New England Lighthouse Events

Check out my newly revamped events calendar at www.my.calendars.net/nelights/

New Season for New England Lighthouse Tours

I'm now gearing up for a new season of New England Lighthouse Tours.

The tours are in a minivan, with no more than 5 passengers. My primary offering, a “Lighthouses of Portsmouth and Portland Tour,” includes the two lighthouses that are photographed more than any others in New England: Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and the Cape Neddick “Nubble” Light in York, Maine. At Portland Head, tour goers also explore the museum in the former keeper’s house.


The tours also include Spring Point Ledge Light and Portland Breakwater Light, both in South Portland, Maine, and Portsmouth Harbor Light in New Castle, New Hampshire. Participants get to climb to the top of Portsmouth Harbor Light to see the still-working nineteenth century lens up close, and to enjoy one of the most breathtaking views in the New Hampshire Seacoast region.

Lunch on the tours, included in the $99 per person ($59 for children) price, is at Joe’s Boathouse, located at the Spring Point Marina in South Portland. Also included is a shopping stop at Lighthouse Depot in Wells, Maine, renowned as “the world’s largest lighthouse gift store.” There are also smaller gift shops at Portland Head and Cape Neddick.

During the tours, I enjoy telling about the human history of the lighthouses and the keepers, but I try not to overwhelm people with endless facts and statistics. I find that the average person is most interested in what it was like for keepers and their families to live at these fascinating places.

While most of the people who have taken the tours so far have been from other parts of the country, I'm hoping this year’s tours might attract more local people. This is a great way to have a fun day out, visiting some of the most beautiful locations in the Northeast while letting someone else worry about the driving. A number of people have given my tours as birthday or anniversary presents, which I think is a wonderful idea.

The tours begin and end at the parking garage on Hanover Street in downtown Portsmouth. I've scheduled about 50 tour dates between late May and late October. You can read more at www.newenglandlighthousetours.com or you can call (603) 431-9155.

A Dive from Minot's Light

MNOT2, originally uploaded by nelights.

This clip shows Edward Rowe Snow (1902-1982), the popular New England maritime historian and "Flying Santa" to lighthouse keepers, diving from Minot's Ledge Lighthouse, off Boston's South Shore, in 1962. For more on the Flying Santa, see www.flyingsanta.org. For more on Minot's Ledge Lighthouse, see www.lighthouse.cc/minots/

Lighthouse of the Week: Crabtree Ledge Light, Maine

Maine has been luckier than many coastal states; only a handful of its 65+ lighthouses have been lost over the years. One of the most prominent of Maine’s lost lights was Crabtree Ledge Light, which stood offshore at the entrance to Sullivan Harbor from 1890 to 1950. Named for a prominent local family, Crabtree Ledge Lighthouse is still fondly remembered by older residents of the vicinity.

The following is a condensed version of the chapter on Crabtree Ledge Light from my new book, The Lighthouses of Maine (2009, Commonweath Editions). I’ve also added some new material from an article recently sent to me by lighthouse historian Ted Panayotoff. The article by Donna Gronros concerns the memories of her Aunt Dot, whose grandfather was the first keeper at Crabtree Ledge.

By 1886, various steamers were making 15 to 20 runs daily in summer between Sullivan Harbor and the popular resort of Bar Harbor. There were also many vessels carrying lumber and granite passing through the area. Crabtree Ledge, a dangerous obstruction about a mile from Hancock Point at the entrance to Sullivan Harbor from Frenchman Bay, suddenly assumed new importance. Funds for a light and fog signal at the ledge were appropriated by Congress on August 4, 1886.

Work began in 1889, when a cast-iron cylindrical caisson, 25 feet in diameter and 32 feet tall, was put into position on the ledge, in a spot 15 feet below sea level. After the caisson was filled with concrete, it was surmounted by the cast-iron lighthouse superstructure, 37 feet tall from the base to the center of the light. A fifth-order Fresnel lens showing a fixed white light, interrupted by a more intense flash every two minutes, went into service on January 15, 1890. A 1,200-pound bell and striking machinery were installed in 1891.

The first keeper was Charles Chester, a native of Philadelphia who had been a cabin boy at age 11 and the captain of his own ship at 19. He and his wife, Mary (Blake), eventually had 11 children, the last five of whom were born in a house at Hancock Point. Chester remained in charge at Crabtree Ledge until 1908. One of the Chesters’ granddaughters, Dot, who was born in 1903, later described her memories of the lighthouse:

As the lighthouse was a cylinder, all the rooms were round. The kitchen and living room were on the second level. The third level was the bedroom. Above that was the lantern deck. The lowest deck was the basement, where rainwater from the roof was caught in a cistern and provided the water supply. Coal was also stored there.

