Chapter XVIII: Appendix: Extracts From Official Reports

To the end that the modern light-house service may be the better understood and appreciated by whosoever reads this story of the Maine coast, the following extracts are taken from the last annual report of the Light-House Board, and from the work on the Light-House Service, prepared by Mr. Johnson, chief clerk of the Light-House Board, and published by the Government:

The famous Pharos of Alexandria, built about 285 B.C. is the first
light of undoubted record. The light-house at Corunna, Spain, is
believed to be the oldest existing light-tower. This was built in
the reign of Trajan, and in 1634 it was reconstructed. The erection
of the Eddystone Light-house, off Plymouth, England, formed an era
in the construction of light-houses. The masonry was 76 feet 6
inches, and the top of the lantern 93 feet, above the foundation.
It was completed in 1759. The various courses were so dovetailed
into each other, and the whole fifty so secured together, that the
tower was almost as solid as if cut out of the solid block. Immense
difficulties had to be overcome from the first landing on the rock
on April 5, 1756, to the laying of the first stone, June 12, 1757,
and the last, on August 24, 1759. But strong as it was, it became
necessary to take it down and rebuild it on a neighboring rock, as
that on which it was founded was weakened from the constant
assaults on the sea. This was safely done within our own time.

The Wolf Rock Light-house, off Land's End, Cornwall, England, is
the last great British work, and both in its structure and its
illumination it combines all the refined improvements. A survey was
made in 1861, and the foundation commenced in March, 1862. In the
first season only eighty-three hours of work could be done, and
between that and its completion, on July 19, 1869; there were in
the eight working seasons two hundred and ninety-six landings on
the rock, and the time occupied was equal to about one hundred and
one working days of ten hours each. The cost was £62,726.

The great distinction between the later towers and their
predecessors is that the stones of each course are dovetailed
together laterally and vertically, so that the use of metal or
wooden pins is needless. This method was first used at the Hanois
Rock, Guernsey. On the upper face and at one end of each block is a
dovetailed projection; and on the under face and at the other end
is a dovetailed indentation. The upper and under dovetails are made
just to fall into each other, and when the hydraulic cement is
placed on the surface it so locks the dovetailing that the stones
cannot be separated without breaking. Thus, when the cement is set
and hardened, the whole of the base is literally one solid mass of
granite. The lower courses for the first 39 feet of the Wolf Rock
Light-house have fillets on their outer edges, into which the
upper course is stepped, and this prevents the action of the waves
from penetrating the joint.

There is little doubt but that the early colonists recognized the
necessity for beacons with which to guide their home-returning
shallops to a safe anchorage, and that they took effective means to
show the English and Dutch ships which should make their land-fall
at night the safe way to the harbor. But the first authentic
evidence of this being done at the public charge, is the record of
the proceedings of the general court of the Province of
Massachusetts Bay, from which it appears that on March 9, 1673, a
petition came from the citizens of Nantasket, Massachusetts (now
Hull), for the lessening of their taxes, because of the material
and labor they had expended over and above their proportion in
building the beacon on Point Allerton, the most prominent headland
near the entrance to Boston harbor. At that session also it appears
that bills were paid from Nantasket for making and furnishing
"fier-bales of pitch and ocum for the beacon at Allerton Point,"
which "fier-bales" were burned in an iron grate or basket on the
top of a beacon, for the building of which Nantasket had furnished
400 boat-loads of stone.

The first light-house on this continent was built at the entrance
to Boston harbor, on Little Brewster Island, in 1715-16, at a cost
of £2,285 17s 8-1/2d. It was erected by the order and at the
expense of the general court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay,
and it was supported by light-dues of 1d per ton on all incoming
and outgoing vessels, except coasters, levied by the collector of
imports at Boston.

The maritime colonies followed the example of Massachusetts, and
when the United States by the act of August 7, 1789, accepted the
title to, and joint jurisdiction over, the light-houses on the
coast, and agreed to maintain them thereafter, they were eight in
number, and comprised the following lights, all of which are still
in existence, though so greatly improved that they are the same
only in purpose and in site:

Portsmouth Harbor Light, New Hampshire; Boston Light, on Little
Brewster Island; the Gurnet Light, near Plymouth, Massachusetts;
Brant Point Light, on Nantucket, Massachusetts; Beaver Tail Light,
on Conanicut Island, Rhode Island, in Narragansett Bay; Sandy Hook
Light, New Jersey, entrance to New York harbor; Cape Henlopen,
Delaware, at the entrance to Delaware Bay; Charleston Main Light on
Morris Island, entrance to the harbor of Charleston, South
Carolina.

