Chapter II: Part 2

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)

_MASSACHUSETTS_
PLYMOUTH (GURNET) LIGHTHOUSE

One of Massachusetts’ two minor peninsulas, extending north and south into the sea between Scituate and Plymouth, extends far south along a great stretch of sand dunes which end at the Gurnet.

In 1606 Champlain landed here and watched the Indians fishing for cod with fishhooks made of wood, on which a spear-shaped bone was fastened. The lines were made of tree bark.

The Pilgrims called the land “the gurnett’s nose.” The place was apparently named after several similar headlands in the English channel, many of them being called for the fish of that name which is caught along the coast of Devonshire.

The Plymouth (Gurnet) Lighthouse was first established in 1768 by the Massachusetts Legislature. The first keeper was John Thomas on whose land the original lighthouse was built, and for which rent of 5 shillings per year was paid him by the colony. Later Hannah, his widow, was keeper. Both had received $200 per annum for their services. The lighthouse cost £660 to erect, was 30 feet long, 20 feet high, and 15 feet wide with a “lanthorn” at each end of the building, holding two lamps each.

During the Revolution, the three towns of Plymouth, Duxbury, and Kingston had erected a fort on the Gurnet. In the midst of an engagement between the fort and the British frigate _Niger_, which had gone aground on Brown’s Bank, a wild shot from the ship pierced the lighthouse. Later the vessel got off and escaped. The Gurnet Light, however, is thus the only United States lighthouse known to have ever been hit by a cannon ball.

In 1778 the armed brigantine _General Arnold_ was caught in a blizzard while less than a mile from the light and the captain anchored his vessel rather than risk the treacherous waters of Plymouth’s inner harbor without a pilot. The vessel dragged anchor and hit on White Flats. Seventy two of the crew died most of them freezing to death in the below-zero temperature before they could be rescued. The keeper of Gurnet Light was unable to go to their aid because the harbor was blocked with ice. A causeway had to be built over the ice to rescue the survivors.

In 1783 the damage done to the lighthouse during the Revolution was repaired. In a terrible December snowstorm in 1786, a coasting sloop from Boston to Plymouth was caught off Gurnet. Only one man was hurt when the ship struck a sand bar and all landed safely. Several miles from any habitation two men finally reached Gurnet Lighthouse and Thomas Burgess, the keeper, dispatched his assistant to help the others reach the lighthouse safely.

Under the act of August 7, 1789, the United States accepted cession of the lighthouse by Massachusetts on June 10, 1790, including “the interest of the Commonwealth in the lighthouse land, etc., on the Gurnet Head, west of Plymouth.”

On July 2, 1801, the lighthouse was completely destroyed by fire. The merchants of Plymouth and Duxbury erected a temporary beacon at their own expense. On April 6, 1802, Congress appropriated $270 to reimburse them. At the same time Congress also appropriated $2,500 “for rebuilding the lighthouse on Gurnet.” Twin lights were built and the Thomas family was paid $120 for the land on which the new lighthouses were constructed.

Joseph Burgess succeeded his father as keeper on October 16, 1812, and remained in charge of the light until 1851.

Congress appropriated $5,000 in 1836 “for preserving the point of land leading to the fort and lighthouse at the Gurnet, in Duxbury, by hurdles or double ranges of piles.”

Lt. Edward W. Carpender, USN, reported on November 1, 1838, that the Gurnet light beams were horizontal rather than perpendicular as other lighthouse beams were. “They require to be double to distinguish them from the single light at Barnstable. They are in separate towers, 22 feet high and 30 feet apart. They consist * * * of a single series of six lamps each, with old 8½-inch reflectors, arranged in a circular form, so as to suit the harbor as well as sea navigation. Their elevation is 70 feet above the level of the sea, enabling them to be seen * * * 19 miles.”

Carpender pointed out that the lights were too close together, causing them to blend and appear as a single light at a short distance. Also being horizontal they “were likely to come into a range with each other, by which they also appear single.” Carpender’s remedy for this was to convert them from horizontal to perpendicular beams, but his suggestion was never carried out.

In 1842 the Gurnet lighthouses were rebuilt and the new structures, while still of wood, each had a distinctive design. In 1871 the lights were of the sixth order and were declared by the Lighthouse Board to be “entirely too small” and “readily mistaken for the lights in a dwelling house, when they can be seen at all.” Their distance apart was also too short to afford an efficient range. Nothing ever came of the recommendation that they be replaced with fourth-order lights “separated by a proper distance for an effective range.”

After 1851, Thomas Treble followed Joseph Burgess as keeper. His successors were William Sears, Milton Reamy, Edward S. Gorham, Henry L. Pingree, and A. S. Eisener. Keeper Davis in 1929 had a long list of rescues to his credit, and keeper Reed rescued the crew of the mine sweeper U. S. S. Swan stranded on Gurnet Beach on November 28, 1930.

Gurnet Light had lost its importance as a light as Plymouth Harbor lost its shipping traffic over the years. Not until Cape Cod Canal was opened in 1914 did the lighthouse again become an important coastal beacon.

In 1924 the northeast tower was discontinued and the station is now described as a white, octagonal, pyramidal tower, with white dwelling, 39 feet above ground and 102 feet above water. Its 700,000 candlepower, fourth-order electric light shows group flashing white every 20 seconds and is visible for 16 miles. An air diaphragm horn blasts for 3 seconds every 15 seconds during fog. (5)

_MICHIGAN_
LITTLE SABLE LIGHTHOUSE

East shore of Lake Michigan.

Little Sable Lighthouse, a white brick tower, 107 feet in height, connected to the keeper’s dwelling, and surrounded by a picturesque group of trees, stands on a point about 10 miles south of Pentwater. The lighthouse was built in 1874, and the light now shown from the tower is fixed and flashing white, the flashes being of 40,000 candlepower. Several miles to the northward is Big Sable Lighthouse, on the point of that name, distinguished at night from Little Sable by having a fixed white light, and by day by the color of the tower, banded in black and white. Big Sable Lighthouse is the same height as the tower at Little Sable, but was erected in 1867. (1) (2)

_MICHIGAN_
SPECTACLE REEF LIGHTHOUSE, LAKE HURON