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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.”