Deena and I are planning a trip to Maine in May. There are many reasons we enjoy excursions to “The Pine Tree State.” There is the sheer charm and natural diversity of the state, the seafood cuisine, Maine’s culture and history, the rocky, rugged shores and, of course, the many lighthouses that dot the coast of the state. The coast of Maine, itself, is barely 230 miles long as the crow flies, but if you include the many navigable channels, bays and inlets where the water rises and falls with the tides, then the “coast” is actually fifteen times longer.
There are altogether sixty-five lighthouses in Maine. Across the U.S., roughly one thousand functioning lighthouses continue in service, all automated. Boston Light, which opened in September 1716, was the first[1]lighthouse in America. The last Lighthouse keeper in the U.S., Sally Snowman of Boston Light retired last December 30th. She was a testimony to the hundreds of women who either assisted their husbands running lighthouses, or were keepers in their own right over the past few hundred years.
There are more than 18,000 lighthouses world-wide, according to The Lighthouse Directory. Many of these, but not all, are likewise automated. The oldest functioning lighthouse in the world today is the Tower of Hercules, in northern Spain, one of thirty lighthouses built by the Romans across Europe during the first century A.D.
How a lighthouse works
I remember watching a lighthouse absently in Maine during a previous trip. I thought it might flash once a second, but in fact it did not. Different lighthouses sport different color lights, such as red or green–even blue, though white is the most common because it is visible at greater distances than other colors. The lights also have different flashing sequences which are included in nautical maps. For example:
“. . . a lighthouse might emit two flashes every three seconds to distinguish it from a lighthouse that emits four flashes every three seconds. Even today, if the GPS goes on the fritz, crews reference light lists to plot a course — those regional indices of lighthouses and their distinguishing traits.”
Credit NOAA. Public Domain
Note the miniature portion of a nautical map of Sturdivant Island in Maine, specifically the lower yellow arrow. The chart notation “Fl G 2.5s ” means as follows:
“Fl” refers to a flashing light. If it was just an “F,” it would mean that the light is fixed (steady) and not flashing.
“G” means that the light is green.
“2.5s” means the light flashes once every 2 1/2 seconds.
During the day, person looking at a lighthouse might notice different red and white patterns painted on the structure of the lighthouse. There is no preferred pattern, though lighthouses in the same vicinity must not resemble each other in order to avoid confusion. An elevated lighthouse with the sky for a background might be painted a dark color to make it more noticeable. Looking at the structure, you might also notice horns, antennae and similar devices that broadcast audible signals to passing ships when there is dense fog or some other reason for reduced visibility.
The height of the beacon is important as well. It should be easily visible to mariners. If a lighthouse is built on a cliff, it will likely be a short structure. If it is built close to the waterline, the tower will be higher.
Buoys were also used for navigational purposes and the maps were clearly annotated to show them as well.
Duties of a lighthouse keeper
Photo credit: Eugenesergeev (iStock.)
Lighthouse keepers had to remain at the lighthouse every hour of every day. Often, but not always, there was a crew of two or three people at any lighthouse. The tour of duty ranged from 2 months, to nine months to for years depending on where in the world you served. Getting to the lighthouse might mean a trip by boat to a point many miles off shore. If the lighthouse was on a remote island, the crew could get some exercise. But often the lighthouse was built on a rock which meant that the rock, itself, would be submerged continuously or at certain tides, and exercise was impossible. Sometimes, you had to climb many steps to get from a dock to the structure, itself. A keeper received 28 days of leave per year. Juniors (apprentices) half of that. There was no way to return to the mainland for any reason and before the wireless was invented, no way to contact the mainland in any event.
Food was monotonous and often spoiled. Fresh water had to be rationed. Life was brutal working in sub-freezing temperatures and on Spartan rations. Hopefully, you got along with your companions.
The primary maintenance concern was the light, itself, which involved kerosene, lamps and wicks. Also important keeping the windows around the light clean of dirt and ice. Brass had to be polished, repairs made quickly on the lighthouse, the boathouse (if present), skiffs and docks. Weather had to be recorded as well as appropriate notations entered into the log.
What does a lighthouse mean to you?
