The Lighthouse that Started it All

It was January 1973, and I had been married only a few weeks. My new husband, who I had met fifteen months earlier on a blind date when I was at college, was stationed at the Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine. We lived in a small apartment in a large, rambling house in the town of Bath. Our place was on the bottom floor. It was so cold that I wore two pairs of socks inside my slippers and spent much of the day on the sofa swathed in a blanket. We dared not turn up the heat, as paychecks were slim and stretched to their limit.

The weather that January seemed unbelievably cold for a girl from Maryland. Snow was heaped into huge pyramids in parking lots. None of the streets in town were clear. Rooftops were festooned with snow, with long icicles dripping from their eaves. Thankfully, I had a maxi coat that wrapped me in warmth from my shoulders to my ankles and a pair of warm knee-hi boots. My mom had insured that I would stay warm with gloves and a crocheted hat with a pompom.

For entertainment, Jon and I would drive our '67 Volkswagen to the coast to look at the ocean. Sometimes we took sandwiches and listened to the radio. The winter sea was awe-inspiring!

On a trip to Reid State Park in early February, we were amazed to see big waves pummeling the shoreline. I got out of the VW, buttoned up my coat, and climbed onto the rocks for a better view. Suddenly, the waves seemed unimportant. Beyond them was an island with a white spike on it, a white spike with a light on top. After a few seconds I realized it was a lighthouse. 

I was mesmerized: Someone lives out there, I thought. The lightkeeper. His job is to take care of the place. Is he alone, or is there a wife and family? Maybe a dog or a cat? How does he get back and forth to shore? This was not like the Little Red Lighthouse in a children's book my mom had read to me when I was small.

I must have stared at the island and its sentinel a long time, long enough to fall into a reverie of sorts. Hypnotized by the light. I awoke hearing Jon yelling to me: "Watch out!" 

Just then, a cold, slate-gray wave arched over me and threw itself on my back as I ran from it. I was wet and cold and shivering when Jon scooped me up and ran with me to the car. Nobly, he removed my coat and gave me his.

"That's a lighthouse on that island!" I protested, as he tucked me in the car and turned on the heat. "A lighthouse—very cool!"

Seguin Island Lighthouse in the Gulf of Maine at the mouth of the Kennebec River, was established in 1795 and is the second oldest lighthouse in the Pine Tree State. Its first-order Fresnel lens shines from 180 feet above sea. The brick building in the foreground was the fog signal house. The small building to the left of the tower was the oil house.In the distance is the shoreline where I first stood to look at the lighthouse that would inspire my career.

I was hooked. That week, Jon stopped by the base library and picked up some books for me. One of them was Edward Rowe Snow's Lighthouses of New England.  On the cover was Minots Light being pounded by a big wave, I devoured the book. The second time through, I took notes. Weeks later they went into a scrapbook. (Today, my notes occupy several file cabinets and dozens of CDs and DVDs.)

Sequin Island from the air, as seen on YouTube.

Snow's stories about Seguin Island Lighthouse were amazing, especially the one about the ghost of the lighthouse, a nineteenth century keeper's wife who went mad from the isolation of the place and played her piano so incessantly her husband murdered her with an ax. On misty evenings, a tinkle of phantom piano keys supposedly wafts over the waters of the Kennebec Estuary—the poltergeist of Seguin Island Lighthouse. True tale? Probably not, but it got my attention and has fascinated my readers and listeners for decades.

Using my notes and a paper map of the Maine coast, we began lighthouse hunting in earnest in the spring of 1973. Pemaquid Point, Portland Head, Cape Elizabeth, Hendricks Head, Cuckolds, Tenants Harbor, the Nubble. None of the lighthouses were open to the public. This was before lighthouses became popular tourist sites. There were no printed directions, so finding the lights was often a challenge.

By the end of our first year of marriage another lighthouse hunter had joined us, baby Jessica. Little did we know she'd grow up loving lighthouses like her mom. Today, she's a docent at a lighthouse and has designed and fabricated an exhibit about them. Our son, Scott, loves lighthouses too and always brings home pictures for me when he travels near one. I'm grateful, as well, that my granddaughters—his daughters—are interested. They have a stash of kids' books about lighthouses, do lighthouse jigsaw puzzles, paint lighthouses on everything, and they absolutely loved this past year's lighthouse Christmas tree I put up in our sitting room. Lighthouse appreciation and preservation DNA has been passed on!

The tower's opulent Fresnel lens and auxiliary light. Photo from the Friends of Seguin Island Lighthouse Blog.

It's been 45 years since that first glimpse of Seguin Island Lighthouse in 1973. Whenever anyone asks why I love lighthouses, I point to my husband. After all, he took me to the Maine coast and brought me that first lighthouse book. I was ripe for a hobby...a hobby that evolved into a career. He never imagined what an obsession it would be and how it would shape our lives and influence our children and grandchildren. And, he has rescued me from more than one wave since 1973!

Can you believe I have yet to get out to Seguin Island to visit the site and climb the light tower that first inspired me? That will change soon! I've made a pact with myself that I will visit lighthouses that have special meaning for me or that I've written about for magazines and newspapers. 

And, I'm on the hunt for one of these. Come on eBay!!!

Harbour Lights

It ought to be in my collection, don't you think?