Most of Grandpa’s nights were spent in the lighthouse, although the house on the mainland was located so the bedroom window faced the light so he could see that all was well. If the light went out, as it sometimes did, Grandpa would dress quickly, rush down to the little boat and row out to the light. If there was a smokeout, everything would be all covered with soot and it would take all day to clean it up.

(LEFT: Keeper Charles Franklin Chester and his wife, Mary Ellen Chester, courtesy of Charles Libby. Chester was keeper at Crabtree Ledge 1890-1908.)

Chester Brinkworth of Hancock Point served as an assistant keeper beginning in 1914. In the fall of 1916, Chester’s younger brother, Leon, filled in as a temporary assistant while the principal keeper, Jerome Peaseley, was on shore recovering from pneumonia.

In late September, 18-year-old Leon Brinkworth returned from a trip to shore. According to some accounts, as he climbed the ladder on the side of the lighthouse with provisions in his arms, he slipped and plunged into the water. Other accounts report that the younger brother’s boat capsized. In either case, Chester, 35 years old, quickly dove into the water in a valiant but vain attempt to save his brother.

Both of the Brinkworth brothers drowned in the lighthouse’s worst tragedy. A reporter for the Kennebec Journal wrote of the Brinkworths, “Both were bright, able, and highly esteemed young men and their tragic death has brought shock and grief to friends and associates.” Another assistant keeper, Joseph Whitmore, also drowned just six months later.

The lighthouse was discontinued in 1933, the same year local ferry service ended. The father of Newbold Noyes, editor of the Washington Star, subsequently bought the lighthouse for a reported $115. Noyes gave the lighthouse to his three sons as a gift. The sons sold the lighthouse in 1937 to a friend, Fritz Allis, who summered at Hancock Point. Allis and some friends moved a reed organ into the lighthouse.

When Allis married Tiense Gummere, the two spent their honeymoon at the lighthouse; they were subsequently marooned there for several days during stormy weather. He never returned after that, and the lighthouse fell into poor condition until it finally collapsed into the bay in a winter storm in February 1950.

National Lighthouse Stewardship Act Update

I recently let you know about Senate Bill 715, the National Lighthouse Stewardship Act introduced in the Senate by Senator Levin of Michigan and several colleagues. The bill is currently in the hands of the Energy Subcommittee. Sue Clark, on her excellent Lighthouse News site, has listed the members of that committee on this page. PLEASE contact these senators and let them know that you support the bill.

Click here to read the bill and follow its progress.

Improved Access at Hospital Point Lighthouse

New England lighthouse buffs know Hospital Point Light Station in Beverly, Mass., as the home of the admiral in charge of the First Coast Guard District. Because this has been the case since the 1940s, public access to this station has been very limited. For years, the public has been able to visit the lighthouse on one day each year, during Beverly Homecoming Week.

There's wonderful news in today's edition of the Salem News. Rear Admiral Dale Gabel, the station's current resident, has agreed to make the station more accessible to the public by allowing Coast Guard Auxiliary to provide tours. Details aren't available yet, but the lighthouse might be opened as often as one day each month.

"We think it's one of the crown jewels of Beverly," said Phil Karwowski of the Auxiliary. "It's one of the big things in Beverly's maritime heritage." I couldn't agree more!

Bravo to the Coast Guard Auxiliary and Admiral Gabel. Thanks to them, the public will have the opportunity to experience one of the most beautiful light stations in New England, up close and personal.

Here's a quick historic side note on Hospital Point. During the presidency of William Howard Taft (1909–12), a large home at Woodbury Point, on the shore between Hospital Point and Beverly Cove, became the summer White House. A newspaper item of August 24, 1909, reported that the president’s son Charley—about 12 years old at the time—had visited the lighthouse: “He climbed the lighthouse in order to look out on to the water and when he reached the top he complained of being sick. The little fellow was assisted to the ground floor . . . and he felt much better.”

For more, visit my website or read my book, The Lighthouses of Massachusetts.

Keeper Arthur Small: Hero and Artist

The following is an edited version of an article I wrote a few years ago for Lighthouse Digest magazine; you can read the whole thing here. The saga of Keeper Arthur Small and his wife, Mabel, is sad and inspiring at the same time. I've spent a great deal of time researching Small and retracing some of his steps around the New Bedford area, and I feel strongly that he deserves to be remembered as a true hero.

