Light Hearted

With the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal, which linked the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean, maritime traffic in the Great Lakes increased dramatically. As the canal was being completed, Congress appropriated funds for a light station near Fort Gratiot, in the southern portion of Michigan’s thumb. When the light station was established at Fort Gratiot in 1825, it was the first light station in the state of Michigan. The original 32-foot-tall tower fell after being damaged in an 1828 storm and it was soon rebuilt, with the new tower first lighted in the spring of 1830.

The Coast Guard vacated the light station with the construction of the new Coast Guard Station Port Huron, built in 2004. In 2010 ownership was transferred to St. Clair County Parks and Recreation. With funds from the City of Port Huron and other sources, some restoration work was completed and the light station was opened to the public in 2012. Port Huron Museums operates the site, and the Friends of Fort Gratiot Light also work for the preservation of the lighthouse and other buildings. A recent grant from the Michigan Lighthouse Assistance Program will enable St. Clair County Parks and Recreation to hire a consultant to rehabilitate the lighthouse tower’s watch room and lantern room.

Lauren Nelson is the site manager of Fort Gratiot Light Station for Port Huron Museums.

Fort Gratiot Lighthouse website

Esopus Creek meets the Hudson River at the town of Saugerties, about seven miles north of Kingston and 101 miles north of New York City. The name Saugerties is derived from a Dutch phrase meaning “sawmill on a creek.” The creek eventually powered what has been described as the largest collection of water-powered machinery in the world. In June 1834, Congress recognized the need for a lighthouse at the mouth of Esopus Creek. The original lighthouse was destroyed by fire in November 1848 and was rebuilt by 1850.

The existing combined lighthouse and dwelling was built on a granite pier in 1869. The harbor at Saugerties was improved and enlarged in 1888, and access to the lighthouse was made much easier when it was connected to the mainland by a small road atop a jetty. Over the decades, the shipping traffic and ferries disappeared from Esopus Creek, and the lighthouse’s navigational value faded. The light was discontinued in 1954, replaced by a small automatic light on the opposite side of the creek. The building declined into ruin in the decades that followed.

In 1985, a new organization, the Saugerties Lighthouse Conservancy, was formed. The organization acquired the lighthouse and the adjacent wetlands and a restoration effort soon began. The heroic efforts of the Conservancy climaxed with the return of a navigational light to the lighthouse on August 4, 1990, after 36 years in darkness. Today, Saugerties Lighthouse is furnished to look as it did in the early 1900s and offers year-round bed-and-breakfast accommodations.

Patrick Landewe came to the lighthouse in 2005 as the modern-day keeper after diverse experience including the supervision of conservation projects in remote locations. In 2011, his wife, Anna Berkheiser, who is a yoga teacher, joined him as a co-keeper.

In 1857, a lighthouse was built at the tip of Lloyd’s Neck at the entrance to Lloyd Harbor, on the North Shore of Long Island, New York. Lloyd Harbor often served as a place of refuge for ships escaping rough conditions on Long Island Sound. The first structure, known as Lloyd Harbor Lighthouse, was considered inadequate. A new lighthouse to serve mariners entering Lloyd Harbor and adjoining Huntington Harbor was established in 1912. Built of reinforced concrete, the Beaux Arts style of the Huntington Harbor Lighthouse makes it look like a small castle.

After automation the structure fell into disrepair. As a result of a 1983 survey, the light was deemed unsafe for the Coast Guard personnel who serviced it, and it was considered too expensive to repair. The Coast Guard considered demolishing the lighthouse and erecting a steel tower in its place. In 1985, a group called Save Huntington’s Lighthouse was formed to save the structure. Now known as the Huntington Lighthouse Preservation Society, the group continues to enlist volunteers and raise funds for ongoing preservation work. It was discovered in 2008 that the foundation of the lighthouse was badly deteriorated, and a major restoration has been completed in recent years.

Pamela Setchell is the president of the Huntington Lighthouse Preservation Society, and she’s also the owner of a consulting company with more than 22 years’ experience corporate and commercial websites and printed products through photography.

Also participating in this interview is Michele Miroff, the Huntington Lighthouse Preservation Society’s recording secretary.

The island known as Fisgard is a stone’s throw offshore at the west side of the entrance to British Columbia’s Esquimalt Harbor. The island was named for a British naval frigate, with the name’s origins reaching back to Fishguard, a coastal town in Wales. The British Royal Navy began using Esquimalt Harbor as a base for its operations in Pacific Canada in 1848.

The lighthouse at Fisgard went into service on November 16, 1860. The 48-foot conical brick tower was surmounted by an iron lantern holding a fourth-order Fresnel lens that rotated on a mercury bed. The first keeper was George Davies, a native of Wales. He was the first full-time lighthouse keeper on Canada’s West Coast.

The light was automated in early 1929, and Fisgard ceased being an island in 1951 with the creation of a causeway from Fort Rodd Hill. Parks Canada completed much renovation of the station in the 1970s and 1980s, including the reconstruction of a boathouse and storehouse, and the keeper’s dwelling was converted into a museum. Shannon King is the curator for the Fort Rodd Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse National Historic Site.

The European country of the Netherlands conjures images of canals, fields of tulips, and windmills. But the country is also home to dozens of historic lighthouses, and some of them are major tourist attractions. Dutch lighthouse history reaches all the way back to the 14th century.

