"Highland Light: This Book Tells You All About It"

Highland Light in the late 1800s

Isaac M. Small, whose grandfather was the first keeper of Cape Cod's Highland Light and owned the land the first lighthouse was built on, wrote a booklet in 1891 called "Highland Light: This Book Tells You All About It."

Small wrote about the daily life of the keepers:

"The lives of the keepers are somewhat monotonous, though relieved in a measure during the summer months by visits of many pilgrims to this attractive Mecca.

"The routine of their duties is regular and systematic. Promptly, one half hour before sunset the keeper whose watch it may be at the time repairs to the tower and makes preperations for the lighting of the lamps. At the moment the sun drops below the western horizon the light flashes out over the sea; the little cog wheels begin their revolutions; the tiny pumps force the oil up to the wicks and the night watch has begun. At 8 o'clock the man who has lighted the lamp is relieved by No. 2, who in turn is also relieved at midnight by No. 3, No. 1 again returning to duty at 4 a.m. As the sun shows its first gleam above the edge of the eastern sea the machinery is stopped and the light is allowed to gradually consume the oil remaining in the wicks and go out. This occurs in about fifteen minutes. As night comes on again No. 2 is the man to light the lamp, the watches are changed at 8, 12 and 4, and so go on as before night after night."

A crowd gathers to watch a baseball game at Highland Light in the early 1900s

Small also made a plea on behalf of the keepers:

"It is written somewhere that keepers must not accept tips from people who visit the light, but of course it does not really mean that, but should be understood that keepers should not solicit tips. When you have climbed to the top floor of that winding stair, and then have reached the ground again, and you are pretty nearly out of breath and exclaim, "My, but that was some climb," you would appreciate the feelings and condition of the keeper who had gone up and down some twenty times during the day. No law requires them to do this, but out of courtesy and your enjoyment they make the trips. Think it over and decide whether you would like to change places with them."

For more on the history of Highland Light, click here.

Ida Lewis documentary premiere on May 30

The Bakers at Butler Flats Light, New Bedford

Amos Baker, Jr.

From its first lighting in 1898 until 1942, when the Coast Guard took over from the Lighthouse Service, Butler Flats Light in New Bedford, Massachusetts, had only two keepers, Captain Amos Baker Jr., and his son, Charles A. Baker.

Amos Baker Jr., had been in charge at Clark's Point Light in New Bedford for some years earlier, and his father was keeper there before him. In total, the two lights were kept by the Bakers for about 80 years.

After arriving at the lighthouse in April 1898, Amos Baker, Jr., wrote:

At 7 A.M. took charge of Butler Flats Lighthouse with Charles A. Baker as Assistant Keeper. The lighthouse is new but found it very wet and leaky and very dirty and everything topsy turvy. 

Captain Amos Baker Jr. was widowed twice during his years at Butler Flats, but his loneliness was eased by the fact that his son, Charles, was assistant keeper. He also had occasional visits from his daughter, Amy.

Some of the logs of Captain Baker are in the possession of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society. The entry for Christmas in 1907 reads:

Butler Flats Light

A pleasant Christmas Day... Squally in the evening, but we had some music from the phonograph so we had sunshine inside.

A fog bell was sounded by an automatic striking mechanism when needed, producing a double blow every 15 seconds. Amy Baker enjoyed saluting passing vessels with the fog bell.

The famous Captain Joshua Slocum once gave Amy a copy of a booklet about his sloop Spray with the inscription, "To the little girl who rang the bell each time I passed the light."

Amy Baker later wrote of the fog bell:

To one not used to it, it would seem almost unbearable when going for any length of time, but I have often been told in the morning that it had been running during the night, when I knew nothing of it, sleeping soundly all the while. Vessels are saluted by this bell.

Butler Flats Light today

The Baker family mostly found Butler Flats Light a pleasant place in summer, but winters were another story. Amy Baker wrote:

In the winter ice shakes the light a good deal at times and it is scarcely pleasant to have the chair in which you sit shake and realize what might happen if the ice proved stronger than the iron plates of the caisson. 

When Amos Baker died in 1911, his obituary recounted his fascinating life. Baker had first gone to sea Messenger, of which his father was captain. In 1862, as third mate on the bark Stafford, Baker had his leg broken in two places by a whale and spent 80 days on his back. By 1874 Baker had beome captain of the bark A.R. Tucker. He was appointed lighthouse keeper at Clark's Point after his second voyage as captain, which lasted 29 months.
as a 12-year-old cabin boy on the whaling ship

According to Baker's obituary:

For 13 years he lived in Butler Flats Lighthouse. Visitors occasionally came alongside, and Captain Baker's cheery, "Come aboard!" always made them glad to obey and see the old seaman's comfortable house. 

