Photo of the Day: Camden Harbor, Maine, from Mount Battie

Camden Harbor is my pick as the most beautiful harbor in Maine, and the view of it from the top of Mount Battie is spectacular. If you look really closely at Curtis Island on the upper left, on the left side of the island you can see Curtis Island Lighthouse and the keeper's house.

Click here for more on Curtis Island Lighthouse.

Herbert Spinney - Lighthouse Keeper and Naturalist

Left: Keeper Herbert Spinney and his family at Seguin Island, Maine. Courtesy of the Friends of Seguin Island.

A 1904 Boston Globe article profiled Herbert Spinney, who had been an assistant keeper at Seguin Light Station in Maine beginning in 1893 and was principal keeper from 1903 to 1907.

Spinney, who was a native of nearby Georgetown, also served as president of the Maine Ornithological Society. He had collected and mounted birds since boyhood, and he also collected birds’ eggs, butterflies, minerals, and corals. He always carried a camera, and he developed and printed his own photos. Spinney’s collection filled much of the dwelling’s wall space from floor to ceiling.

This makeshift museum drew increasing numbers of visitors to the island, and eventually the keeper began charging an admission fee of a dime to keep the crowds more manageable. Included in the collection was a stuffed monkey, and a visitor once asked the keeper if he had shot the monkey on the island. “No madam,” replied Spinney, “I didn’t, but I’ve seen little monkeys on this island that I should like to shoot.”

Many of the birds Spinney collected were found dead after flying into the lantern glass of the tower. On one memorable morning, Spinney found 275 birds dead around the lighthouse. Spinney kept a journal of his observations; here’s the entry for September 3, 1899:

Midnight, wind northwest, very dark, not a star to be seen; the air so impregnated with smoke as to make my throat smart in breathing; at this hour I came on duty, the birds were flying around the light; on going into the lantern I found about 75 birds on the outside; pine warblers, black and white yellow throats, oven birds, two hermit thrushes and one yellow-bellied flycatcher; all seemed to alight on the glass as fast as they appeared; very few seen flying around the light.

At 3 a.m. came a light shower, which seemed to check the flight. Those on the lantern remained until morning. All the mortality occurred with the yellow throats, 10 of this species being found dead. This seems odd, as I could hear many birds strike the dome of the lantern, the concussion when they struck sounding like a body of several hundred pounds weight.

Click here for more history of Seguin Lighthouse.

Trade Winds

A nicely done lighthouse-related animated film.

World's Shortest Keeper?

This is one of my all-time favorite photos of a lighthouse keeper. The man on the left is Charles H. Hinckley, keeper of the Bishop and Clerks Lighthouse off Hyannis on Cape Cod 1892-1919. Hinckley, who was 4 feet 9 inches (or 4 feet 6 inches in his stocking feet, according to one account), has been called the shortest lighthouse keeper in the world.

With Hinckley in this photo is local ferry captain Walter Carney (6'7") of Hyannisport. Hinckley referred to himself and Carney as the "long and short of the service."

In 1909, the magazine Along the Coast quoted Hinckley:

There ain't a great deal of me so far as height goes but I am all right from my feet up. I've laid many a man bigger than me on his back if I do say it myself.

You can read more about Hinckley and Bishop and Clerks Lighthouse on my website.

Photo of the Day: Schooner Steven Taber in the fog

I like the mysterious quality of this photo, which was taken druing a lighthouse cruise in the Rockland, Maine, area.

Charles Lindbergh and Goat Island Lighthouse

After the world famous aviator Charles Lindbergh married Anne Morrow in 1929, they spent their honeymoon touring the New England coast in a rented 38-foot yacht. A recent story by Sharon Cummins on seacoastonline.com tells what happened when the boat anchored off Goat Island Lighthouse, near Kennebunkport, Maine:

"Capt. Jim Anderson, keeper of the lighthouse, was offended the little launch failed to answer his customary salute of three bells. He grabbed his powerful binoculars and was able to identify Lindy and Anne moving about the boat. Anderson called to his wife and children so that they might get a glimpse of the celebrities. The following morning, the lighthouse keeper revealed to a Portsmouth reporter that the honeymooners turned out their cabin light at 8:25 p.m."

You can read the entire interesting story here.

Donald Duck: Lighthouse Keeping (1946)

Another classic lighthouse cartoon!