The Dutch Lighthouse Association was founded in 1992 with the objective of uniting people with a fascination for lighthouses. In more recent years the Association has worked to preserve and repurpose historic maritime structures in the Netherlands, including lighthouses and lightships. Four times each year the Association publishes a magazine with articles about lighthouses and their preservation.

Getjan de Boer is a board member of the Dutch Lighthouse Association. He works in heritage preservation at the National Dutch Heritage Agency. And he’s also currently working on a book on the lights of the Scheldt River.

Dutch Lighthouse Association

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Barry Hawkins worked as a lighthouse keeper for England’s Trinity House from 1978 to 1996. His assignments included some of the most remote and rugged light stations in the UK. He took advantage of his spare time at the lighthouses painting pictures of seascapes, wildlife, and other subjects. His first 18 months of service were spent as a supernumerary keeper at various lighthouses on the west coast of England. For each of these temporary jobs Barry would load up his painting equipment, jump on his trusty motorcycle, and set off from his home to the lighthouse in question.

The first station he was sent to was Strumble Head Lighthouse in Wales, where he arrived in a howling gale. He was later posted permanently to the notorious Wolf Rock Lighthouse, located eight miles southwest of Lands End in Cornwall, then to the Skerries Light off the northwestern tip of Wales. Barry spent a brief time at Europa Point Lighthouse in Gibraltar. His final posting was at St. Anne’s Head Lighthouse off the entrance to Milford Haven Sound.

Over the years, Barry has created a variety of watercolors, as well as pen and ink and pencil drawings. His many awards include two first prizes from the Marine Society of London. He has exhibited and sold work across the UK including at Trinity House, the Royal Society of Marine Artists at the Mall Galleries, King Georges Fund for Sailors Exhibitions, the General Trading Company, and Libertys of London. Barry is also a member of the Clifton Arts Club, and he continues to paint and illustrate from his home in Bristol where he lives with his wife and family.

You can see some of Barry Hawkins’ artwork on his website at lighthouseart.co.uk.

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Jan Guarino has been a graphic artist designing marketing materials for businesses for 45 years. She recently retired from graphic design to focus entirely on her painting and teaching career. The New York resident is now a full-time watercolor artist and teacher, sharing her knowledge in classes and workshops, and exhibiting in various galleries. She is a permanent artist at the Firefly Gallery in Northport, New York. You can see much of Jan’s work on her website at janguarinofineart.com, and original works and prints can be purchased through the site. She specializes in seascapes and landscapes, still lifes and florals, animals, and portraits.

Jan will be working with the U.S. Lighthouse Society and the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and Museum in Florida for a special virtual event via Zoom on April 28. Participants will be able to follow along and create their own watercolor as Jan paints a portrait of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse.

Also taking part in the interview is Michele Miroff, who is a board member of the Huntington Lighthouse Preservation Society in New York. Jan and Michele worked together recently when Jan did a watercolor of Huntington Lighthouse.

Click here for more on the online painting class on April 28.

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Conanicut Island, about 6,000 acres, is the second largest island in the state of Rhode Island. The town of Jamestown comprises the entire island, which is connected by bridges to North Kingstown and Newport. Beavertail Point, at the southern peninsula of the island, marks the entrances to both the east and west passages of busy Narragansett Bay. With foreign trade blossoming from Newport, local merchants petitioned for a lighthouse and a 69-foot-tall wooden tower was first lighted in 1749. The first lighthouse tower was destroyed by fire in July 1753, but it was soon rebuilt. A new tower was built in 1856, and the 45-foot square granite lighthouse still stands.

Beavertail Light was automated and destaffed in 1972. It’s now located within Beavertail State Park, while the light itself remains an active aid to navigation and is maintained by the Coast Guard. The Beavertail Lighthouse Museum Association, founded in 1993, preserves and manages the light station. The Beavertail Lighthouse Museum occupies two former keepers’ houses and two other buildings.

Linda Warner is the former president and a board member of the Beavertail Lighthouse Museum Association. Linda and her late husband, George, were honored in 2015 by the Newport Country League of Women Voters as the recipients of their Joan C. Arnold Civic Participation Award for their decades of volunteerism in the area, especially at Beavertail.

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David Appleby was a lighthouse keeper in England for 32 years. After he was hired by Trinity House in 1965 and trained at Harwich, he spent some time as a supernumerary keeper at various light stations. His first assignment as an assistant keeper was at isolated Eddystone, one of the most famous lighthouses in the world.

Other stations where David worked included Wolf Rock off Cornwall and Longstone in the Farne Islands. His longest stint was seven years at Lynmouth Foreland in North Devon. David was the last keeper at St. Mary’s Light and Souter Point Light, and he was one of the last crew of lighthouse keepers in England when he left the North Foreland Light in 1998. He lives today in northeastern England.

The body of water known as Sabine Lake is actually a bay on the Gulf coast of Louisiana and Texas, about 90 miles east of Houston. Funds were first appropriated for a lighthouse at Sabine Pass, an outlet of the bay into the Gulf of Mexico, in 1849, but the project was shelved for a few years. It was first lighted in 1856. The appearance of the tower is unique, with eight buttresses supporting it near its base.

A marsh fire destroyed the keeper’s house and other buildings in September 1976, leaving just the lighthouse and an oil house standing. The property passed through several hands, and in 2001 it came into the possession of the nonprofit Cameron Preservation Alliance. The organization is working toward a full restoration of the lighthouse.

Andrew Tingler is the president of the Cameron Preservation Alliance. He’s also a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. He started his career in Duluth, Minnesota, but grew up near the Sabine Pass Lighthouse.