The Functional Lens-Lantern

We all know penny-pinching can stretch a dollar. We also know the size of the tool should match the size of the job. The old lighthouse establishment lived by these two rules. Lights for navigation were built as economically as possible, and seldom was a light brighter or bigger than needed.

In places were a small light would suffice, the post lantern was the tool of choice. These were, as their name implies, simple structures---posts, masts, poles---that held aloft a small lamp. Above is a good example, the 1893 Funck Lens Lantern. Lens-lanterns were in use earlier, though.

Rivers and small harbors had them. There were many on the Mississippi River. The West Coast also had a fair number of lens-lanterns in the early years of its lighting by the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment. These were cheap, and they sufficed in some places until lighthouses could be built.

A tripod structure held the lens-lantern aloft, and a pulley system allowed the lamplighter to lower and raise the lamp to clean and refuel it. After the Civil War, most lens-lanterns were fueled by kerosene. The bottom of the lamp had a reservoir that held a supply of the fuel, usually enough for a week. The lamplighter was a local person who had his or her own residence nearby. The government paid this person to fuel and clean the post light and report any problems with it. Below is a tripod post light on the Mississippi River about 1920. Also shown is one of the river's lamplighters in 1940 with her post light. Photos are from the Coast Guard Archives.

Lens-lanterns provided more light than a simple house lantern. The beacon could be seen a couple of miles in clear weather thanks to the addition of a small Fresnel-type lens that surrounded the light source. This sufficed in rivers and small harbors. Bad weather significantly diminished the effectiveness. Even so, economics dictated their use in areas that would have been better served by lighthouses.

When Hawai'i first began lighting its island coastline, there was little funding for expensive lighthouses and lenses. Thus, many of the early Hawaiian lights were lens-lanterns. Below is Ka Lai Light, on the southernmost point of the Big Island of Hawai'i. It's beacon was elevated on a metal skeleton tower, but the light itself was feeble. A lens-lantern hardly cast a beam more than a mile off the shore. Smoke from the active volcanoes on the island obscured it. Ships went off course looking for it. But it was all the government felt it could afford in the early years of the twentieth century. 

You can see the lens-lantern on the left side of the superstructure in the image of Ka Lai below. This was a bit more sophisticated than a simple post lantern. It had a windmill on top. The building was for storing fuel and tools. The lamplighter lived some distance away and walked to the site until the lighthouse service bought him a horse.

 

 

Browns Point at Tacoma, Washington had a lens-lantern to serve the busy harbor until the 1930s (shown below). It was mounted on a small wooden tower that looked more like a privy than a light tower. A fogbell hung above the beacon, which was enclosed in a box on the side of the tower facing the harbor. The rainy climate of Tacoma convinced the lighthouse service to at least protect the lens-lantern. Prior to erection of the tower in 1903, the lens-lantern hung on post at Tacoma Waterway Light, shown below the Browns Point Light.

 

 

Structures to support lens-lanterns were more sophisticated at some sites. Point Robinson on Vashon-Maury Island, a few miles north of Browns Point, had two iterations of lens-lantern towers, shown below, each using the same lens-lantern. These were established in the 1880s and 1890s. The site did not receive a lighthouse until 1915.

 

 

 

Howland, Baker, and Jarvis islands in the Pacific Ocean were U.S. territories marked with beacons in the 1930s. They, too, had lens-lanterns for beacons. But these were mounted on lighthouses. The one at Howland Island is shown and was named in honor of Amelia Earhart after she disappeared on her flight around the world. It was accessed by an exterior ladder. The island is so flat, the beacon was needed to help ships find it. Today, only a stub of the tower stands. It was ruined during World War II bombings.

 

 

 

 

You might wonder if the work of lamplighters who tended lens-lanterns was much respected. It's likely these humble servants got less credit for keeping the waterways safe than their counterparts at majestic lighthouses with huge lenses and on-site resident crews of keepers. Certainly, lamplighters gained no fame. They also were paid less....but then they had less work to do. It could be dangerous work, though, as when a Mississippi River lamplighter opened his lens-lantern one afternoon to find a rattlesnake curled up around it! He used a stick to push the snake off the post, but the determined reptile threaded itself up the ladder and threatened the lamplighter again. It was knocked into the river several times before it gave up the assault.

