Light Hearted

Port Washington, Wisconsin, is located on Lake Michigan’s western shore, just a few miles north of Milwaukee. Port Washington’s first lighthouse was established in 1849, with a tower and keeper’s house built of Cream City brick. The lighthouse was rebuilt in 1860. This time, a short square tower was installed on the southern gable of a two-story dwelling, again made of local Cream City brick. A new Port Washington Pierhead Light was established nearby in 1889. Eventually it was realized that only one light was needed, and the 1860 lighthouse was deactivated in 1903. The lighthouse tower was eventually removed from the top of the structure.

Because the Port Washington area was home to many immigrants from Luxembourg, in 2000 the Luxembourg Minister of Sites and Monuments visited the area. Seeing the condition of the lighthouse, he offered, on behalf of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, to restore the lighthouse to its original appearance by installing a replacement tower. The Port Washington Historical Society raised additional funds for restoration, and a new tower was installed in 2002. The restored lighthouse contains a museum of lighthouse keeping life, managed by the Port Washington Historical Society.

Dawn St. George is the executive director of the Port Washington Historical Society. Patrick Curtiss is a board member of the society. He’s also the lighthouse manager and he’s the author of a new book, The Light on the House at the Top of the Stairs. And Andrea Cole is a board member as well as the volunteer coordinator for the light station.

International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend, or ILLW, is an annual event held on the third full weekend of August each year. The event was the brainchild of John Forsyth and Mike Dalrymple who were members of the Ayr Amateur Radio Group in Scotland. The event started in 1998 and has developed into an international gathering of amateur radio operators from an estimated 95 countries. In Britain the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, or ALK, conducts International Lighthouse Heritage Weekend on the same weekend as the ILLW in August. The ILLW is currently managed by an Australian amateur radio operator, Kevin Mulcahy, who has been involved since 1998.

On August 20 of this year, two amateur radio operators broadcast from Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse on the New Hampshire Seacoast, Randall Bashta and Patrick Morrison. They are interviewed in this episode.

Valentia Island is on the southwest coast of Ireland, in the southwest part of County Kerry. The island’s lighthouse, built on the grounds of a 17th century fort at Cromwell Point, began service in February 1841. The stone tower stands 49 feet tall, and the adjacent keeper’s house is a concrete building constructed in 1910. Valentia Island’s last light keeper, Harry Staniforth, and his family were the last residents of the station, leaving when the lighthouse was automated in 1947.

The house is now fully restored as a museum, and visitors get to climb the lighthouse tower for a spectacular 360-degree view of the wild Atlantic. The light itself remains active and is maintained by the Commissioners of Irish Lights. Lucian Horvat is the project manager for the Valentia Island Development Company, which has been developing the light station as a tourist destination in collaboration with the Commissioners of Irish Lights and the Kerry County Council. Valentia Island Lighthouse is one of the founding members of the Great Lighthouses of Ireland, a branded partnership established in 2016.

USLHS Executive Director Jeff Gales co-hosts this episode, which will also be available as a video presentation on the USLHS YouTube channel.

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The Cape Cod Maritime Museum in Hyannis, Massachusetts, focuses on Cape Cod’s rich maritime history, along with boat building, yachting, and nautical art. The museum strives to enable audiences of all ages to understand and enjoy maritime culture through exhibitions, public events, and educational programs. Exhibits focus on the cod fishing industry and whaling, the history of navigation, the shellfish of Cape Cod, and more. There’s also an extensive scrimshaw collection and historic Cape Cod wooden boats.

There’s a lecture series and other offerings including a Young Mariners summer program for kids and a boatbuilding program. The museum is developing a new exhibit on lighthouses that opens on October 20. Emily Sullivan, the museum’s curator, is interviewed in this episode.

The lighthouse at Verona Beach in New York was one of three built on Oneida Lake to aid navigation in conjunction with the opening of the Barge Canal as part of the Erie Canal system in 1918. In 1920, New York State created its own department for managing navigational aids, including a program for hiring lighthouse keepers. New York is the only state to ever maintain its own aids to navigation department.

The Verona Beach Lighthouse Association was formed in 2002 to save the lighthouse, which had become a popular site for dumping trash. More than 150 truckloads of debris were removed and the windows and entry door were replaced. As part of their “Reimagine the Canal Program,” the New York Power Authority and Canal Corporation had Verona Beach Lighthouse renovated and illuminated with LED lighting in 2021. Terri Knight is a founder and longtime volunteer for the Verona Beach Lighthouse Association, and Bruce Woodward has served as the group’s treasurer.

The town of Scituate, on Boston’s South Shore, developed a significant fishing industry by the late eighteenth century and local citizens petitioned the town’s selectmen for a lighthouse in 1807. A stone tower was built at Cedar Point, and Scituate Lighthouse went into service in April 1812. When the second lighthouse at Minot’s Ledge — offshore from Scituate — was lighted on November 15, 1860, Scituate Light went dark on the same night, seemingly forever.

The lighthouse property was sold to the Town of Scituate in 1917, and in 1968 custody of the site was awarded to the Scituate Historical Society. The Society had the lighthouse relighted as a private aid to navigation in 1994.

The grounds around the lighthouse are open all year, and the lighthouse is sometimes opened for special open houses.

The interview in this episode was recorded at the Scituate Maritime and Irish Mossing Museum, and it includes three people. David Ball is the former president of the Scituate Historical Society and the author of a book on Cedar Point and the lighthouse. Bob Chessia is a Scituate resident and the new president of the historical society. And Bob Gallagher has been the resident caretaker, or modern-day keeper, of Scituate Light since 2009. He’s also a high school history teacher.

