US Lighthouse Society - Other Historical Information

Treasury Department and the Lighthouse Board by Thomas Tag

tomtag — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 13:35:06 +0000

The Lighthouse Board was housed within the Treasury Department Building throughout its existance. The following drawings show the Treasury Department Building and the plans for its fourth and fifth floors where the LIghthouse Board was located.

The Treasury Department Building in Washington DC

Lighthouse Board Locations on the Fourth Floor of the Treasury Building

Lighthouse Board Locations on the Fifth Floor of the Treasury Building

Lighthouse Board in Session

**Click below to download the Story "The U.S. Lighthouse Board: Progress through Process"**

US Lighthouse Board Progress through Process by John O. Sands

Other Historical Information

1881 Instructions to Light Keepers

Candace Clifford — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 20:43:05 +0000

These Instructions to Light Keepers may be downloaded as a PDF or you can download an audiobook through LibriVox. The Instructions were written for keepers of light stations and light vessels by the U.S. Light-House Board in July 1881.

1881 Instructions to Light Keepers

Other Historical Information

Lighthouse Exhibits at Local and World's Fairs by Thomas Tag

tomtag — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 12:43:02 +0000

Over the last 200 years various locations across the world have held local technology fairs as well as the much larger World's Fairs. We have collected data, drawings, and photographs from these fairs to show the participation of the lighthouse authorities and manufacturers. Listed below are the date and location of each fair and a drawing or photograph showing at least part of the lighthouse exhibit at the fair.

1834 Paris - Lens for Saint Matthieu by Soleil

1851 London - Lens by Chance Brothers

1853 New York - Lens for Cape Hatteras by Henry-Lepaute

1855 Paris - Lens and Tower, Maker Unknown

1867 Paris - Outside Displays and the Louis Sautter Lens Factory in the Background

1869 Wolverhampton England - Two Chance Brothers Lenses

1876 Philadelphia - Lighthouse Establishment Exhibit

1878 Paris - Tower in Background

1881 Paris - Sautter Lemonnier Display

1886 Liverpool UK - Lighthouse Outside

1889 Paris - Gallery des Machines

1891 Chelsea - Cresset from Saint Agnes

1893 Chicago - US Lighthouse Establishment Display

1895 Atlanta - US Lighthouse Establishment Display

1897 Nashville - US Lighthouse Establishment Display

1898 Omaha - US Lighthouse Establishment Display

1900 Paris - BBT Display

1901 Buffalo NY - US Lighthouse Establishment Display

1904 Saint Louis MO - BBT Display

1905 Portland OR - Tillamook Lighthouse Model

1906 Milan - Outside Lighthouse

1907 Norfolk VA - US Lighthouse Establishment Display

1908 Berlin - Pintsch Display

1909 Seattle WA - US Lighthouse Establishment Display

1911 Turin Italy - Pintsch Display

1915 San Diego CA - Outside Lighthouse

1915 San Francisco CA - US Lighthouse Service Display

1921 London UK - Chance Brothers Display

1926 Philadelphia PA - US Lighthouse Service Display

1933 Chicago IL - US Lighthouse Service Display

1935 San Diego CA - US Lighthouse Service Display

1939 New York NY - USCG Display

1951 London UK - Chance Brothers Display

Other Historical Information

Lighthouse Depots by Wayne Wheeler and Thomas Tag

tomtag — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 15:45:45 +0000

Since the establishment of the first lighthouse at Boston Harbor’s Little Brewster Island in 1716, lighthouses have needed supplies. Our first lighthouse keeper, George Worthylake, ferried his supplies to the Boston Lighthouse via rowboat. But as the service grew and the number of light stations increased, more than rowboats were needed.

The materials the government furnished light stations and the means of furnishing them varied over the years. Until 1852 lighthouses were a collateral duty of the local Collector of Customs. It was his duty to authorize contracts for constructing light stations, repairing existing stations, and providing supplies. It was also his duty to ensure the stations were up to snuff though routine inspections. However, federal investigations of our lighthouse service in the 1830’s, 40’s and early 50’s revealed that many stations were in poor condition, not properly maintained or operated and lacked necessary supplies.

In 1810 Winslow Lewis, an unemployed sea captain, convinced the government to purchase his patent for a parabolic reflector-lamp apparatus, a lamp design, which in fact, had been invented some years before by Ami Argand, a Swiss scientist. Lewis also secured the government contract to furnish the lamps and supplies for all the federal lighthouses for $27,000 per year. An award of $60,000 was made to Lewis $20,000 for the patent, the remainder to install the reflector system in all 49 government lighthouses and to maintain them for seven years. He was later awarded contracts to furnish supplies to lighthouses and even construct new stations. Many of his rubble stone towers failed within a few years, mostly due to poor mortar.

During the first half of the 19^th century each Collector of Customs established (in the areas for which he was responsible) crude buoy depots, sometimes merely a designated portion of a public pier, at which to store spare buoys, chain and sinkers. General supplies were furnished by civilian contractors using their own vessels. Winslow Lewis “won” the contract for about 20 years and then a Mr. C. Grinnel, Jr. obtained the contract for the next years, followed by C.W. Morgan & Co.

From 1839, until the Lighthouse Board was established in 1852, brothers Jonathan & Joseph Howland, both captains, were employed by the government to furnish supplies to all American lighthouses (Atlantic & Gulf coasts, Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and Lake Ponchartrain). Captain Jonathan Howland chartered his schooner Eliza to the government for $700 a month. These rates included the vessel, all lighthouse supplies, their salaries and those of the crew. Still, $8,400 a year, in Jonathan’s case, was a tidy sum in those years.

In 1852 the Lighthouse Board was established to investigate the condition and operation of America’s light stations. They inspected several stations, sent two officers to Europe to learn what was happening on that continent. They also questioned, in grueling detail, the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury (Stephen Pleasonton) who was the Superintendent of Lighthouses, the Collector of Customs for the Boston District (Greely) and the Howlands. The Board asked who tested oils and equipment, inquired about the condition of the supplies, the conduct of the keepers, condition of the stations and asked for recommendations to improve the system. Pleasonton gave vague answers. The district superintendent thought everything was handled very well and materials and equipment tested scientifically under his supervision. Captain Howland stated his operation was shipshape, but owned up to the fact that the conditions of the stations, and manner in which they were kept, could use improvement. He defended his operation and when informed that several keepers complained of poor quality of the supplies, blamed the keepers for being untrained”…very deficient in information, as to the proper manner in keeping their lights…” especially among new keepers. He further blamed the “spoils” system for the poor grade of keeper.

After the Civil War ca 1866 the Lighthouse Board realized that there was a need for a super depot, a facility to receive and test or inspect all oil, lenses and supplies before transferring the material to the various district depots. The site chosen was federal property on Staten Island, NY at Tompkinsville. In the 1867 Report to Congress the Board reported, “Prior to the establishment of this depot the reserve material for the lighthouse service was stored in several districts, involving the necessity for a multiplication of storage buildings mechanics, workmen, supplies of all kinds, apparatus, etc., and it frequently happened that articles were purchased for use in one district when there was an excess of the same in other districts. To reduce to the minimum the supply of the service and the consequence expense, it was evident that there must be one storehouse, one workshop, one oil vault, etc., gathered together at one spot and called a depot, from which all needed supplies and apparatus could be issued as they might be wanted, upon requisitions from the inspectors or engineers of the several districts, approved at the office of the Lighthouse Board. For convenience of purchase and shipment, it was just as evident that this depot must be at or in the immediate vicinity of New Your City.”

Staten Island 3rd District Depot ca 1905

The Board requested, and was awarded $50,000, to procure suitable land and construct various buildings. They found unused property on Staten Island already under control of the government called the “revenue grounds.” The Board further reported, “The depot thus established very soon proved its usefulness, even far beyond what had been anticipated… Although it was expected that the business of the depot would be large, it has far exceeded the expectations, and it was demonstrated that there neither sufficient room nor facilities to ensure the best practical results or to answer all the demands made upon the depot.”

To expand their operations an appropriation was made to purchase a strip of land on the north side of the lot from the state. The service also acquired the remainder of the Revenue grounds abutting the depot.