In 1922 Keeper Arthur A. Small, a native of Brockton, Massachusetts, became keeper at Palmer’s Island Lighthouse in New Bedford, moving there with his wife Mabel and two sons from Boston Harbor’s Narrows (“Bug”) Light. Known to many as Captain Small, he was a well-traveled seaman who had first gone to sea on a Maine fishing schooner at the age of 14 and had traveled around the world in 1907-09 in President Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet of battleships.

Arthur Small was also a gifted artist of sailing ships and harbor scenes, praised for his attention to detail. He started painting on scraps of sail as a hobby during his years at sea, and he later took classes to sharpen his skills.

Small was a member of the Mariners’ Club, which met for conversation and chowder at the Peirce and Kilburn Shipyard in Fairhaven just across the Acushnet River from New Bedford. A number of Small’s paintings were displayed in the area where the club met.

The popular historian Edward Rowe Snow quoted Arthur Small’s description of the importance of Palmer’s Island Light to the commerce of New Bedford Harbor, saying that without the proper functioning of the light and fog bell, “all the city would be seriously crippled.”

But Small downplayed the so-called heroism of keepers. “Whenever they say anything about a lighthouse keeper,” he once said, “they always act as if he were some kind of hero. We’re not heroes. Here I am on this island, perfectly safe, working and painting pictures, while you wander around in New Bedford, crossing streets with automobiles and trolley cars whizzing by, just missing you by a few feet. Why, you people take more chances in a week than I do in ten years.” He would later disprove his own words.

On September 20, 1938, Mabel Small took part in one of her regular activities, a sewing circle in Fairhaven. One of the other women there saw Mrs. Small looking anxiously out at the water. The woman asked what was wrong, and Mabel Small replied that the seas were rough and she feared that Arthur would not be able to row over from Palmer’s Island to pick her up. But her husband was waiting at the landing at the usual time, and Mabel shouted, “See you girls next week!” as she headed home to Palmer’s Island.

The very next day, a ferocious hurricane took the area by surprise as it battered the south-facing coast. During the afternoon of the storm 53-year-old Arthur Small attempted to walk the 350 feet from the house to the lighthouse on Palmer’s Island. He left his wife at the oil house, which he considered to be relatively safe as it was on the island’s highest point.

As he struggled to reach the tower, Arthur Small was struck by a large wave and was swept underwater. He managed to swim back to safety. He looked back and saw his wife attempting to launch a rowboat to come to his aid. As Mabel Small tried to launch the boat a tremendous wave destroyed the boathouse, and Arthur Small lost sight of his wife.

Keeper Small later said, “I was hurt and she knew it. Seeing the wave hit the boathouse was about the last thing I remember. I must have been hit by a piece of timber and knocked unconscious. I came to some hours later, but all I remember was that I was in the middle of some wreckage... Then I must have lost my sense again, for I remember nothing more.”

Somehow Arthur Small kept the light burning through the night. The morning after the hurricane, two friends of the Smalls had rowed to the island. They took Arthur Small to a local hospital under police escort. They had first contacted the Lighthouse Service for permission, as no keeper was to leave his post until relieved “if he is able to walk.”

Three days after the storm, Commissioner Harold D. King of the Bureau of Lighthouses called Arthur Small’s performance during the storm “one of the most outstanding cases of loyalty and devotion that has come to the attention of this office.”

Mabel Small had not survived. Her body was later found and identified in Fairhaven. Many of Keeper Small’s paintings were lost in the hurricane along with his large library of several hundred books. His wife had their savings of about $7,500 in her possession when she drowned, and this was also lost.

Arthur Small asked for no compensation for his paintings, but in his official report he assigned a value of $75 to his library and $100 to his records and notes on sailing ships, “the result of thirty years’ work and used for reference in painting the history of sailing ships, a spare-time hobby.” After an extended leave that included time in Panama, Small became keeper at Hospital Point Light in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1939. During World War II he maintained a shore patrol in the area and had to check Derby Wharf and Fort Pickering lights in Salem in addition to Hospital Point Light.

When Arthur Small died in 1958, he was honored by the Coast Guard with a burial at Arlington National Cemetery. A plaque honoring Arthur and Mabel Small can be seen today on the Fairhaven side of the harbor at Fort Phoenix.