 

The service of lens-lanterns and lamplighters was important. I've written about it here to preserve the story, small as it is in comparison to others in the lighthouse service. You can see lens-lanterns on display in a few museums. The one below hangs in the Coast Guard Museum Northwest in Seattle and is the lens-lantern that once hung from a post on Alki Point, the southern gate of Seattle's Elliot Bay.

 





 

A Flash of Lighthouse Green

 

Amateur astronomy is one of my many hobbies. I taught in a planetarium for about ten years in the 1980s-90s and have written several books on skywatching. I find that my skywatching hobby goes well with lighthouse hunting.

 

(Photo above shows the green flash behind La Perdix Lighthouse on the Brittany Coast of France and is from Astronomy Picture of the Day by Laurent Laveder http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120510.html)

Lighthouses usually have wonderful skies over them and unobstructed flat horizons beyond them.  They often afford the chance to observe the skies at their finest—dark, looming, and touched by the hand of an ocean atmosphere that produces intriguing special effects.

One interesting phenomena I’ve seen several times from lighthouses is the Green Flash. You’ve got to be patient and observant to see it, and sky conditions have to be just right. Lighthouse locations can provide those “just right” conditions. You’ll need a clear view of the flat western horizon—no trees, mountains, hills, buildings, or any other elements. And Green Flashes occur most often when the air is still and no clouds obscure the horizon.

 

If such a serene day winds down at the shore, park yourself with your favorite drink, relax, focus, and wait. Wear dark sunglasses too, or better yet, look at the sunset through #14 welder’s glass, as staring at a bright horizon a long time will cause discomfort and may even harm your eyes.

 

(Photo below is from Colin Legg Photography. It appeared on www.earthsky.org and shows a sun dome with a green flash setting behind Rottnest Island Lighthouse in Western Australia. What an amazing shot! Find more of Colin Legg's fantastic images of the sky on https://www.facebook.com/ColinLeggPhotography)

 

 

Catch it if you can, and you’ll never be deceived by a lover!  So says an old Irish superstition concerning the Green Flash. That seems reason enough to look for it. Even more, it’s one of nature’s special magic shows. Now you see it; now you don’t!! Your eyes can catch it. So can your camera.

 

The Green Flash is, just as its name implies, a momentary flash of green light that appears just as the Sun's orange disk disappears over the horizon at sunset. It also occurs at sunrise but is less often observed at this time, due to the difficulty of predicting the exact moment when the upper rim of the Sun will rise. But go for it anyway, especially on the East Coast at your favorite lighthouse. Just watching the sunrise at a lighthouse is beautiful enough. Add the Green Flash, and you'll really experience something memorable.

 

A morning or evening following a cleansing rainstorm is good for Green Flash conditions, as are days when a cold front has just moved down from Alaska or Canada.  Although the ocean horizon works best because of its flat line, the Green Flash can appear on any flat horizon.  Some people have seen it on mountaintops and over buildings, but this is very rare. Your best chance of catching it is at the coast over the ocean horizon. Summer and winter are the choicest times to look, when the angle of the Sun’s descent is shallowest.

            If you’re using welder’s glass to dim the bright sun (and I highly suggest you do!!), you might also see some sunspots, which appear as small dark flecks on the Sun.  These are cooler areas on the Sun’s surface and are associated with its magnetic field.  Very near the moment when the sunset disk is about to disappear over the horizon, look at it intently through the welder’s glass.  If conditions are right, you’ll see green color effects just as the disk disappears. Depending on its intensity, the Green Flash may be bead-like, spiked like a star, or elongated into a dash or ray. 

            What causes this momentary flash of emerald light on an otherwise tangerine Sun?  Unknown to your eyes, the upper edge of the Sun’s disk is rimmed by a green arc of light.  The reason your eyes can’t see the green when the Sun is still up is that green occupies a much narrower part of the visible spectrum than other colors.  Yellows, oranges, and reds have much longer wavelengths and dominate your field of view.  But at the final moment of sunset, the shorter wavelength green gets its chance to shine.  It shows through in a jewel-like flash.

