.47 was spent in 1829 in the construction of a light on a keeper’s dwelling 43 feet above sea level. Ten years after it was built, Lt. Edward W. Carpender, USN, reported: “It is a useful light in guiding vessels into Dartmouth Harbor.” “The keeper and his family,” the report says, “were in danger of being drowned out, until the Government built a wall around the dwelling. Since then they have lived in safety. Located, as this light is, on a small barren rock, with fewer advantages to the keeper than perhaps any other light in the district, it would seem proper that I should notice the fact of the salary being smaller by $50 than that of many others.”

During the early days of the light the keeper had arranged a signal to his friends whenever a homeward-bound vessel was sighted approaching New Bedford Harbor. An arm on a post near the lighthouse tower was raised and lowered so that the merchants could send their representatives out to the incoming boat to sell their wares.

In 1890 the old stone dwelling, built in 1828, was torn down and replaced upon the same foundation by a frame dwelling surmounted by a wooden tower with a modern fourth-order lens. For its protection against the sea, a bulkhead 90 feet long was built of hard pine timber heavily bolted to the rock and reinforced by dry masonry from the stones of the old dwelling. A Daboll trumpet, operated by an oil steam engine, was established on October 12, 1897. The following year a telephone line was run through a cable from the mainland at Nonquitt, Mass. In 1905 a short breakwater was built to protect the landings. Keeper Fred Bohm participated in many thrilling rescues during his term as keeper.

The New England hurricane of 1938 damaged the lighthouse seriously. In 1940 the frame house was replaced with a skeleton tower and the light changed to unwatched. The 400 candlepower light can be seen for 8 miles. The light is located on a rock off Round Hill Point. [(5)]

MASSACHUSETTS
EASTERN POINT LIGHTHOUSE

On east side of entrance to Gloucester Harbor.

For over 100 years the fishermen of Gloucester have been guided back to their home port by a lighthouse on Eastern Point. The present brick tower, painted a gleaming white, and standing on the long rocky point forming the eastern side of the harbor, was built in 1890, replacing, on the same foundation the original tower built in 1832. Before 1832 a still older lighthouse, on Ten-Pound Island well inside of the harbor, had served as an entrance light, but this light was never visible until ships had actually found the entrance, hence the building of a lighthouse on the Eastern Point where it could be seen from far offshore.

Eastern Point Lighthouse is equipped with a power light and a fog signal. Coast Guardsmen also control the radiobeacon, located on the end of the breakwater. [(1)] [(2)]

MASSACHUSETTS
MINOTS LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE

Minots Ledge is one of the “Cohasset Rocks” which had been the scene of countless wrecks since earliest times. Between 1832 and 1841 there were 40 wrecks on this and neighboring reefs. Between 1817 and 1847, it was estimated that 40 lives and $364,000 in property had been lost in shipwrecks in the vicinity of Minots Ledge, off Cohasset, Mass.

In 1843, Inspector I. W. P. Lewis, of the Lighthouse Service, emphasized the great need for a lighthouse on Minots Ledge and his judgment was sustained by Capt. William H. Swift, of the United States Topographical Bureau, who recommended an iron-pile lighthouse as offering less resistance to the waves than a stone tower.

The ledge was barely 20 feet wide and was exposed at low tide, being dry only 2 or 3 hours a day. On this narrow rock construction was begun in the spring of 1847 of a 75-foot open-work iron light structure. The men could only work on very calm days when the tide was at its ebb. The work was conducted from a schooner which remained near the ledge, unless the sea was rough, with the workmen sleeping on board. If a storm threatened, the schooner put into Cohasset Harbor until it was over.

Nine holes were drilled into the solid rock, each 12 inches wide and 5 feet deep. Eight were placed in a circle, 25 feet in diameter, with the ninth in the center. Iron piling, 10 inches in diameter were then cemented into each hole. Four men worked in 20-minute shifts at the drilling from a triangle, set on heavy spars, which supported a platform high above the ledge, on which the drilling machinery was installed.