The annual report went on to state, “Among the buildings acquired in the recent transfer are two storehouses, which are very old and far to weak for lighthouse storage purposes. It is proposed to take them down and use the material in building a new storehouse, uniform with the one first constructed, for which purpose no new appropriation is required.

“To avoid all danger from fire, which should not be permitted in the store houses, it is proposed to put up a small building for offices for the district inspector, engineer, etc…

“Arrangements have been made at this depot for testing oils offered by contractors and for experimenting with lamps, apparatus, etc., used in the service. These arrangements are yet limited, but will be extended in accordance with the results obtained.”

And extended they were. The Tompkinsville Depot grew into a monster facility. The service received all the oil at Staten Island, tested it, repackaged and shipped it to the districts. Lenses arriving from Europe, wicks, oil and other materials were tested and inspected. Illumination tests were conducted on new lamps and some apparatus was invented at the depot. Most of the brass implements (service box, dust pan, etc.) were actually manufactured at the depot. The site also housed the offices of the Third District superintendent (the title District Inspector was changed to Superintendent in 1918). The service tenders and spare lightships for that district were moored along the wharf. In the 1920’s 200 people were employed at the General Depot on Staten Island.

As the individual districts became properly manned and fully functional they each built or rented small storage facilities near where the district tender was moored. It was not until the late 1860s, after the Civil War, that each district requested a formal lighthouse depot for the storage of critical supplies and for the establishment of a district machine shop, carpenter shop, and lampist shop.

The storehouse was used to store items such as wicks, glass chimneys, keeper’s tools, and oil for the lamps. In addition whale oil and later lard oil and kerosene were tested at each supply depot to be sure they were of the high quality needed for use in the lighthouses. The storehouse was run by a custodian.

The machine shop produced cast-iron buoys and cement buoy sinkers and made repairs to the tender as required. In the large locations a fulltime machinist operated the machine shop. His assistants were assigned to the tender, but worked in the machine shop as necessary. In the smaller locations the machinist on the tender and his assistants operated the machine shop when in port. This shop also produced some repair parts for the lampist when needed. The machinist was responsible for the clockwork and rotation mechanisms under the Fresnel Lenses. The machinist installed these rotation items and the pedestals of the fixed lenses when new lighthouses were built and maintained them throughout the life of each lighthouse.

The carpenter shop produced wooden boxes, trim materials and, sometimes, wooden buoys and did general carpentry work throughout the district as lighthouses were built or repaired. The carpenter shop did not have fulltime employees. The carpenters were actually assigned to the tender and used the carpenter shop in the depot when between trips and during the winter months.

The lampist shop was in charge of the assembly of all Fresnel Lenses and the proper set-up of all lamps within the district. The lampist was a full time employee and in the larger locations had one or more assistants. The lampist rebuilt lamps and did minor repairs to the Fresnel Lenses and was in charge of their installation as new lighthouses were built.

Often stationed at, and operating out of, the depots were Field Construction Forces, although they were officially attached to the District office. The force was composed of carpenters, painters, masons, mechanics and laborers. These field crews did the repair and upkeep work on permanent aids (including light stations) and other aids, which could not be conveniently moved to the depot shops. Often the district used the Force to construct new aids and make major repairs to light stations. Although the keepers of the light stations were required to make minor repairs and do general painting and cleaning, sometimes a project such as rebuilding a barn or a garage was beyond the capability of the station personnel.

There was a hierarchy of depots as follows:

The National Depot was located within the Third District on Staten Island and functioned as the source of most supplies, lamps, lenses and repair parts for the entire Lighthouse Service.

The districts each had a supply, repair, and buoy depot located where the district Inspector and Engineer were stationed along with the mooring facilities for the district tender(s). This was the largest and sometimes the only depot within the district. Some supplies were purchased locally and repairs were made to the district’s tender(s) and lightship(s). Buoys were also manufactured in this depot and the district machine shop, carpenter shop and lampist shop were located here.

Large districts may also have had a second kind of depot known as a Buoy Repair and Storage Depot where buoys were repaired, buoy sinkers were manufactured, and buoys were stored. This depot would also be a possible location for the mooring of tenders and/or lightships during the winter.

Finally, a third type of depot for only the storage of buoys with no other facilities was sometimes maintained in large districts.

The Detroit Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot

The Eleventh District began in 1854 and included a small storage building in Detroit. The Detroit Supply and Buoy Depot was used to cover all operations on Lake Michigan as well as lakes Superior and Huron from its inception until the Ninth District was formed and finally had its own depot in 1893. What follows is a chronology of the Detroit Supply and Buoy Depot taken directly from the Annual Reports of the Lighthouse Board.

1860 A dock and storehouse have been erected at Detroit.

1869 Since the last annual report no change has occurred at the lighthouse depot in Detroit. The grounds occupied for the purpose belong to the government, and were recently transferred to the Lighthouse Establishment for its permanent use and occupation.

Plans for the general improvement of this depot have been agreed upon by the Engineer and Inspector of the eleventh district, but have not yet been acted upon by the Board. The present condition of the depot is such that, with slight repairs, it will answer the purpose for a time yet. It is not proposed at present to take any steps, which will require an appropriation especially applicable to the work.

1870 The grounds at this depot are being filled in and graded, and necessary small repairs to the wharf, etc. made. All the oil and other supplies for the lighthouses on the lakes are received at, and distributed from, this depot. The small temporary storehouse of wood is not only inadequate in size and unadapted to the service, but is unsafe for the storage of such valuable combustible property as is necessarily deposited for annual and incidental distribution.

Plans are in preparation for the erection of a suitable fireproof vault and storehouse for oil and other supplies, and for a lamp shop for the repair of lamps, revolving machinery, etc., for the numerous lights on the lakes. The wharf and dock serve for laying up the tender during the winter, where it will be safe from the effects of running ice, and a place for storing and repairing during the winter all buoys and their equipments. An estimate has been included and submitted in annual estimates for the sum of $25,000 for the next fiscal year.

1871 Work on this has progressed, though not so rapidly as was desired. A bulkhead has been built across the entire front of the lot, and the basin has been dredged out to a uniform depth of 10 feet, thus giving sufficient room to accommodate all the lighthouse vessels. Enough of the dredged material was deposited behind the bulkhead to fill up the low ground to the height of the bulkhead, thus forming an excellent yard for the storage of buoys and other heavy material.

The depot building, forty by sixty feet in plan, and entirely fireproof, has been carried up to a sufficient height to admit of the completion of the second floor. The cellar for the storage of the supply of oil forms the basement of the building. It is very desirable to complete this building, so much needed. The dark room in which to test the oils delivered under contract is to be located in the story above that now completed, and the work should go on. Wherever the work is stopped now, a temporary roof must be thrown over it to protect it from the weather, which will add considerably to the cost of the building.

When the building was designed it appeared to be of ample size, but it is now plainly seen that there will be no room to spare. An estimate is submitted.

1872 The fireproof storehouse of the lighthouse depot Detroit was carried up two stories above the basement, and then covered with a temporary roof during last season. A line of sheet piling was driven along the western line of the lot between the basin and the adjoining glue factory. By act of Congress approved June 10, 1872, the sum of $25,000 was appropriated for this work, and will, it is thought, be sufficient to complete it.

The first work undertaken under this appropriation will be the erection of a suitable dwelling for the storekeeper and a close board fence along the top of the sheet piling referred to. As soon as practicable it is also proposed to finish the storehouse. This depot is already of great value, and its advantages will increase from year to year.

1873 Under the act of June 10, 1872, the work on the lighthouse depot at Detroit has progressed during the year. A dwelling for the storekeeper was built and enclosed by a fence, and is occupied. A board fence was erected along the western side of the basin, between that and the adjoining glue factory. Towards the close of last season the walls of the third story of the storehouse were finished to receive the brackets, and covered with a temporary roof to protect it from the weather while operations were suspended for the winter.

In April 1873, the work was resumed, the temporary roof removed, and the construction of the fireproof roof of iron and slate carried to completion. Floors of wood were laid in some of the rooms, great care being exercised to see that the space between them and the supporting arches were completely filled with sand well rammed in. The landing pier is completely worn out. It has been repaired until the supporting piles are no longer safe. No heavy weight can now be landed upon it, and an appropriation of $3,000 for building is urgently recommended. The supply of oil for the entire region is landed at this depot, and as the system of lights on the lakes increases, the importance of this depot increases. Designed less than five years ago, upon a scale, which was then deemed ample, it is already apparent that some extension of the buildings and conveniences will be required before many years, in order to secure all the benefits of the depot.