            When you see it, consider yourself lucky.  Not many people catch this elusive phenomenon.  Science can’t guarantee that seeing the Green Flash will keep your love life intact, as the Irish believe, but observing it will automatically admit you to a unique circle of skywatchers.

            If you happen to observe it at a lighthouse, consider yourself even luckier: You’ll see a manmade beacon in the lighthouse and a nature-made beacon on the horizon! Don't despair if the elusive Green Flash doesn't appear. Trade the green "flash" of a lighthouse instead--maybe Portsmouth Harbor's handsome old beacon, seen below. (Lens photo by Bruce "Boondog" Robie, who caught his reflection in the lens as a bonus. Bottom photo by Matt Currier.)

 

 

           

To find out more about the Green Flash, check out this website from astronomer Andrew Young --  http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/.

 

To buy a piece of welder's glass go here: http://www.amazon.com/Welders-Glass-Solar-Eclipse-Viewer-Pleasing/dp/B007O10Z80

Sojourn at the Lighthouse

Meet my newest eBook! Sojourn at the Lighthouse. It's based on a journal I kept during my keeper weeks at New Dungeness Lighthouse on a sand spit off Sequim, Washington. I've served there as a volunteer keeper twice now, and I've visited the site many times with work parties or for a day trip. It's a special place, and being a volunteer lightkeeper is a unique experience.

 



This is one of the most fascinating lighthouses I've visited. It has a wonderfully rich history, dating back to 1857 when it went into service. U.S. Lighthouse Establishment keepers occupied the station from 1857 until 1939 when the Coast Guard took over operations, and then Coast Guard keepers lived at the lighthouse for fifty-five years. It was nearly boarded up and abandoned when the Coast Guard left in 1994, except for the determination and hard work of a group of local citizens who wanted to keep it staffed. They became the New Dungeness Light Station Association. Since 1994, they have maintained a 365-day-a-yeat presence on the light station with volunteer lightkeepers. I was on their board for several years in the early 2000s, and I remain close with the group.

You, too, can be a volunteer lightkeeper here. The book will familiarize you with the experience and the duties of modern-day lightkeeping. This is a vacation spot--yes!--but it's also a place to do some important work to preserve the history and mission of the light station. The scenery and wildlife alone make it worth the trip.

If you're looking for a lighthouse for a meaningful vacation retreat, or you've booked a week at this one, read my book first. It's written somewhat like a diary and is rife with interesting anecdotes and tidbits of history. If you've had a stay at any other lighthouse, compare your experience to mine.

You'll find Sojourn at the Lighthouse on Amazon.com under Kindle Books for $1.99. Here are some images I included--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lighthouse Garden

Springtime! Till the soil, get rid of weeds, add compost, plant the seeds, and watch your garden grow!

Many lighthouse families enjoyed flower gardens. They added some beauty and color to light stations that were largely gray--gray rocks, gray tower, brown sand. A keeper at Cape May Lighthouse in New Jersey--Harry D. Palmer--won awards for his flowers and beautiful hydrangea garden. In the 1920s the Cape May Chamber of Commerce repeatedly gave him the annual prize for the city's "Best Kept Lawn."

The grounds of Point Pinos Lighthouse in Pacific Grove, California were groomed and colorful when Emily Fish was the lightkeeper in the 1890s. Her servant, Que, was an expert gardener. Both this lighthouse and Cape May Lighthouse had many visitors, so keeping the grounds attractive was important.

The handsome Carpenter Gothic lighthouse at Point Fermin, California always had lovely flowerbeds, thanks to the women who lived at the lighthouse. The plantings have been researched and are still done today, thanks to the Point Fermin Lighthouse Society. Here's a picture of me in 2004 at the lighthouse with some of the lovely flowers. Who wouldn't want to live here??!!

Keeper P.N. Christiansen and his wife are shown below at Washington's Mukilteo Lighthouse about 1925. They were proud of all their flowers, especially the roses.

The docents at Mukilteo Lighthouse still keep the grounds nice with flowerbeds. This is a very public light station and a museum, so it needs to look good. I took the picture below in the spring a few years ago.