All the apparatus was swept from the rock by two different storms in the summer of 1847. Workmen were swept into the sea several times, but none was drowned. Work had to be stopped for the winter in October 1847 and begun again in the spring of 1848, but by September of that year the nine holes had been drilled and the nine iron piles placed. The outer piles started toward the center to a 14-foot circumference, 38 feet above the uneven surface of the ledge. These were braced horizontally by iron rods at 19-foot intervals. Braces planned to strengthen the lower part of the tower were omitted on the theory that they would lessen rather than increase the over-all security of the edifice. However, it was where these braces were planned to go, that the structure actually broke off later.

A cast-iron spider, or capping, weighing 5 tons was secured to the top of this piling. The keeper’s quarters were erected on top of this. Finally a 16-sided lantern room at the very top, housed a Fresnel lantern, with 15 reflectors. The light, a fixed beacon with an arc of 210°, was first lighted January 1, 1850.

The first keeper, Isaac Dunham, was confident the light structure was not safe and wrote Washington requesting that it be strengthened. When no action resulted he resigned on October 7, 1850.

Capt. John W. Bennett, who succeeded him openly scoffed at his predecessor’s fears. He hired new assistants including an Englishman named Joseph Wilson and a Portuguese named Joseph Antoine. Two keepers remained at the light at all times.

The braces of the structure were soon showing signs of strain, however, and were constantly having to be removed, taken to the mainland and strengthened and straightened. A terrific northeast storm a few weeks after he took charge, changed Bennett’s mind and he officially reported the tower as in danger. A committee, delegated to investigate, arrived during a perfectly calm sea and returned to Boston, deciding nothing should be done.

On March 16, 1851, during another terrible storm, the keepers deciding the lantern room was unsafe, retreated down into the store room, where they cowered for 4 days and nights, only occasionally climbing to the lantern to repair some damage done by the storm. The violent pitching and swaying of the tower almost knocked them off the rungs of the ladder, when they did. A relatively calm spell followed during which the braces were tightened.

Then easterly winds began blowing around April 8, 1851. Bennett departed for the mainland 3 days later and this was the last time he saw his two assistants alive. When he sought to return next day, too heavy a sea was running at Minots Ledge to permit the attempt. The storm increased in fury and, by the 16th, was causing considerable damage ashore. At Minots Ledge, the two assistant keepers kept the bell ringing and the lamps burning, but just before midnight on the 16th they cast a bottle adrift containing a message for the outside world in case they failed to survive. The high tide at midnight sent wave after wave through the upper framework of the weakened structure. What actually happened then will never be known. Probably about 11 p.m. the central support snapped off completely, leaving the topheavy 30-ton lantern tower held only by the outside piling. Then just before 1 a.m. on April 17, 1851, the great Minots Ledge Lighthouse finally slid over toward the sea. One by one the eight iron pilings broke until only three remained. The keepers, probably realizing that the end was near, began pounding furiously on the lighthouse bell. This was heard by residents of the Glades. With the tower bent over, the remaining supports now gave way and the great tower plunged into the ocean.

The body of Joseph Antoine was washed ashore later at Nantasket. Joseph Wilson managed to reach Gull Rock, probably mistaking it for the mainland. Here he apparently died of exhaustion and exposure.

Between 1851 and 1860 Minots Ledge was guarded by a lightship. Plans for a new stone edifice were meanwhile drawn up for the Lighthouse Board by Gen. Joseph B. Totten; model makers built the proposed new structure in miniature; the same location was decided upon; and Barton S. Alexander, of the United States Engineers, started to work on its construction in April 1855.

The ledge had to be cut down to receive the foundation stones and space was not available for a regular cofferdam. In June the old stumps of the first tower were removed. Meanwhile cutting and assembling of the granite was done on Government Island, near Cohasset. Seven granite blocks were to form the foundation. Permanent iron shafts, 20 feet high, were set in eight of the holes in which the old lighthouse piling had been, while the ninth or central hole was left open, to form a cavity for the base circle. Later a well for drinking water was built up from this cavity through the middle of the new tower.

The framework structure disappeared during a severe storm on January 19, 1857, when the barque New Empire, which later went ashore at White Head, struck the temporary tower and demolished the iron scaffolding. So in the spring of 1857 the work had to be started all over again.

The first stone was finally laid July 9, 1857. Temporary cofferdams were constructed from sand bags, so that the foundation blocks, laid more than 2 feet under the surface of the lowest tide, could be cemented to the rock face of the ledge. Strap iron between the courses kept the 2-ton stones apart while the cement was hardening.