1874 During the year work was continued on this important depot until the money was all expended. The grounds around the building were graded, as far as they could be; the slopes were sodded; the platform of the front door laid; the sashes for all the windows hung; and the elevator constructed; the front door and two doors in the basement all of iron were hung; the basement flooring laid and all the flooring; partition and hand railing in the attic and both (temporary) doors constructed; the iron work, both inside and outside of the building, painted with one coat for protection; about 60 feet of the small brick drain running through the depot lot and with which the depot and keeper’s dwelling are drained were taken up and renewed, to perfect the drainage; an oil testing room has been fitted up, and slight damage to the roof of the building, caused by high winds, has been repaired. In this depot is stored the entire supply of oil for the whole lake region, all the valuable material used or to be used in this district, and also some from the tenth district, and it therefore should have an appropriation to complete it and make it perfectly fire-proof. The landing pier is in a dilapidated and very unsafe condition. The piles and planking are very rotten and no heavy weight can be landed on it. To complete this depot and to build a new landing pier will require an appropriation of $10,000, which is earnestly recommended.

1875 Congress, at its last session, made an appropriation of $10,000 to complete the work on this important depot. Work under this appropriation was begun in May. The new dock is nearly completed, and all the iron shutters and doors for the fireproof storehouse are in place.

Detroit Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot.

1876 The appropriation of $10,000 made by Congress at its last session was expended in removing the old dock and building a new one, dredging out the slips on either side of the new dock, and providing new iron doors and shutters for the storehouse. Some old buildings have been torn down and the grounds graded, the premises enclosed with an iron fence, an iron buoy and boat shed built, a car track laid from the storehouse and buoy and boat shed to the end of the dock, slopes sodded, etc. It is intended to complete the depot this season.

1877 The new fireproof storehouse has been practically completed, the old and dangerous wooden buildings removed, the grounds graded, a new crane erected upon the wharf for loading and unloading vessels, and moorings placed for their use.

1878 The building and keeper’s dwelling are in good condition. The grounds have been improved by roading, planting trees, etc.

1879 The building is in good repair. The northwest corner of its foundation is slightly cracked, probably caused by the action of the frost, and not by settling.

1880 The storehouse, Keeper’s dwelling, and buoy shed of this depot are in good repair. During the year the foundation of the storehouse has been repointed where injured by frost, new plank walks have been laid on the grounds, and the wharf repaired.

1881 There were no improvements made during the year to either the grounds or buildings at the depot. The station is in good order and condition, and, except from its proximity to several factories and furnaces, is well adapted to lighthouse purposes.

1882 There have been no improvements made during the past year to the buildings or grounds, except that part of the walk has been replanked. It is in good order.

1883 The erection of a buoy and boat shed, carpenter shop, lampist’s room, and brick wall for the west side of the lighthouse depot lot was commenced in May. On the 30^th of June, all the masonry was completed, the material for the flooring was purchased, and contract was made for iron work for the roof, slating, tin work, plumbing, and removal of the old buoy shed to the east side of the lot.

1884 The depot and grounds are in good condition and admirably adapted to their use. The removal of the old corrugated iron buoy shed from the west to the east side of the lot was completed, the roof of the building was renewed, and its sides and ends repaired. It is now used as a storehouse for machinery, tools etc. The new buoy shed, carpenter shop, and lampist’s room were completed in December, except the plastering of the inside of the roof between purloins with cement mortar, which was finished in May 1884. A new mast was provided for the derrick on the dock.

1885 Repairs were made in the fall to the floor of the corrugated iron shed on the east side of the lot. The building is now in fair condition. The depot and grounds are in excellent condition. The waterfront, which was caving out, was thoroughly built up, and the wharf was repaired.

1886 The depot and grounds are in good order. Some repairs were made to the wharf this spring. On July 26, 1886 an act of Congress was approved which provided that “The Lighthouse Board shall arrange the ocean, gulf, and river coasts of the United States into lighthouse districts not exceeding sixteen in number.”

The Lighthouse Board met on November 3, 1886 and ordered that the Eleventh Lighthouse District be divided into two new districts: the Ninth District and the Eleventh District. On March 15, 1887 the Lighthouse Board directed Commander Charles E. Clark the newly appointed inspector of the Ninth District to proceed at once to Chicago to procure offices for the new district. He was then to go to Detroit where he would meet with his counterpart in the Eleventh District and begin the task of separating the paperwork and other items associated with the new Ninth District. It was decided that as of March 31, 1887 the district would be split and on April 1, 1887 the operation of the new Ninth District commenced.

The Ninth District served just Lake Michigan and the new Eleventh District now served Lakes Huron and Superior. Since the new Ninth District had no depot it continued to use the Detroit Supply and Buoy Depot for several years.

1887 The depot and grounds are in good order.

(Photo from the Chad Kaiser Collection) The Chicago Ninth District Offices.

1888 The depot and grounds are in good order. The walks and wharf were partially repaired this spring by the carpenter and crew of the tender. The wharf will soon require extensive repairs, as the piling and timbers are much decayed.

(Photo From Terry Pepper Collection) Detroit Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot Dock Area ca. 1936.

1889 The depot and grounds are in good order. The sidewalks were repaired this spring. The materials, tools, appliances, etc., pertaining to the engineer service, stored at the depot, were overhauled and scheduled. It is very desirable that the facilities of the depot be extended to include storage of spare illuminating and other apparatus and appliances, in order that less delay shall attend the making of repairs and renewals. At the present time, for example, if the clockwork of a revolving light should break down or show signs of failure, there are no means of replacing it. If a lens were destroyed, or be seriously injured, it might be needful to send to the general depot at Staten Island before a new one could be set up. The remoteness and inaccessibility of many of the stations in the eleventh district are such as to suggest that every precaution be taken to shorten the time within which necessary work can be done.

1890 Workmen were employed during February and March cleaning, repairing, and refitting for service parts of lighthouse appliances and illuminating apparatus. The depot building used as a storehouse for supplies and mineral oil, the carpenter shop, buoy shed, walks and grounds are in good condition. The wharf is in need of partial rebuilding. The accumulations from sewers have filled up the slips to such extent that they should be dredged out to a depth of at least 16 feet, and the debris could be used to fill in under the wharf. An iron pipe should be laid to the end of the wharf for water supply of the tenders. The sheet piling on the west side is in need of extensive repairs. The portion of the depot grounds and buildings adjacent to Barry’s Varnish Works, and the frequency with which these works take fire, suggest that some special provision be made for fire protection. It would be comparatively an inexpensive matter to provide a safety boiler, either coil or pipe, on which steam could be rapidly raised, to run a small pump, and the apparatus could be handled by the custodian, who lives on the grounds. The purpose of the pump would be to throw a stream over the buildings and out-door property exposed to the fire, and keep them wetted down. The steam power would also be of great value and convenience in connection with the lampist’s shop, and enable him to do a class of work which in the absence of proper facilities has to be done elsewhere. The present arrangements for the services and accommodation of the lampist for the ninth and eleventh districts at the Detroit Supply and Buoy Depot are quite inadequate. This shop is at the end of the carpenter shop and is part of a one-story structure, built directly on the ground, and is in great danger from fire, as it is under a high brick wall, on the other side of which is a glue and varnish factory. The space is too small, it being but 15 by 24 feet in plan, and it is insufficiently lighted and ventilated. The floor is cold and damp, and the atmosphere is impregnated with vapors from the factory. It is now proposed to erect on the north side of the depot, and near the entrance gate on that side, a brick building to be used for the lampist’s shops, 16 by 30 feet in plan, of two stories, with the lower floor open and the second floor divided with a beam for a hoist projecting over the door of the second story. Such a building, it is estimated, will cost $2000. Recommendation is made that an appropriation of this amount be made therefore.

1891 An examination was made of the wharf at the Detroit Supply and Buoy Depot, and plans with estimates for repairs were prepared. Work was begun November 1, 1890, under a contract made in accordance with bids received therefore, and was finished December 10, 1890.