A Master Gardener Project helps keep Yaquina Bay Lighthouse beautiful. It's keepers were removed in the 1870s and for years the lighthouse was an eyesore, until the BLM took over and spruced it up with the help of local gardeners. Kids get to help too! This picture shows some of the gardeners at work. The tall green plants in the back are fava beans.

Gardening was not only a popular pastime at lighthouses, it was a subsistence effort too. While the lighthouse service provided a few nonperishable staples--sugar, molasses, flour, rice, beans, salt beef, and more--lightkeepers planted gardens to have fresh vegetables and herbs.

 

Point No Point Lighthouse, Washington had a large garden when keeper William Cary and his family were there. The photo above, taken about 1916, shows the Carys working in the garden. Keeper Cary had a parrot on his shoulder!

 

Lighthouses at northern latitudes took advantage of the long periods of daylight after the vernal equinox. Alaska lightkeepers at Mary Island boasted of cabbages the size of beach balls and kale leaves three feet high. No doubt, the Cary's garden above flourished at 47 degrees latitude. But many lighthouses are at higher latitudes. I recall reading about a New Zealand lightkeeper who bragged about his parsley bed!

 

Gardens were encouraged by the lighthouse service for many reasons: They kept the families active, provided hobbies and food, and gardens gave the public a good impression of their tax dollars at work. Gardens could be patriotic efforts too. During World War I, lightkeepers were told:

 

"In view of the threatened shortage of food supplies, the Secretary of Commerce has written the Bureau of Lighthouses urging that keepers and other employees on lighthouse reservations cultivate as much land as possible for growing foods during the present season. Every man in the service is not only permitted but encouraged to grow something for himself in order to relieve as much as possible the shortage in food and high cost of food supplies."

 

But gardening in sandy, rocky soils was not easy. Many lighthouses were located in soil and weather conditions that challenged gardeners. Soil had to be amended or carted to the light stations. A chicken coop or horse barn provided good compost.

 

The lighthouse service gave lightkeepers plenty of advice about gardening, and garden books were popular inclusions in the portable libraries exchanged between lighthouses. So were books about food preservation. The U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses included this information on "Seeding Sandy Soils" in its 1913 Lighthouse Service Bulletin:

 

"The most satisfactory method we have observed for starting grass and other vegetation on the pure sand is to cart in soil from the timbered sections lying back of the drifting sand dunes, and spreading this to a depth of about 1 inch on the surface of the sand." 

 

Sometimes there was no soil at all. Rock light stations like the Libby Islands, Matinicus Rock, and Mount Desert in Maine were bereft of soil. Storms had scoured it all away. This was no impediment to gardening, however. Lightkeepers at these stations, especially Mount Desert Rock, hauled barrels of dirt by boat to their rocky homes every spring and crammed it into the nooks between rocks. Flowers and vegetables were planted. Sailors began calling Mount Desert Rock "God's Rock Garden" because of its lavish color every summer after flowers bloomed in the rock crevices. Sadly, late autumn and winter storms tore away the gardens, and soil had to be hauled out again the next year for the rock gardens. It was a never-ending cycle.

 

I wrote a short story about this tradition for the U.S. Lighthouse Society Keepers Log in the 1980s. The children's book Lighthouse Seeds by Pamela Love and Linda Warner remembers this heartwarming tradition--

 

 



Lighthouse keepers in Canada still grow gardens. Canada is among the few nations worldwide that still has a few staffed lighthouses. British Columbia has about 20 of them. I visited Chrome Island Lighthouse in British Columbia a few summer ago and was amazed to see a greenhouse full of vegetables and flowers in bloom on the island. Keepers Leslie and Roger Williamson catch rainwater for their plants. Here's the rain barrel in the photo below. You can see the keepers' garden through the greenhouse window. A small decorative lighthouse in a flowerbed is reflected in the greenhouse door window.

 

Stalks of corn are seen growing in small area by one of the homes on Chrome Island. The island is only a couple of acres in size, and it's a few miles from the mainland. In the background is the lighthouse, a modern fiberglass tower.

As I look at my office window today at the dandelions scattered over my lawn, I'm reminded of the natural beauty at lighthouses. Gardens make for some lovely pictures, like the one above of Point Arena Lighthouse with daffodils.