The theory of coast lighting is that each coast shall be so set
with towers that the rays from their lights shall meet and pass
each other, so that a vessel on the coast shall never be out of
sight of a light, and that there shall be no dark places between
lights. This is the theory upon which the United States is
proceeding, and it plants lights where they are most needed upon
those lines. Hence from year to year the length of the dark spaces
on its coasts is lessened or expunged entirely, and the day will
come when all its coasts will be defined from end to end by a band
of lights by night, and by well-marked beacons by day.

In the first century of its existence the light-house establishment
of the United States cost about ninety-three and a quarter millions
of dollars.

In 1791 the amount expended by the Government in support of its
light-house establishment was $22,591.94. In 1890 the expenditures
amounted to $3,503,994.12.

The average yearly sum paid for maintaining an average
light-station of each class is:

For a first-order light-station $3,842.00
For a second-order light-station 2,711.12
For a third-order light-station 1,568.77
For a fourth-order light-station 1,107.83
For a fifth-order light-station 635.05
For a sixth-order light-station 552.17
For an outside light-ship of recent build 7,078.28
For an inside light-ship of old build 3,546.32
For an average fog-signal, operated by steam or hot air 2,260.59
For a steam tender of recent build 15,126.83

There are under the control of the light-house establishment the following named aids to navigation:

Light-houses and beacon lights 1,423
Light-vessels in position 46
Light-vessels for relief 8
Gas-lighted buoys in position 130
Fog-signals operated by steam, caloric, or oil engines, about 197
Fog-signals operated by machinery, about 233
Post-lights, about 1,868
Day or unlighted beacons, about 668
Whistling buoys in position, about 88
Bell-buoys in position, about 139

Other buoys in position, including pile buoys and stakes in
fifth district and buoys in Alaskan waters 5,088

In the construction, care, and maintenance of these aids to navigation there are employed:

Steam tenders 40
Steam launches 7
Sailing tenders 1
Light keepers, about 1,525
Officers and crews of light-vessels and tenders, about 1,279
Laborers in charge of post-lights, about 1,600

LIST OF MEMBERS OF LIGHT-HOUSE BOARD, JULY 1st, 1904.

HON. VICTOR H. METCALF, Secretary of Commerce and Labor, ex-officio
president.

REAR ADMIRAL ROBLEY D. EVANS, U. S. Navy, chairman.

COL. WALTER S. FRANKLIN.

MAJ. HARRY F. HODGES, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army.

DR. HENRY S. PRITCHETT, Institute of Technology.

COL. AMOS STICKNEY, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army.

CAPT. GEORGE C. REITER, U. S. Navy.

CAPT. CHARLES T. HUTCHINS, U. S. Navy, naval secretary.

LIEUT. COL. DANIEL W. LOCKWOOD, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army,
engineers' secretary.

EXECUTIVE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD.

REAR ADMIRAL ROBLEY D. EVANS, U. S. Navy.

CAPT. CHARLES T. HUTCHINS, U. S. Navy.

LIEUT. COL. DANIEL W. LOCKWOOD, U. S. Army.

Partial list of appropriations made at the second session of the Fifty-Eighth Congress for the Light-House Establishment:

Supplies of light-houses $475,000
Repairs of light-houses 740,000
Salaries of light keepers 815,000
Expenses of light-vessels 525,000
Expenses of buoyage 550,000
Expenses of fog-signals 205,000
Lighting of rivers 300,000
Survey of light-house sites 1,000
Oil houses for light-stations 10,000
Porto Rican light-house service 75,000
Maintenance of lights on channels of Great Lakes 4,000
Pointe au Pelee light-vessel, Lake Erie 4,000

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note:

Punctuation has been standardised.

Variations in spelling, including dialect, have been retained as in the original publication.

The following changes have been made:

Page 35: "own true an' lawful afther" was changed to
"own true an' lawful father"

Page 132: "and I' ll try not to forget it" was changed to
"and I'll try not to forget it"

Page 163: "Why my report hasn't yet reached the inspector,
consequently there ain't a single soul, outside
of us four, who knows anything wreck was the
_West Wind_, having come out here after about it."
was changed to
"Why my report hasn't yet reached the inspector,
consequently there ain't a single soul, outside
of us four, who knows anything about the wreck
of the _West Wind_, because he hasn't come out
here about it."

Page 164: "entirely dlsmised the matter" was changed to
"entirely dismissed the matter"

Page 185: "of use, Sonny. Ephriam Downs is" was changed to
"of use, Sonny. Ephraim Downs is"

Page 261: "himself in comamnd. "I'll" was changed to
"himself in command. "I'll"

Page 273: "a hospital, why would'nt it be" was changed to
"a hospital, why wouldn't it be"

Page 296: "they wanted to speak us" was changed to
"they wanted to speak to us"

Page 315: "the man with the magaphone shouted" was changed to
"the man with the megaphone shouted"