Visitors' signatures in the register while Amos Baker was keeper included that of President Grover Cleveland.

For more on the history of Butler Flats Light, click here.

Keeper Fairfield Moore at the Nubble Light

Fairfield Moore, previously at Rockland Breakwater Light, was keeper of the Cape Neddick "Nubble" Light in York, Maine, from 1921 to 1928. The first birth of a child at the Nubble occurred on August 23, 1923, when Moore’s daughter, Phyllis Moore Searles, delivered a baby girl.

In July 1926, it was reported that the fog bell tower was moved about four feet from its foundation by a powerful storm, leaving it on the brink of a precipice. Moore didn’t dare sound the bell because he feared that the vibration could plunge the bell and tower into the sea. Repairs were soon completed.








On March 20, 1927, the keeper’s daughter Eva Moore Kimball went into labor during a severe snowstorm. Keeper Moore rowed across the channel and picked up a local doctor. The two men returned to the Nubble just in time for the last seconds of the birth of Eva’s daughter, Barbara.

Barbara Kimball (Finnemore) lived at the lighthouse until she was six. Her favorite memory was accompanying her grandfather to the top of the tower to light the lamp.



For more on the Cape Neddick "Nubble" Light, click here.

Silas Gardner Shaw at Beavertail Light

This is a Daguerrotype of Silas Gardner Shaw and his wife Ann, c. 1858. Courtesy of Cheryl Vislay. Shaw was keeper of Beavertail Light in Jamestown, Rhode Island, 1858-1862 and 1863-1869. His daughter, Lena Clarke of Jamestown, recounted some memories in a letter many years later: 


"When we first went there was just a light, a barn and a stone wall around the government property. We soon had a henhouse, a sty (kept white), a flower garden, trellis with climbing roses, and a large vegetable garden. . . I often heard my father tell about a vessel going on the rocks south of the light and how the men came ashore carrying pails of cider and rolling pins, part of the cargo. . . In a severe storm, when another craft was grounded, one of the crew made his way ashore, carrying a heavy sea chest on his back, and the wind was so strong it blew him down on the rocks. . . Whenever my father heard a noise in the night, he always took his gaff hook and lantern and went along the shore to try to find out what it was. One night he saved five or six men whose yawl had washed on the rocks, and brought them to the light to remain during the night."


For more on the history of Beavertail Lighthouse,  click here.

Fort Pickering Light in Salem, Mass., gets a makeover

Story and photos by Phil Karwowski

Fort Pickering Light with holiday wreath and red bow

L to R: Dave Gilbert, Patrick Mulligan, and Capt. Bill McHugh

In mid-September 2013, contractors began giving the 142-year-old lighthouse on Salem’s Winter Island a much needed makeover. The scope of work included chipping, scraping, sanding, and cleaning the rusted surfaces of the 32-foot, cast-iron tower. After workers completed the two-month project, the tower looked great.





Dave Gilbert, manager of the Winter Island Park, thought it would be a good idea to decorate the light for the holidays. A six-foot diameter wreath was placed on the tower with the help of Salem Harbormaster Capt. Bill McHugh and Deputy Harbormaster Patrick Mulligan.

Click here for more information on this lighthouse.

Christmas at Stamford Harbor Lighthouse

John J. Cook, a native of Denmark, was the keeper of Stamford Harbor Lighthouse in Connecticut 1907-09. Cook went to sea early in life and had been awarded many medals during his years in the U.S. Navy.

A reporter once asked Cook how he could possibly enjoy Christmas in an isolated, lonely, offshore lighthouse. Cook explained that with such unpredictable weather and sea conditions, preparations and Christmas shopping had to be done well in advance. He described the Christmas feast they had at the lighthouse a year earlier, with goose, mince pie, and plum pudding. Christmas evening would be spent much like any other, with conversation, or card playing, or perhaps the reading of books or newspapers.

The rest of Cook's reply showed him to be quite a philosopher:

I dunno, it is pretty lonesome here sometimes, especially in winter, but we manage to enjoy our holidays. We can’t go to church on Christmas and we miss the nice music and the fine sermons, but there is a compensation for that. What more soul-stirring music could there be than that of wind and wave as they whistle and roar or moan and swish past our little home? And that light aloft is a sermon in itself. Many a fervent "Thank God," many a heart-deep prayer has gone up, maybe from people who wouldn’t be thinking of such things ashore, when the red gleam of Stamford Light was made out in a storm, or the bell heard in a fog. My little light has its mission just as your pulpit preacher has his; and no one who has watched it through the terrible winter storms can fail to appreciate this, and with it his responsibility. Human life, yes, human souls depend upon that light Christmas and every other night of the year, and I dare guess it’s compensation for the loss of a Christmas sermon to keep the light burning steadily.