Gardening helped pass the time for lighthouse keepers, made their homes beautiful, and gave them a sense of pride, and it put fresh food on their tables. Today, we take for granted that produce and other garden fare is just a quick walk or drive away at a grocery store. If you lived on rock out in the ocean, it wasn't so easy!

A Lighthouse for the Old Bremerton Navy Yard

Not many miles from my home is the busy Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. It had roots beginning in the 1880s, I'm told, thanks to the entrepreneurial efforts of William Bremer. He sold land to the U.S. Government to establish a shipyard in his town, knowing it would create jobs and put the place on the map. (Postcard above shows the shipyard c1916.)

Bremer would be thrilled to see it today. It's huge and is probably the largest employer in Kitsap County. Below is an image of the giant Hammerhead Crane built for the shipyard in the 1930s. (Courtesy PSNS)

In 1895, business at the shipyard was on the upswing. Thus, the U.S. Lighthouse Board decided to put a lighthouse at Orchard Point on the south side of the entrance to Rich Passage. It was through this waterway that all vessels had to travel to reach Sinclair Inlet and then the shipyard. It was often a very foggy portal. But money was tight in Washington, D.C., so only a lens-lantern on a post was funded. A local lamplighter was hired to keep the lens-lantern clean, fueled with kerosene, and shining bright.

 

Above is an example of a lens-lantern like the one that would have been used at Orchard Point. The post beacon below is similar, only Orchard Point's post would have stood on shore. A pulley system allowed the lamplighter to raise and lower the lens-lantern. (Photos from Chad Kaiser)

Some changes occurred in the early part of the twentieth century, including a report in 1904 that the "light was suspended from a tree" on the point. The small beacon experienced several other evolutions of platforms.

Then, in 1929, the site was given a real lighthouse. A 20-foot-tall pyramidal reinforced concrete tower was built on the point by the crew of the lighthouse tender Heather. (She is pictures below courtesy of the Coast Guard Museum NW.) The beacon was transferred into the new tower and a reed foghorn was installed. Cost for the new sentinel and horn was $3,280. They went into service on February 26, 1929--86 years ago today!

The Lighthouse Service Bulletin, an in-house publication for the employees of the U.S. Lighthouse Service, reported that same year:

"The station is in the charge of two brothers who live about a half-mile distant but in sight of the light. Under ordinary conditions, they visit the station once a week to wind the clock and clean and oil the light and fog signal apparatus. When necessary, they can start or stop the fog signal with a push-button control located at their dwelling."

Coast Guard 13th District photo of the Orchard Point concrete lighthouse about 1970. Note the fog sensor on the top (small box on the left on a post) and the beacon in the center top. By 1970 a plastic automated beacon had been installed to replace the old lens-lantern. What fun it must have been climbing that ladder to check on the lighthouse!

Orchard Point Lighthouse still stands today and continues to shine a light for shipping headed into Rich Passage. It sits on gated property owned by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. It's an especially important navigational aid for the Bremerton-Seattle ferry, which passes it about  twenty times a day. Though many fog signals in Puget Sound have been decommissioned in recent years, Orchard Point still sounds a foghorn. The horn is activated on request by mariners via a radio signal--a great plan that doesn't mean it's honking all the time, but only when needed. 

Seeing the lighthouse is easiest from the ferry. I always walk to the south rail of the "boat" (nickname we Puget Sounders have for a ferry) when it passes by Orchard Point so I can see the lighthouse flashing white every 6 seconds.

Two recent images show the Orchard Point Lighthouse. Above photo on Panoramio by Tori Mac. Below is from Alex Trabas' www.listoflights.org and Mike Boucher.

 



Colonel Anderson's Flying Buttress Lighthouses

My friend, the late Ken Black, used to say lighthouses are like people. They come in all shapes and sizes!

One of the most curious shapes for a lighthouse is the flying buttress, an architectural style made popular by the Canadian lighthouse service a century ago. There are examples of this design all around the globe, but Canada takes the prize, thanks to the work of a civil engineer with the Canadian Dept. of Marine & Fisheries, the government agency placed in charge of Canada's lighthouses in nineteenth century.