The total appropriation of $330,000 was all spent, except a small surplus, in the construction. By the end of 1859, the thirty-second course, 62 feet above low water had been reached, and 377 actual crew working hours had been consumed. The final stone was laid June 29, 1860, the whole granite structure having thus taken 5 years to complete, lacking 1 day. The new lighthouse was finished by mid-August 1860 and the light first exhibited August 22, 1860. The light was not regularly shone, however, until November 15, 1860, when Joshua Wheeler, the new keeper, and two assistants entered upon their duties.

The new stone tower has withstood every subsequent gale. The strongest waves cause nothing but a strong vibration. On some occasions the seas have actually swept over the top of the 97 foot structure with no more damage than that caused by a few leaky windows or a cracked lamp or two.

On May 1, 1894, a new flashing lantern was installed, with the characteristic of a one-four-three flash, which lovers on shore soon found contained the same numerical count as the words “I love you.” Minots Ledge has thus become known up and down the coast as the “Lover’s Light.”

The light was made automatic in 1947. Today its 45,000 candlepower light, 85 feet above water, can be seen for 15 miles. [(5)]

MASSACHUSETTS
NANTUCKET (GREAT POINT) LIGHTHOUSE

In 1770 the town fathers of Nantucket chose a committee to ask the General Court to erect “a lighthouse on the end of Sandy Point of Nantucket.” Later the committee idea was abandoned, however, and the local Nantucket representative in the General Court was instructed to “use his influence in the General Court to get a Light House on our Point according to his own discretion.” This method proved effective, for on February 5, 1784, the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a resolution providing for the erection of the Great Point Light at Nantucket as soon as possible. On November 11, 1784, Richard Devens, the commissary general, was granted 1,089 pounds, 15 shillings, and 5 pence in addition to 300 already paid out “for the erecting a lighthouse and small house at Nantucket” (Massachusetts Resolves, 1784, No. 81, Laws of Massachusetts). The lighthouse was erected that same year. On June 10, 1790, the “lighthouse, land, etc., on Sandy Point, county of Nantucket,” was ceded to the United States in accordance with the act of August 7, 1789.

The keeper in 1812 was Jonathan Coffin. There was no keeper’s dwelling on the point and in order to reach the light each evening the keeper had to make a long journey. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, accordingly raised his salary to $166.67 per year and preparations were begun to build him a dwelling near the tower.

In November 1816, however, the lighthouse was entirely destroyed by fire. Some said the fire was purposely set, but no positive proof was ever forthcoming. On March 3, 1817, Congress appropriated $7,500 “for rebuilding the lighthouse at Nantucket, recently destroyed by fire” and $7,385.12 of this was expended in 1818 in erecting the handsome stone tower which still stands today.

A petition signed by many citizens and shipowners of Nantucket in 1829 called for the removal of Captain Bunker, who was then keeper, because of his intemperate habits, but Stephen Pleasonton, Fifth Auditor of the Treasury, wisely refrained, after an investigation, from taking any action in the matter. The petition had suggested George Swain as a replacement for Bunker and such petitions, circulated by ambitious candidates for a keeper’s job, or by disgruntled and disappointed applicants, were far too numerous to be acted upon without careful consideration of the source and the motive.

In his report of November 1, 1838, Lt. Edward W. Carpender, USN, noted that the light was in a stone tower 60 feet high and 70 feet above sea level. It consisted of 14 lamps, 3 with 15-, and 11 with 16-inch reflectors, arranged in two circles parallel to each other and to the horizon. The lantern was 8½ feet high and 9 feet in diameter. The tower and dwelling were connected by a short covered way “which, among these sand hills, where the snow must drift in winter, is a security that the light will be well attended.”

In 1857 Fresnel lenses were installed at Great Point and in 1882 mineral oil was substituted for lard oil. In 1889 a red sector was inserted in the light to cover Cross Rip Shoal and the shoals south of it.