People have different thoughts and impressions of lighthouses. Some people see lighthouses in archaic terms, vestiges of by-gone eras which have fallen to the wayside in favor of the global positioning system, electronic charts, radar and other electrical aids. This is probably the opinion of many Millennials and members of the current Generation Z. However, these modern systems are subject to jamming, hacking and manipulation by bad state actors or other criminal groups. So then, what does a ship captain do when close to the shore on a moonless night, in fog or rough seas and his sopisticated telemetry fails him? Or, what value are these aids to a navigator is there is a catastrophic loss of power on his ship? Yet, seeing is often believing and a familiar flashing light off your starboard bow as a firm reference can be the difference between life and death at sea.
Then, there are the pharologists who are scientists, historians and lay people who are fascinated by lighthouses. The term pharologists come from the famous (and first) lighthouse in the world, the Lighthouse of Pharos. Built a century or two B.C., it rose 350-400 feet high and contained a furnace on the crown of the building. The light from the furnace could be seen 21 nautical miles away! It lasted 1,600 years before it was destroyed by a series of earthquakes. The ruins were only rediscovered in 1968.
Movie aficionados think of lighthouses in gothic terms, houses of horror. If you’ve searched for the dozen or so movies featuring lighthouses, you’ve come across plotlines dealing with remote, stark, buildings cared for by society’s misfits, criminals and outcasts. These sociopaths fight the brutal elements to keep their light visible to all, while keeping the dark secrets in the deep recesses of their hearts hidden to all. Given the murder and mayhem, gloom and doom that Hollywood has used to define lighthouses, it’s a wonder they ever served a useful purpose at all!
Others see lighthouses in romantic or cryptic terms. Take Emily Dickinson’s poem “Good night! which put the candle out”:
“Good night! which put the candle out?
A jealous zephyr, not a doubt.
Ah! friend, you little knew
How long at that celestial wick
The angels labored diligent; Extinguished, now, for you!
It might have been the lighthouse spark
Some sailor, rowing in the dark, Had importuned to see!It might have been the waning lamp
That lit the drummer from the camp
To purer reveille!”
Of all Dickinson’s poems, this is one of the more difficult to interpret (at least, to me) and is, in fact, subject to many disparate analyses. I’m not an English major, but I do see a contrast between light and dark here. Written around the time of the Civil War (perhaps a decade or so later), the drummer appears to refer to an army drummer during the war between the states. This is suggested by the use of the term reveille, which, though she does not capitalize the first letter “r,” could be a reference to the Resurrection of the dead as the light of the “wanning lamp” (soul?) is finally extinguished. Compare this to the sailor on a moonless night searching earnestly, desperately, for a familiar beacon from the shore to lift his spirits as his life boat sinks with water and extinguishes his own hope of survival. Finally, the “celestial wick” she refers to could plausibly be the thread of life that the three sisters Clotho (the spinner), Lachesis (the allotter), and Atropos (death) maintain for every mortal. On a personal note, while unconscious and bleeding out in an Emergency Room once, I pictured Atropos with her shears in some sense poised over me as my life hung in the balance.
On lighthouses, buoys and blogs
I can vividly imagine ships passing some distance away from a lighthouse at night, or closer to it and the perilous rocks or reefs in the fog as well. Who knows why or where the ships are headed? They may come from distant lands and may never pass this lighthouse again. And who knows whether the beacon of the lighthouse didn’t illuminate some danger in the ship’s course? If only the RMS Titanic had such a warning? If so, a thousand-and-one-half souls would have survived.
So, it is with my blog. In some sort of way, perhaps my blog can make a difference in some one’s course in life. Perhaps the sories I tell or whatever insight I have to offer will resonate in the life of someone else? People from Russia or Nigeria or Malaysia or Brazil log on to my website while I sleep at night. During the day, people from Finland or France or India alight on my homepage. And who knows what if any benefit they receive? Be that as it may, this is my calling at this point in my life.
In 1718, Boston Light’s first keeper, a sheep farmer and ship pilot named George Worthylake, took his wife and daughter for a brief trip to the city, leaving the lighthouse and two younger children in the care of his slaves Shadwell and Dina. Upon returning, Worthylake anchored his boat offshore, and Shadwell rowed out to fetch the group. As the younger children watched from the island, the rowboat capsized, and everyone drowned. The tragedy inspired a poem by twelve-year-old Benjamin Franklin and a funeral oration by the scourging Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather. In his sermon, “Providence Asserted and Adored,” Mather instructed mourners to ponder the children’s “inexpressible horror” as they “beheld the deadly distress of their parents and sister.” The next keeper, Robert Saunders, drowned less than two weeks after assuming his position.”