Belle Isle Lighthouse, Canada (Public Archives of Canada)

 

Col. William Patrick Anderson (1851-1927) became chief engineer of the Dept. of Marine & Fisheries in 1880. He had worked in the department for several years as a draftsman and had exhibited skill in the design of several lighthouses and fog signals. By the time his career ended in 1919 he had designed and overseen the construction of 500 lighthouses and fog signal stations.

Col. Anderson in 1904 (Wikimedia Commons)

 

When Anderson took charge of Canada's lighthouses, he was ordered to update its antiquated system, which at the time was comprised mostly of small wooden towers that were decaying or inadequate. There had been little money for lighthouses in Canada in the early and mid-1800s. The Mother Country in England had many colonies to support and was unable to light the vast Canadian coastline with more than a few stone lighthouses with up-to-date lighting mechanisms. The rest were cheaply-constructed and illuminated wooden towers.

With a limited budget but great enthusiasm, Anderson set to work, and with industry and ingenuity, he put the Canadian lighthouse system on the map. Today, Canada has over 700 lighthouses, about 250 of them traditional styles.

The most famous of Anderson's lighthouses are the flying buttress towers. Only six of the nine he originally built remain standing, and only three of those six are active as navigational aids. They are considered national treasures today. Anderson was applauded and lauded in his day for his accomplishments, and these unusual lighthouses are his legacy.

Point-au-Père Lighthouse in Quebec (Wikimedia Commons)

 

Russ Rowlett, a lighthouse aficionado and keeper of the website "Lighthouse Directory," describes the design:

"The flying buttress design was the ultimate development of what Anderson called "ferro-concrete" lighthouse design, a marriage of steel and concrete to produce unusually sturdy towers. The central column has steel pillars at the corners, and each of the six buttresses is steel clad in concrete. The resulting lighthouses are durable through the most ferocious weather and relatively easy to maintain."

Additionally, it can be added that the flying buttress towers had a low center of gravity and an open framework design to reduce weight and allow storm winds to pass through without excess swaying. They were well-suited for unstable ground. Anderson also made sure the new lighthouses were equipped with state-of-the-art lenses and their keepers were well-trained. All nine flying buttress lighthouses were built between 1907 and 1915.

The oldest was built in 1907 at Cape Norman, Newfoundland; unfortunately it is gone.

The tallest at 108-feet  the Point-au-Père Lighthouse in Quebec. Though decommissioned since 1975, it is now a popular museum and national landmark of Canada. Belle Isle Lighthouse, Newfoundland is another of Anderson's creations. Others stood at Caribou Island and Michipicoten Island in Lake Superior and Bagot Bluff in Quebec.

By far, the most magnificent of Anderson's flying buttress lighthouses is the first-order sentinel at Estevan Point on the western shores of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was a struggle to construct in the wilderness of Hesquiat Peninsula. Workers first cleared a 5-mile road through the dense rainforest of the area and then hauled all building materials across it.  Everything arrived by ship, was unloaded in a nearby bay, and then was carted over the rough road with teams of horses to the building site. The 100-foot light tower, still the tallest on Canada's western shores, was completed and lighted in 1910. Its Chance Brothers first-order lens was a work of art with a much-needed function marking the dangerous rocks off the point.

Estevan Point Lighthouse (Kraig Anderson Photo)

Life for the keepers was tough in such an isolated and lonely place as Estevan Point. Storms assaulted them in winter, fog was prevalent, and during World War II a Japanese submarine fired on the lighthouse. Little damage was done, but Estevan Point Lighthouse can claim to be the only spot in Canada attacked in the war.

The Canadian Coast Guard still keeps the Estevan Point Lighthouse staffed. A family lives on site and maintains the compound in apple-pie order. Thought they keep tabs on the beacon in the tower, their primary function is to report marine weather conditions every four hours. They also report any problems for vessels caught in the stormy, sometimes cruel, Pacific waters off the lighthouse. They are the last o a dying breed. Canada has made several attempts to de-staff all its lighthouses, with no success. Mariners always fight to "keep the keepers" --- their lifeline to shore and safety.