1892 Both slips adjoining the lighthouse depot wharf were dredged by contract. Some 3,160 cubic yards were taken from the east slip, deepening it 3.2 feet, and about 4,790 cubic yards from the west slip, deepening it 4.66 feet. There is now in each slip 14 feet of water at mean stage. Bids were asked by advertisement for furnishing the material required for a lampist shop, and contract was made therefore with the lowest bidders. The work by day labor was begun in April. The building was completed and the lampist moved from the old building into the new one in June. The building is a two-story brick structure 20 by 30 feet, with galvanized iron cornice and roof of asphaltic slag. The first story contains one room for general work; the second, approached by circular iron stairs, contains the lampist shop, which measures 18 by 20 feet, and a dark room for photometric work, 8 by 18 feet in size.

1893 The Saint Joseph Supply and Buoy Depot of the Ninth District began operation in January 1893 and the Detroit Supply and Buoy Depot was no longer used to supply Lake Michigan lighthouses.

Saint Joseph Supply and Buoy Depot

The Saint Joseph Supply and Buoy Depot served as the first depot for the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment’s Ninth District (all of Lake Michigan including Green Bay) from 1893 to 1916. This depot was built using modified plans of the Detroit Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot; it had the same style, but was significantly smaller. The depot was used for receiving, storing, packing, and delivering the supplies and stores for the various Ninth District lighthouse stations. It also housed a carpenter’s shop, a small machine shop and the district lamp shop where lamps were repaired. Most of the functions of the lamp shop were moved to the Milwaukee Temporary Depot in 1900 along with all of the functions of the carpenter’s shop and machine shop.

The St. Joseph Supply and Buoy Depot employed until 1900:

-Custodian (often called the Keeper)

-Lampist

-Machinist

-Carpenter from the tender

-Laborers as needed

After 1900 the Lampist was eliminated and an Assistant-laborer was provided for the Custodian.

What follows is a chronology of the Saint Joseph Supply and Buoy Depot taken directly from the Annual Reports of the Lighthouse Board.

1889 The Inspector and Engineer of the Ninth District visited Calumet, IL, Michigan City, IN, and Saint Joseph, MI, on January 7 and 8 of 1889, for the selection of a proper site for a depot for the district, and a joint report was made to the Lighthouse Board. From this report it appears that the harbor at Saint Joseph, MI offers on the whole the most advantageous combination of conditions. It has excellent water facilities, is near the head of the lake, is convenient of access both to the Inspector and Engineer, has frequent rail and water communication with Chicago, and has also a sheltered basin. The Cincinnati, Wabash and Michigan Railroad Company made a voluntary offer of the necessary area, on the north shore of the harbor, immediately adjoining the life-saving station. It is a matter of great importance to the district that a depot for its own use be established. It now uses the depot at Detroit, MI, in conjunction with the Eleventh District, as it did prior to the separation of Lake Michigan from the latter. But, the depot could not be divided at the same time, and, in consequence, not only is the Ninth District tender obliged to tie up in Detroit and await the full opening of navigation in the most northern waters, where the ice remains for some weeks later than at the head of the lake, but all the lampist and repair work and the distribution of supplies have to be made from the same inconvenient distance and with corresponding loss of time. The construction of a depot at Saint Joseph would greatly increase the facilities for establishing and maintaining the aids to navigation in the Ninth District, and the opportunity is an exceptionally favorable one to take advantage of the voluntary offer of an excellent and in all respects suitable site.

1890 Request again made for a depot at Saint Joseph.

1891 The act approved on March 3, 1891, by Congress, appropriated $35,000 for establishing a supply and buoy depot for the Ninth Lighthouse District at St. Joseph Harbor, Michigan. The site was donated to the government by the Cincinnati, Wabash and Michigan Railway Company. The depot will be built this season. Plans for the storehouse, prepared by Major William Ludlow of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are dated April 20, 1891.

1892 The deed for the site of this depot was received and recorded. A bulkhead and wharf were built. The site of the bulkhead for its entire length was dredged to a depth of 6 feet. Some 9,127 cubic yards were taken out; 4,706 yards were overcast for filling, and the remainder was dumped in the lake, as it would require a second handling to be used for filling. The work as finished consists of a bulkhead about 300 feet long and 20 feet wide, built of sheet piling of one thickness each of 2-inch and 3-inch plank, three rows of piles, the first being spaced 3 feet to centers, the second 6 feet and the third 12 feet. These carry double 12 by 12-inch superstructures on the outer and inner rows, and 12 by 12-inch cap on center row surmounted by 12 by 12-inch cross ties and 3-inch deck planking. Some 25 1-inch iron tie rods were placed at the water level to bind the front and rear walls, 23 guards or fender piles were driven in front of the bulkhead, and 7 moorings were placed. At the easterly end of the bulkhead, the wharf, of similar construction, is 20 feet wide and 60 feet long. The Norway pine piles in the bulkhead and wharf were all peeled from the water to the top of the work. All the piles in the bulkhead and wharf were bored to a depth of about 18 inches, filled with kerosene oil and the holes stopped with pine plugs. It is expected that the buildings at this depot will be ready for occupancy this fall.

1893 The Supply and Buoy Depot at St. Joseph, Michigan, has been occupied since January 1893, but is not yet fully completed. The supplies were delivered there, from the general depot at Tompkinsville, New York, and taken on board the tender Dahlia, for delivery to the light stations, fog-signals, and light vessels. The construction of the storehouse, keeper’s dwelling, and carpenter and lampist shops, was continued under contract and the work was completed on January 7, 1893. A hoisting elevator of 3,000 pounds capacity was placed in the storehouse. The grading, soiling, and fencing of the depot grounds were practically completed. Materials and cars for the tramway were delivered and will soon be placed. Steps were taken to have the station connected with the city water mains. The depot was in readiness for the reception of supplies in the early spring of 1894.

The Saint Joseph Supply and Buoy Storage Depot. Note: Rail tram wagon in front.

1894 The work of grading the depot grounds and the fencing was completed. The necessary work for piping the grounds and providing hydrants and a water meter was done, and all necessary connections were made to the dwelling. Some 575 running feet of 4-inch pipe was laid across St. Joseph harbor in a dredged channel 20 feet below the water surface to connect the water pipes of the lighthouse depot grounds with the city water mains. The tramway and track along the bulkhead and wharf, and from thence to the storehouse, with switches and curves, a total length of 540 feet, was completed. The rail laid on the wharf and bulkhead is spiked to the deck planking and the remainder to cedar ties laid 30 inches to centers. The rails throughout the entire distance are coupled together with fish plates bolted with 4-inch machine bolts. A plank walk 2 feet 6 inches wide, secured to ties, was laid between the tracks.

1895 Arrangements were made for the construction of a boathouse under the inner end of the wharf. Plans, specifications, and an estimate of cost were made for the construction of a buoy shed and a 10-ton derrick for the extension of the tramway and for making other minor improvements. The site was fertilized and seeded. Some 420 cubic yards of drift sand were removed from the depot grounds. A contract was made for a scow in which to transport freight across the river. Supplies and stores for the whole district were received here in bulk from the general lighthouse depot, and were distributed from here to the different lighthouses of the district.

1896 The supplies and stores from the general depot were received and issued from this depot. Stores obtained by open purchase were also sent here to be packed for distribution. During the year a derrick was erected on the waterfront, a buoy shed, and platforms for buoys, anchors and chains were completed, and a windmill and tank to supply the station with water were put in, and the station is now practically completed. The work was completed in November 1895.

1897 The depot was furnished with a gasoline launch. The custodian has planted nearly 100 shade trees and shrubs and has started as much of a lawn as the limited water supply will admit. This work is a necessity, on account of the sandy soil. The buildings are in fair condition. The hot water tank was connected with the furnace and storm shutters were provided for the front porch of the dwelling. Ten cubic yards of stone were placed at the east end of the bulkhead to prevent eroding of the shore by action of the waves. The windmill was repaired.