Between 1863 and 1890 there were 43 shipwrecks within the jurisdiction of Great Point Light. A number of vessels mistook Great Point Light for the Cross Rip Light Ship. The schooner William Jones was wrecked for this reason on the clear moonlit night of April 17, 1864, when together with two other vessels she went ashore on Great Point Rip. All three eventually got off, however, at high tide. Another schooner hit the bar in a heavy gale on October 12, 1865, but the captain was able to get his wife and three children, together with the crew into the vessel’s long boat and row to Great Point Beach, where the keeper had a carriage waiting for him. Arriving at the lighthouse the survivors watched their ship go to pieces shortly afterward. The schooner Leesburg struck Great Point Rip in September 1866, and the crew were rescued by the island steamer. The following month, on October 4, 1866, the brig Storm Castle mistook Great Point Light for Handkerchief Light Ship. The brig was towed into Nantucket Harbor 3 weeks later, after her cargo of lumber had been jettisoned. A sugar and molasses brig struck Great Point Rip the day after Christmas 1866 and was a total loss, though the crew reached shore safely. The same thing happened to another schooner in May 1867, and to one in December 1867. Still nothing was done about the confusion in the lights. Wrecks continued. There were two in 1869, one in 1877, and two in 1878. In 1880 the West Wind hit the east end of Nantucket Bar, 4½ miles from the lighthouse with a cargo of ice. The vessel soon went to pieces, the crew being picked up later.

In February 1881, the keeper sighted the U. B. Fisk caught in an ice floe. The crew had abandoned ship but were unable to make shore. The keeper waded out into the water, up to his armpits, and threw them a small line. With this he sent them a heavier line which he used to pull their boat ashore, as their schooner was being crushed in the ice pack.

Other wrecks occurred in 1887, 1889, and in 1890. It was not until 1889 that the red sector in the Great Point Light was inserted to mark Cross Rip Shoal and the other shoals south of it. From then on the wrecks were less numerous although in 1915 the Marcus L. Oran was wrecked on the Wasque Shoal and keeper Norton at Great Point helped rescue “13 men, a woman, and a cat.” He was given a life-saving medal for this performance.

Nantucket (Great Point) Lighthouse is described as a white tower 71 feet above ground and 70 feet above water, visible 14 miles, and located on the point at the north end of Nantucket Island. It is equipped with a 25,000-candlepower third-order electric light, fixed white, with a 5,000-candlepower red sector which covers Cross Rip and Tuckernuck Shoals. [(5)]

MASSACHUSETTS
NEWBURYPORT HARBOR LIGHTHOUSE, PLUM ISLAND

On November 16, 1787, the Massachusetts Assembly authorized the building of two lighthouses on the north end of “Plumb Island” and the original towers were erected the following year. On June 10, 1790, they were ceded to the newly formed Federal Government.

Because of the shifting sand bars at the mouth of the Merrimac River, these lights have since been moved many times.

In 1830 the Lady Howard was wrecked in the vicinity, and during the storm of December 22, 1839, the Pocahontas and Richmond Packet both came to grief. The former bound from Cody to Newburyport was swept to destruction on the sand bar off Plum Island and all hands were lost. The latter was driven ashore and began to break up on a point of rocks. Captain Toothaker jumped overboard with a line and reached the rocks, where he made the line fast. Then he signaled his wife to come in on the line, but before she could do so the line snapped and she was lost. The crew members were all saved, however.

Forty-one of the one hundred and thirty vessels that had taken refuge in Newburyport Harbor were damaged in this storm, which struck so suddenly that the keeper of the light, who had left the tower for a few hours for the mainland, was unable to return. That night there was consequently no light at the entrance to the harbor.

In order to conform to changes in the river channel the “bug” light was removed to a new position in 1864, and, again in 1867, the range light was moved 90 feet to mark a new channel formed by a shifting of the bar. In 1869 the beacon was moved one-third of a mile northeast. In 1870 a more powerful light was recommended, but in 1874 the towers on Plum Island had to be moved 75 feet southward “owing to the encroachment of the sea.” Sand and thatch embankments were erected to protect their foundations in 1876. In 1887 a new stone tower was built for the range light but by 1890 the position of the river channel across the bar had so shifted that the lights no longer served as a guide through it. Meanwhile jetties were being built to better control the shifting channel and in 1898 the rear light tower was rebuilt.

Today only one white conical tower built in 1788 and rebuilt in 1898 remains on Plum Island. It is 50 feet above water and the 3,000-candlepower, fourth-order electric light is visible for 13 miles. [(5)]