Benn Trask has more than twenty years of teaching experience, mostly as a middle-school history teacher. He holds an undergraduate degree in education and a master’s degree in history, both from Virginia Tech. Following Virginia Tech, he served as a communications officer in the Marine Corps. In 1987, he returned to graduate school, earning a master’s degree in library science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Prior to teaching, he was the librarian and a curator at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News. His exhibits, presentations and publications revolve around yellow fever, the American Civil War, maritime affairs, and African American history. From 2013 to 2021, he worked as a deckhand and narrator on the Miss Hampton II harbor cruise boat. On this floating classroom, he shared with visitors the story of five light stations in the Hampton Roads area.

He’s currently writing a book for the History Press on 11 lighthouses of southeastern Virginia. The book will include information on some of the African American keepers in Virginia, and Benn is also writing an article on that topic for the U.S. Lighthouse Society’s journal, The Keeper’s Log.  A Navy brat and a long-time resident of Hampton, he enjoys writing, exercising, origami, and of course, history road trips.

William Roscoe Davis (right) was one of many African American light keepers in southeastern Virginia. He was the keeper at Old Point Comfort 1870-78.

(USLHS archives)

Courage Like Kate: The True Story of a Girl Lighthouse Keeper is a new children’s picture book biography based on the life of Kate Moore, a lighthouse keeper in the 19th century at Fayerweather Island in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The book is written by Anna Crowley Redding and beautifully illustrated by Emily Sutton.

As an investigative TV reporter, Anna Crowley Redding received multiple Edward R. Murrow awards and an Emmy Award, and was recognized by the Associated Press. Anna’s debut young adult nonfiction book Google It: A History of Google explored the extraordinary tale of the startup of one of the world’s most innovative companies. Her other books include Elon Musk: A Mission to Save the World and Black Hole Chasers: The Amazing True Story of an Astronomical Breakthrough. She’s written several picture books for children, including Rescuing the Declaration of Independence, Chowder Rules! The True Story of an Epic Food Fight, and The Gravity Tree. Anna and her two boys live near Portland, Maine.

This podcast episode is also available in a video version on the USLHS YouTube channel.

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Here is a description of the classic children’s book The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch, written by Ronda Armitage and illustrated by David Armitage: “Every day, Mr Grinling, the lighthouse keeper, cleans and polishes his light to make sure it shines brightly at night. At lunchtime he tucks into a delicious and well-deserved lunch, prepared by his wife. But Mr Grinling isn’t the only one who enjoys the tasty food. Will Mrs Grinling think of a way to stop the greedy seagulls from stealing the lighthouse keeper’s lunch?” There have been a number of sequel books to The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch, which was originally published in 1977.

Ronda Armitage, originally from New Zealand, first went to England in 1966. Her husband, David, was born in Tasmania. In the late 1970s, they moved to England to stay. Ronda was a primary school teacher for several years and she is a trained counsellor, specializing in family therapy. She has written more than 30 books including several non-fiction books for older students. Most of Ronda’s children’s books are illustrated by her husband, David, who is an artist. In addition to his work as a children’s book illustrator, David Armitage is regarded as one of the UK’s leading abstract artists.

This interview was conducted at the Belle Tout Lighthouse in England in July. Belle Tout is about a mile from Beachy Head Lighthouse, which was the inspiration for The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch and its many sequels.

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South Foreland Lighthouse is located on the famous White Cliffs of Dover in southeastern England, overlooking the English Channel with a view to France on clear days. The cliff face, which reaches a height of 350 feet, is composed of white chalk accented by streaks of black flint. The dangers posed to shipping by the offshore obstacle known as Goodwin Sands led to the establishment of two lighthouses at South Foreland in 1635. The structures were rebuilt in the 1790s, and then Trinity House, England’s lighthouse authority, purchased the property. The lighthouse that stands at South Foreland today was built in 1842.

In the 1850s, Michael Faraday, acting as a scientific advisor to Trinity House, was exploring the feasibility of electric light being used in lighthouses. A trial was conducted at South Foreland in 1858, making it the first lighthouse to use electric light. In 1898 South Foreland Lighthouse was used by Guglielmo Marconi during his work on radio waves. He received the first ship-to-shore message from the East Goodwin lightship on Christmas Eve that year, and in 1899 the first international transmission was made between the lighthouse and France.

The light was automated in 1969, and it was discontinued in 1988. A short time later, ownership was transferred to the National Trust. The site is open to the public, and most people visit by walking a trail along the cliffs from Dover. There’s also a popular teahouse at the light station. Charles Franklyn lives in Deal, Kent, not far from South Foreland, and he’s been a volunteer tour guide at the lighthouse for 18 years.

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Fantastic Atlantic Salmon fishing has long been a prime attraction at the mouth of the Salmon River in New York, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. In the early 1830s it was determined that the harbor at the mouth of the river could accommodate as many as 30 ships, and a lighthouse was established in 1838. The lighthouse was built with stone from a local quarry and took the form of a two-story keeper’s house with an octagonal tower mounted on its roof. It was topped by a so-called birdcage-style lantern room, which remains in place today. Inside the lantern room was a sixth-order Fresnel lens.

There was a proposal for a canal that would have connected the Salmon River to Erie Canal system, but it never came to be. The importance of the harbor faded and the lighthouse was deactivated in 1859. In 1895 the lighthouse was auctioned by the government and sold for $155. The buyer, Leopold Joh, incorporated the building into a hotel complex. The next owners, the Heckle family, doubled the size of the hotel. Jim Walker bought the property in 1987 and reopened it to overnight stays in 1995.

In 2014 the lighthouse was bought by the Barnell and Ellis families, longtime summer residents of the area, and they set about restoring and revitalizing the property. The lighthouse is open for daily and weekly rentals and there are fishing charters available from the Salmon River Marina. Abe Ellis is the general manager of the Salmon River Lighthouse and Marina.