1898 About 6,680 cubic yards of material were dredged from the waterfront. The custodian has improved the grounds with trees and seeding. Some 14 feet of decking was added to the west end of the wharf, which connects with the buoy platform, making a continuous platform. Floating decks for the vapor launch were built under the west half of the dock and at the corner of the dock and wharf. The outhouse that was north of the dwelling was moved to the west end of the buoy shed. The break in the water pipe was repaired and water from the St. Joseph waterworks is again supplied.

The District Lamp Shop, within the depot, provided the following services during the year:

-Repairs to illuminating apparatus at 18 light stations

-Delivery of new 4^th order lamps and instruction in their use to 23 light stations

-The machinist visited 15 light stations

-Repairs were made to 8 light stations where parts were returned to the depot

1899 The custodian’s dwelling was repaired. A lightning rod and point were purchased for erection on the flagstaff for protection of the depot buildings. A contract was made for dredging in front of the lighthouse depot and 3,600 cubic yards of material were removed. A contract was made for some 80 feet of revetment on the east side of the depot grounds for protection against the encroachment of the waterfront. Four piles were furnished and driven and a platform was constructed for a mooring place for the scow to protect the landing from the action of the sea. Iron pipe was put in and fire attachments were made with the city water with hose in the storehouse and hydrants at the wharf, so that every portion of the site can be reached, and connection was made so that it can be used by the tender when she is at the dock. The boat landings were repaired and a new one was made. A flagpole from the wreck of the steamer Duluth, 110 feet high, was erected, with an aluminum ball and lightning rod.

1900 A revetment for the protection of the depot grounds from erosion by water was built by contract, consisting of 80 running feet of pile revetment. A walk leading from the boat landing to the dock under the railroad bridge was built for the lighthouse boats. The sand that had drifted over the fence at the lighthouse depot was removed. Twelve feet of galvanized conductor pipe were purchased and minor repairs were made.

Note: The Milwaukee Temporary Depot began operation in 1900. See detailed story below.

1901 Repairs were made to the eve troughs of the custodian’s dwelling, steps of landing and sidewalks, and the pier was decked. The drainpipe leading from the custodian’s dwelling to the river was repaired. The water pipe from the city water main to the depot, leading under the river, which was broken under water, was repaired. All supplies received from the general lighthouse depot and those purchased for the district, and all blanks and stationery, were packed and issued to the tender Dahlia, for distribution to the light stations. This depot is well kept. The channel abreast the wharf is gradually filling up and it is with difficulty that the tender can enter and leave the depot.

Note: The Charlevoix Buoy Repair and Storage Depot began operation in 1901. See detailed story below.

1902 The waterfront of the depot was dredged to a depth of 15 feet. Some 10,950 cubic yards were removed.

1904 The buildings are in good repair and answer their purposes. The wharf, railway tracks, and fences are not in serviceable condition. A part of the ground is being undermined and washed away.

1905 The water pipes leading from the city water main under the river to the lighthouse depot were repaired.

Note: The Milwaukee Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot began operation in October 1905, but would not take over for several years. See detail story below.

1906 This is the supply depot for the district and is used for receiving, overhauling, and storing buoys and their appendages and for receiving, storing, packing, and delivering to the supply tenders the supplies and stores for the various stations. All concrete sinkers used in the district are made here. The storehouses and dwellings here are in excellent condition. All walks, wharves, buoy platform, tramway, and fences are in bad condition. The encroachment of the river on the eastern side of the station is becoming serious. Temporary repairs will be made, but the permanent repairs would be economical. A gasoline plant is being installed and the water system is nearly completed. This system is to give ample fire protection.

1907 The bulk of all stores, oil, buoys, etc., used in the lighthouse district are handled here, are packed ready for delivery, and loaded on tenders. Sinkers are made, and general work on buoy-chains, etc., is done here. The gasoline pumping plant now installed, gives protection from fire.

1908 The act approved on May 27, 1908, appropriated $24,000 for making repairs to the wharf and fences. The channel to the wharf is becoming filled in. The estimated cost of dredging to the depth of 16 feet is $2,000.

A request was made for a scow, or lighter, that is indispensable at this station, owing to the fact that all railroad and steamboat docks at St. Joseph are situated on the opposite side of the harbor from the supply depot, necessitating the transportation of all supplies and material to and from the docks by water. The demand for the services of such a vessel at this depot is practically continuous. In addition to its use for transportation purposes, it is always required in the construction and handling of cement sinkers. An exact duplicate of the scow asked for, constructed of wood, was used constantly from 1895 to 1907, when it was condemned as being no longer serviceable. It is estimated that such a vessel can be built for $7,000, and the Board recommends that an appropriation of that amount be made therefore.

1909 The channel to the dock is in need of dredging to a depth of 16 feet. The same request was made for a scow for the depot.

1910 The repairs to the dock and fences around this depot are in process. The contractor for the construction of the new sheet-pile revetment in front of the depot grounds continued the work that commenced in May 1909. Work under the contract is practically completed. The use of the United States seagoing dredge Meade was obtained from the War Department and necessary dredging was done in front of the lighthouse depot grounds at a cost of $2,516. This provided a channel and turning basin for approaching and leaving the dock in front of the depot grounds. This entire work will probably be completed during the fall of 1910. The work of converting the partially completed double dwelling, originally intended for the lighthouse keepers, into a warehouse for the storage of buoys, etc., was completed at a cost of $1,755. The total expenditures to date amount to $9,871. The request for the new scow has been approved by Congress.

Note: The Ninth District was renamed the Twelfth District at the end of 1910 and all operations continued.

In 1912 the new Twelfth District reported the following personnel:

1 Inspector

1 Engineer

6 Clerks, janitors, and laborers

4 Depot Keepers

90 Officers and crews of Tenders and Lightships

17 Full-time field construction or repair forces including

1 Lampist

1 Machinist

27 Part-time field construction and repair forces

1916 All operations were moved to the Milwaukee Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot and the building was vacated.

1917 This depot was occupied by the Naval Department under a revocable permit dated June 25, 1917, as its use was no longer required for lighthouse purposes.

1918 The St. Joseph Lighthouse Depot was transferred to the Navy Department by an act of Congress dated July 1, 1918.

Note: The following description of recent history was obtained from the Internet at: www.sjryc.com (Used with permission)

The former St. Joseph Lighthouse Depot continued to house some naval/militia reserve functions until about 1950, when the State discontinued funding. By 1952 it was housing the Army Reserves. From 1956 to 1993, it housed four units (2 Company D’s and 2 Company A’s) of the Michigan Army National Guard. The property was vacated in October of 1993 when the National Guard moved. In recognition of the historic significance of the structure, the Ninth District Lighthouse Depot was added to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

The property fell idle and continued to deteriorate until February 29, 1996 when a group of developers bought the property, invested in extensive renovations and expansion. They operated it as a restaurant and party facility until September 17, 2000. It was then sold to restaurateurs from Grand Rapids on March 9, 2001, and operated for that summer only, becoming vacant once again.

During 2001 and 2002, the St. Joseph Yacht Club’s Long Range Planning Committee evaluated the options for the Club’s future. The best option was clearly some way of affording the Depot property. After a year of dreaming, planning, deliberations, negotiations, and voting by Members, the agreement was signed on January 2, 2003. Two Members, Ron Schults and Bill Marohn, as developers, facilitated a trade of the old Yacht Club facilities for the renovated Lighthouse Depot building and a brand new swimming pool.

Milwaukee Temporary Depot 1900-1905

What follows is a chronology of the Temporary Milwaukee Depot taken directly from the Annual Reports of the Lighthouse Board.

1900 A temporary storehouse, 16 feet by 100 feet in plan, with 10-foot posts, was built at the westerly end of the north pier at Milwaukee. The floor is of 2-inch matched Norway, on 4-inch by 6-inch and 4-inch by 4-inch sleepers, which in turn rest upon 8-inch by 8-inch timbers, which are placed on a stone pier. The dock in front is 5 feet 8 inches wide the entire length, with steps at each end. There are four sliding doors – three facing the dock south and one at the north corner for receiving local deliveries. A small office occupies the southwest corner. The east end of the structure is partitioned off for use as a lamp shop, having seven windows and one outside sliding door; also a double door connecting it with the warehouse. Seven wire guards for the windows, a heating stove, a lock with night latch, a sink, and a padlock were provided. A telephone was placed in the temporary storehouse.