Colonel Anderson designed and built a number of fixed buttress lighthouses too. Good examples of this design still stand at Point Atkinson and Sheringham Point in British Columbia and Ile Parisienne, Ontario and New Ferolle, Newfoundland. There are many other examples around the world that copy this technology.

The fixed buttress lighthouse at Ostende, Belgium. It has since been replaced by a more modern tower. (Author's Postcard Collection)

Colonel Anderson died in 1957. He is buried in Ontario.

An interesting footnote--
The U.S. Lighthouse Establishment built just one buttressed lighthouse in the United States. It still stands at Sabine Pass, Texas. It is pictured below in its nineteenth century heyday and on a recent postage stamp. this historic tower has been decommissioned and abandoned. Sadly, it is rapidly deteriorating.

 

A Lighthouse Valentine

 

Lighthouses are all wrapped up in love! If you don't think so, check out the many pictures of people kissing at lighthouses and the large number of wedding pictures online that were taken at lighthouses. Many lighthouses around the world make a tidy income hosting weddings. After all, a lighthouse is a cathedral of sorts, or at the very least a country church. It's a picturesque and metaphoric place to tie the knot.

 

 

 

There are plenty of romantic stories set at lighthouses, fictional and true. In the fiction category, Susan Wigg's The Lighthouse Keeper is a steamy romance novel set at Cape Disappointment Lighthouse in Washington. Wigg did her homework; many of the details about lighthouse work and technology are accurate!

 

My friend Debbie Maccomber has a few soft romance tales at lighthouses, one in particular that launched a TV series. A Light Between Oceans is a nice romantic novel. And the list goes on. Some of these reads are classy; some are cheesy. You pick.

 

 

 

 

And how about those lighthouse films about love?

 

 

 

 

 

Lighthouse records are rife with romance, albeit subtle. Keepers weren't supposed to write diary-type entries in the logbooks, so there aren't many details about relationships. Logbooks mention marriage proposals delivered in the lantern room, keepers getting married at their lighthouses, or keepers' daughters and sisters getting married at lighthouses, sometimes to an assistant keeper. The field of marriage candidates often was narrow for lighthouse women. If you didn't get ashore much, the bachelor keeper began to look really handsome! Of course, he had a good and well-respected government job and a regular paycheck, if you could accept the vagaries of his occupation. The opposite could be true. There was something appealing about the lighthouse keeper's daughter if she was the only available candidate for miles.

 

This is not to say lighthouse marriages weren't solid: If you were one of the above--a bachelor keeper or the daughter of a keeper, there was something to be said for choosing a mate who knew your lifestyle and could be happy with it. You'd be together 24/7, and you'd have to work out any issues on your own. The lighthouse inspector wouldn't have cared to be a marriage counselor.

 

 

 

Did lighthouse keepers and their mates exchange Valentines every February? I think some did. A few I've interviewed--mostly Coast Guard keepers--made sure to remember their spouses' sacrifices with a sweet Valentine gift. Nancy Johnson, whose Coastie husband was a keeper at Burrows Island Lighthouse in the San Juan Islands, WA, recalls that somehow her husband and his co-keepers got ashore for flowers and chocolates for the wives. It meant a lot, Nancy said. Her life on an isolated island wasn't easy.

 

Did you get a Valentine card for your sweetie this year? Maybe you found one with a lighthouse on it. Check out these cute ones I found on eBay--

 

 

 

 

Sailors made special Valentines in the days of sail for their girlfriends back home. It kept them busy, so they weren't "at loose ends," and kept them thinking of home and loved ones. Mystic Seaport Museum, where I worked for a number of years in the 1980s-1990s has a beautiful collection of these ornate Valentines. This one below, found eBay for a hefty price, features a lighthouse. It has a scrimshaw center, which makes it really valuable.

 

 

And speaking of sailors, many came ashore in the nineteenth century after a career at sea and became lighthouse keepers. Sailors had good knowledge of the sea--important aspects of it like the weather and the ways of ships, how to navigate, and how to handle a small boat. The lighthouse service saw these skills as a boon at lighthouses.

 

Whether or "knot" it's true, who can say?

 

Happy Valentine's Day!