The easterly end of the temporary storehouse received interior sheathing over the building paper and was fitted up as a temporary machine shop. Machinery and tools for fitting up the district machine shop were purchased. The engine was placed on a brick and cement foundation and bolted, the gasoline tank was placed on stringers outside of the building, and the milling machine and lathe were placed in position. The machinery, belting, pulleys, hangers, and shafting were placed and adjusted; and the machinery was tested and found to be satisfactory. Six malleable clamps, two 6-inch stovepipe elbows, one length of 6-inch stovepipe, an iron casting, and patterns were purchased. A foot lathe, with drills, lathe tools, etc., was purchased for general use in the fielding construction and repair work in the district.

(Photo from Old Post Card) The Milwaukee Temporary Depot ca 1905 - it is the Cluster of Buildings out in the Lake.

1901 The temporary storehouse has been divided into three portions. The east end is arranged for a machine shop with a small compartment for the storage of illuminating apparatus; the center contains a room for the storage of tools and implements, with a loft over the same for the storage of such articles as rope, wheelbarrows, etc., and another portion is used for the reception of articles for general repair.

1902 The engineer’s storehouse, a temporary building, is insufficient for the repair work of the district, and when the construction of new stations is to be undertaken or materials for extensive alterations are to be delivered, there is no place to provide for their accommodation even for the shortest time. There is, moreover, a certainty that the building must be moved at an early date when work under contemplation on the repair of the north pier is undertaken by the engineer department.

The District Machine Shop, which occupies nearly one-half of the storehouse, is of great importance. The superintendent charged with the care of the illuminating apparatus has been continuously employed here when not in the field.

1903 The work of construction and repair is constantly increasing in this district. The storage facilities in the temporary storehouse and the capacity of the room occupied by the district machine shop are inadequate. The temporary warehouse is situated on the inner end of the north harbor pier; it is occupied by sufferance, and it will be soon needed by the War Department to carry out the work which was authorized by the river and harbor act in the reconstruction of the harbor piers. The temporary storehouse must therefore be removed, and there is at present no site on the waterfront, which the Lighthouse Service can obtain except by purchase. The present site is bad for a steamer to lie alongside of, as it is near the channel approaching the harbor, and a vessel lying there is subject to injury from passing steamers. The lighthouse hired tender Alice M. Gill, has occupied a berth here at short intervals during the working seasons only, but the lighthouse tender Hyacinth, now being built, and which is to be delivered in a few months, must be provided with a wintering berth near Milwaukee, as it will be impracticable to send her so far away as the lighthouse depot at St. Joseph.

1904 The lease for dockage for the lighthouse tender and for storage facilities for the temporary depot was renewed to cover the fiscal year. The grounds were fenced in by the building of some 300 feet of picket fence 6 feet high, with a drive gate and passenger gate. The roadway entering the grounds was improved. The temporary building was used for the reception of material and its storage previous to loading on the Hyacinth for transportation to the various stations. The storehouse was leveled up and re-blocked.

The District Machine Shop, which occupies one-half of the storehouse, has been of much service in the work of repairs to illuminating apparatus.

1905 The lease for dockage for the lighthouse tender and for temporary storage facilities was renewed to cover four months. The district machine shop was occupied by the machinist and his helper during the closed season and for a great part of the season of navigation in repairing illuminating and fog-signal apparatus.

1906 The use of dockage for the lighthouse tender and for temporary storage facilities was continued from July 1 until January 1, 1906, at which time the grounds were given up.

Milwaukee Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot

What follows is a chronology of the Milwaukee Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot taken directly from the Annual Reports of the Lighthouse Board.

1903 The Board thinks that measures should be taken to obtain this urgently needed depot. Inquiries have been made for a site, and none has been found which can be purchased for anything approaching the nominal amount which was anticipated when the recommendation was first made. It is now believed that a proper site would cost $25,000 on account of the value of waterfront property. The Board therefore estimates that it would cost not less than $75,000 to establish a lighthouse depot at or near Milwaukee, and it is now recommended that an appropriation of this amount be made therefore.

1904 An appropriation of $75,000 was made by the act approved by Congress on April 28, 1904, for the establishment at or near Milwaukee of a depot for the Ninth Lighthouse District, including the purchase of a site therefore.

1905 A site was purchased on the Kinnickinnic River, at Milwaukee, with 320 feet of waterfront. The cession of jurisdiction by the State to the United States is in course of preparation. Plans and specifications for the building of a revetment and wharf and for the dredging and filling grounds were prepared, and bids, which had been asked by advertisement, were, on June 23, 1905, opened. A bid was accepted, and contracts are now being prepared. The work is to be finished about October 1, 1905, when the temporary depot site can be relinquished and the temporary building and shop can be moved to the United States grounds.

1906 Cession of jurisdiction from the State of Wisconsin to the United States was obtained. The revetment and wharf, under contract, were completed on October 1, 1905, and the temporary buildings and shops were removed from the leased grounds to the United States property. Detailed plans and estimates of cost for a warehouse and of a railroad siding and of introduction of city water were prepared. Bids for construction are to be invited. The right of way was graded and a plank walk was laid from Greenfield Avenue to the northerly entrance of the grounds.

1907 A contract was made for building a storehouse. The structural steel work of the three-story structure was erected as far as the 20 columns of the first story and the first and second tiers of floor beams; and of the one-story structure all 14 columns were erected. City water was introduced, and a concrete vault for the water meter was built.

1908 The lighthouse depot and storehouse containing a machine shop, recently completed, are in good condition. The depot is well adapted and equipped for carrying on the work of the district in an efficient and economical manner. The following repairs and improvements will be required during the fiscal year 1909: Boat-ways for hauling out launches, fitting up old shed for boathouse, paving and grading, fencing, erecting a derrick, adding flooring over the ceiling of the custodian’s quarters for storage of patterns and the construction of shelving. The estimated cost of the labor and materials required to do the proposed work is $1,800.

Description of the Milwaukee Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot from fire insurance records 1911:

4 Buildings

1) Single story Stockroom and Warehouse – fireproof construction, brick and concrete with fire hydrant, attached to the three-story building.

2) Three story building

Stock room on first floor, interior walls tiled on first floor only

Machine shop on second floor – with gasoline powered engine

Living rooms on third floor

3) Single story Tool room with cement floor and walls

4) Single story Receiving dock next to rail spur

Two additional buildings were added later.

On September 17, 1913 the headquarters of the 12^th District were moved from Chicago, IL to Milwaukee, WI so that it could be more centrally located within the district. Complaints were made because the Milwaukee Depot was nearly surrounded by coal yards and the dust was objectionable, but no action was taken other than to request a new depot site.

(Photo from USCG Collection) The Milwaukee Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot 1913.

1934 A major addition is made to the depot of a large warehouse building behind, but attached to the old facility. It was not completed until late 1935.

(Photo from USCG Collection) The New Warehouse. Note: The Small Building is the Powerhouse for the Machine Shop.

(Photo Courtesy James Woodward Collection) A Fresnel Lens Under Repair in the Lamp Shop ca 1938.

1939 The Lighthouse Depot became the Milwaukee Coast Guard Base when the Lighthouse Service was transferred to the US Coast Guard.

1967 In 1967, US Coast Guard Base Milwaukee moved to the present day building for Sector Lake Michigan and the former base was abandoned with the land returned to the city. All but one of the buildings was torn down.

(Photo from Author’s Collection) The Milwaukee Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot from the Air ca 1940.

Charlevoix Buoy Repair and Storage Depot

What follows is a chronology of the Charlevoix Buoy Repair and Storage Depot taken directly from the Annual Reports of the Lighthouse Board.

1899 Pursuant to the appropriation of $15,000 made by the act approved on July 1, 1898, for a depot at Charlevoix, Michigan, a site for the Buoy and Supply Depot at Charlevoix was purchased. The title papers were approved by the United States Attorney General and duly recorded. The site was plotted. General plans and an estimate of the cost for the construction of the depot were prepared. Detail plans, specifications, and forms for advertising for the construction of the revetment and for dredging a basin, and for filling at the depot, were prepared and bids for doing the work were invited. The work is to be done so that the depot can be of service this fall.

1900 Contracts were made for dredging the waterfront and slip, for back filling and grading the grounds, and for building a pile revetment. The work called for in these contracts was finished during April 1900. 4,500 cubic yards of material having been dredged and dumped into Pine Lake, 4,775 cubic yards used for back filling and grading, and 445 running feet of pile revetment constructed. Plan, general description, and estimate for a warehouse 40 feet wide by 90 feet long were prepared, and proposals for furnishing the material were invited by posters and circular letters. The materials for the construction of the warehouse were delivered by a lighthouse tender.

1901 This depot is practically finished. The warehouse was completed in September of 1900. It consists of a one-story brick building 40 feet wide by 90 feet long with seven steel trusses. The depot grounds were enclosed with a fence. One handcar and four buoy carriages, with steel frames and rollers to roll directly upon the handcar, were provided, the buoy carriages being so constructed as to receive the large compressed gas buoys as in a cradle. A tramway 560 feet long was laid. The small dwelling already on the site when this ground was purchased was repaired for the custodian.

The Charlevoix Buoy Repair and Storage Depot and the Custodian’s Dwelling.

1902 A buoy carriage was made at the Milwaukee storehouse and delivered to this depot. This completed the work on this depot, using the full amount of the funds appropriated for its construction.

1905 This depot is in good condition.

1906 This depot is utilized for the storage and overhauling of buoys for the northern part of the district. With the exception of the dwelling it is in good condition.

1907 This depot is used for the storage and overhauling of buoys for the northern end of the lake.

1908 The storehouse and wharf are in excellent condition. The dwelling, an old dilapidated building, caught of fire on May 5, 1908, owing to a defective flue.

The Charlevoix Buoy Repair and Storage buildings are still there, although no longer used for lighthouse purposes.

USLHS DEPOTS – 1915

The high water mark for Lighthouse Service operations was 1915. The service probably had the most manned lighthouses in operation at one time in this year. Also the most lightship stations were recorded in 1915 at 53, with 66 vessels to man the stations (13 were relief vessels).

Following is a list of depots throughout the service in 1915. Some of the depots were merely a wharf in some remote area where the service could store buoys, chain and sinkers to be retrieved by the buoy tender as needed. Smaller depots were manned and contained a variety of basic supplies, but usually didn’t have personnel like lampists and blacksmiths. The larger depots stored coal for the ships and light stations, fuel oil, buoys and other supplies. Large wooden spar buoys were shaped at large depots and blacksmiths made up lengths of chain, repaired buoys and created various items of iron for light stations. A lampist was on hand to repair clockworks and constant level oil lamps. Lampists could also be sent into the field to repair machinery at light stations. The largest depots also had a Field Construction Force which was dispatched to light stations to make major repairs, construct breakwaters, docks and boat houses. The principal depot for each district is indicated by larger type.

First District

Bear Island, ME

LITTLE DIAMOND ISLAND, ME

Second District

LOVELLS ISLAND, Boston Harbor, MA

Woods Hole MA Depot

Chelsea MA Depot 1936

Third District

Goat Island, Newport, RI

Bristol RI Depot

Juniper Island, VT (Lake Champlain)

New London, CT

Thompkinsville NY Depot, Staten Island, NY [the General Depot for the service]

Tucker Beach, NJ

Fourth District

EDGEMOOR, DE

Lewes, DE

Fifth District

Annapolis, MD

Chincoteague, VA

Lazaretto Point, Baltimore Harbor, MD

Point Lookout, MD

Portsmouth VA Depot

Washington Wharf, DC

Washington, NC

Sixth District

Castle Pinckney SC Depot 1892

Seventh District

Egmont Key, FL

KEY WEST, FL

PORT EADS, LA

Eighth District

Fort San Jacinto, Galveston, TX

Mobile, AL

New Orleans LA Depot 1934

Ninth District

Culebrita Island, PR

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

SAN JUAN, PR

Tenth District (Lakes Ontario & Erie And the St. Lawrence River)

Buffalo NY Depot ca 1950

Erie, PA

Maumee Bay, OH

Rock Island, NY

Sandusky Bay (Cedar Point) OH Depot

Eleventh District (Lakes St. Clair, Huron and Superior)

DETROIT, MI

Minnesota Point (Duluth) MN Depot

St. Marys River, MI

Twelfth District (Lake Michigan)

Charlevoix, MI

MILWAUKEE, WI

St. Joseph, MI

Sixteenth District

KETCHIKAN, AK

Seventeenth District

Ediz Hook, WA

TONGUE POINT, OR

Eighteenth District

Yerba Buena San Francisco CA Depot

Long Beach CA Depot

Nineteenth District

HONOLULU, HI

The 13^th thru 15^th Districts represent the Western Rivers, which didn’t have Depots. The supplies for the small-unmanned shore aids and unlighted buoys were carried aboard the tenders, which serviced the Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.

Other Historical Information

The Confederate States Lighthouse Bureau by David Cipra

tomtag — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:07:25 +0000

Who's Lighthouse Bureau? Could these be the Confederates who smashed the lenses? The same fine folks who blew up towers? The Southern gentlemen who systematically destroyed what the Good Guys in the federal government had built?

If you limit your reading to official Union records of the Civil War, it would certainly seem so. But the Confederacy also left records, which, until 1990, were apparently untouched by researchers. These records show that the Confederate States government aggressively preserved its vital lighthouses, and maritime legacy left by the Union. Unfortunately, the period of unpleasantries, which gave birth to the Confederacy, also brought on wholesale devastation to the South’s aids to navigation.

The South, perhaps more than the North, was dependent on successful and safe ports, which lighthouses helped provide. The Northern economy, nearly self-sufficient, provided its population with both food and fine manufactured products from within its borders. The South, on the other hand, was almost entirely agricultural, exporting cotton and tobacco and importing European and Northern consumer goods. Cotton was the singular American commodity, accounting for far greater than half the value of all U.S. exports in 1860. The leading cotton states, bordering the Gulf of Mexico, annually sent almost a million tons of cotton to sea just before the war. While the South lacked a comparable railroad network, it enjoyed a vast navigable river system unparalleled in the North. Reaching hundreds of miles inland, rivers from the richest land in America connected two-thirds of the United States to ports of the Gulf. An efficient system of lighting the Southern coast was critical to this commerce. Congressman Jefferson Davis had worked diligently in the 1840’s to insure that Southern coasts were well marked by a system of efficient lighthouses. As President of the Confederate States, he acted quickly to establish a Lighthouse Bureau with one of his top naval officers as chief.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis

The U.S. Treasury Secretary knew who was paying the federal bills. The South’s foreign trade by the 1860’s had become the foundation of America’s economy, supplying the government with three-fourths of the federal budget. The U.S. Lighthouse Board had nearly completed its modernization of the lighthouse system when political hostility came to a head. By 1859 every chandelier of ancient reflectors had been replaced by modern Fresnel lenses (a few reflector lights remained in minor range lights). The inefficient lightships had been replaced where possible by screw-pile lighthouses or by more powerful lights ashore. Tall first-order lighthouses such as the 200-foot tower at Mobile’s Sand Island had just started to settle into the tidewater muck. Only a half dozen or so southern lighthouses approved by Congress remained to be erected, with most delayed by ancient colonial land grants and other title disputes. The American lighthouse system was approaching its zenith when a more widespread land dispute interceded.

State Lighthouse Establishments During Secession

A principle issue for secession from the Union was sovereignty over former federal facilities, which the states felt had been more than paid in full by local tax revenues. The newly independent states moved quickly to seize forts, arsenals, customhouses and lighthouses. It was important to continue “business as usual” at the lighthouses in order to keep vital trade following without interruption. In Alabama, one of the first states to follow South Carolina to independence, the governor issued immediate orders inviting former U.S. government employees to continue their duties under state control. U.S. Navy Lieutenant E. L. Hardy, lighthouse inspector at Mobile, declined the offer when the state collector delivered a polite ultimatum on January 21, 1861: “To obviate difficulties and to prevent embarrassments that may arise from conflicting authorities in the Lighthouse Establishment with the limits of the State of Alabama, I do hereby notify you that in the name of the Sovereign State of Alabama, I take possession of the several Lighthouses within the State….” Alabama appointed its own inspector, R.T. Chapman and, lacking local directives, instructed state keepers, “In the discharge of your duties, you will be governed by the [c. 1857] laws, rules, and regulations of the United States…so far as they are applicable.

State by state, lighthouses migrated peacefully from federal to local control, with the exception of three towers at the Dry Tortugas and Key West, which were held by Union forces throughout the war. Neither keepers nor mariners saw any difference in operations. Inspectors inspected, engineers repaired and keepers were paid-in state funds.

By February 1861, the movement was well underway to tie seceding states together into a loose organization similar to the “firm league of friendship” created by the 1777 U.S. Articles of Confederation. On February 8, delegates adopted (essentially) the U.S. Constitution, appropriately edited to preserve the values of the South, and all U.S. laws, which did not contradict the new law of the land. One of these laws was, of course, the 1789 act authorizing national support of lighthouses to encourage prosperity and maritime commerce. However central control was not immediately established. Local customs collectors continued to manage lighthouses under their jurisdiction, often remaining under state control until the C.S. Treasury Department was able to take over.

Word of these occurrences filtered slowly down to keepers. On March 31, keeper Manuel Moreno at the isolated Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River knew very well that something was going on 120 miles upriver at New Orleans. Hearing rumors from pilots on stem tugs, he complained to New Orleans collector Frank Hatch, ”I am in this deserted place, ignorant of what is transpiring out of it.” The entire South was arming and he could not possibly be left out of the coming fray. “We ought to have about six muskets and a few pistols, and Powder and Balls, so as to be ready, at all times to resist any attack.”

The U.S. government tended to disagree with the Southern activities and, at least on paper, administered a parallel lighthouse establishment in the South throughout the war. At the Egmont Key Lighthouse, guarding Tampa Bay, keeper George Rickard was instructed by the Confederate collector to deceive the Union Navy and “keep up such relations with the fleet as would induce them to allow him to remain in charge until such time as the property could be safely removed.” When Union Blockaders went off in chase of sails, Rickard stripped the lighthouse station and buried the lighthouse lens “in the vicinity of Tampa.” When U.S. Navy Lieutenant Joseph E. Fry, inspector at New Orleans, resigned his commission on January 26 (the date of Louisiana’s secession) the Secretary of the U.S. Lighthouse Board asked the Treasury Department if a replacement would be requested from the Navy Department. The question was almost rhetorical and may have indeed been intended to test the federal Navy’s attitudes toward officers who resigned their commissions.

Egmont Key Lighthouse at Tampa was placed out of commission by the keeper.

That Secretary was Commander Raphael Semmes, U.S.N., an Alabamian and sailor of reputation who had felt for years that he was detailed to a dismal job of navigating a desk. A Confederate Congressional committee invited Semmes to resign his federal commission in favor of allegiance to the South. On February 15 he reported for duty at Montgomery, two days after the Electoral College affirmed Abraham Lincoln’s election to the Presidency. Semmes recommended a Southern organization similar in makeup to the U.S. Lighthouse Board but, for the sake of efficiency, more compact and under complete control of the Navy. While he was detailed to the North to buy gunboats, the Confederate Congress passed an act on March 6 establishing his Confederate States Lighthouse Bureau, its chief officer to be a captain or commander of the C.S. Navy.

Raphael Semmes

The new agency stumbled into action. C.S. Treasury Secretary C.G. Memminger recommended Semmes to President Jefferson Davis on April 10, 1861, although it appears that Semmes had already reported for duty as early as April 4. For Semmes, being a bureau chief meant a new desk but the same old sedentary job, and at a time when his new nation needed men of ‘salt’ and action. He had hardly rigged his office and shipped a clerk before shouts of “Sumter! Sumter!” rose over Montgomery on April 12. War had the audacity to start without him!

His only action of even minor significance (besides ordering some rather smart-looking stationery) as Father of the C.S. Lighthouse Bureau was to recommend division of the Confederacy into four lighthouse districts. District boundaries and headquarters are unclear in surviving documents, since the districts endured only a few months. The First (New Orleans) and Third (Mobile) Districts were in the Gulf of Mexico, constituting about half of the new nation and all the largest, most strategic cotton ports. The Second and Fourth Districts were apparently on the Atlantic Coast. Since his plan was presented and accepted by April 15, these districts may not have included the “border states” of Virginia (seceded April 17) and North Carolina (May 20).

Had the Lighthouse Bureau not begun dissolving almost immediately it might have later incorporated scientist and Army specialists, as did the U.S. Lighthouse Board. Semmes had no immediate use for engineers (perhaps he never liked the landlubbers) and quickly submitted the names of four top Navy lieutenants to fill the posts of district inspector. None of these ever reported for duty. Semmes did hire a civilian chief clerk, Edward F. Pedgard, who came aboard just in time to see the boss depart for war. Semmes left Montgomery on April 18 to outfit and command the commerce raider CSS Sumter at New Orleans. But this was not the last of Semmes’ involvement with lighthouses.

Secretary Memminger reported to President Davis that Semmes was “withdrawn from the Lighthouse Bureau for active service” and that several of the lieutenants he recommended were also desired by the Navy Secretary. He recommended Commander Ebenezer Farrand of Perdido, Florida, as the new bureau chief and Lieutenants W.G. Dozier for the First District inspector, J.D. Johnson for the Third District and J.R. Eggleston for the Fourth District. The Second District inspector job remained vacant for the remainder of the war. The inspectors were returned to the C.S. Navy on July 11, 1861, with the caveat, “Whenever the lights are restored, their services will gain become necessary.”

Early Confederate Paperwork

National events occurred at a rapid-fire pace and change continued to disrupt the Lighthouse Bureau. The Treasury Secretary appointed Thomas E. Martin as Chief Clerk, replacing Pedgard, on May 1. Four days later, Farrand reported to take charge. Most of the next three weeks were probably spent in preparing for the move of the capital to Richmond. Squabbles there over precious office space took some precedence over whether or not the infant Confederacy would be able to maintain its system of lighthouses.

The staff had hardly sharpened their pencils before their impossible task became apparent. The tiny U.S. Navy, only 42 ships strong, had begun its strangulating economic blockade of Southern ports. By the end of May 1861, blockaders had been assigned to the largest ports to seal in the cotton and to prevent the import of crucial was supplies. For the next few years, the blockade revealed the South’s greatest weakness and constituted the Union’s only measurable success.

The arriving federal fleet was rather slow in paying visits to light stations. Into the third week of blockading, much to their comfort, several costal lights were still in full operation. Soon, Confederate customs collectors began extinguishing - and in some cases dismantling – lighthouses to deny aid to the Union fleets. The effort may have been coordinated, or at least suggested by, Richmond, although scant Bureau records reveal no service-wide instructions to put lights out of operation. More likely, local military authorities independently asked customs officers to let the enemy drift aground without the aid of the lights. Southern mechanics hurriedly removed lamps and lenses from several towers to prevent Yankee “predators” from capturing and operating the light stations. Union gunboats responded by seizing all lighthouse property they happened upon from the lawless rebels. The coast quickly fell dark.

The Union Navy shipped most lenses and apparatus to the New York lighthouse depot for reissue, although some were put back to use almost immediately. At Chandeleur Island, Louisiana, marking the anchorages used as the Union primary staging ground for attacks along the entire Gulf of Mexico, the lighthouse was captured by the USS Massachusetts on July 9, 1861, and restored to operation on September 13^th.

At Pensacola, enough carefully secreted materials were recovered to piece together a lighthouse for the Union’s first captured deepwater port.

Union and Confederate forces raided towers at the three Mississippi River passes, sometimes only hours apart. Semmes, commanding CSS Sumter sent boats on June 23 “to the different lighthouses to stave in the oil casts and bring away the lighting apparatus to prevent the enemy’s shipping from using the lights. I found that the lights at Pass a I’Outré and South Pass had been strangely overlooked and that they were still being nightly exhibited.” His men revisited one station July 11 to remove the lens, but they found that a crew from the steam sloop USS Brooklyn had removed everything of value a few hours before.

And just what was the C.S. Lighthouse Bureau doing all this time? By early July 1861, the Bureau finally struggled to its feet, steady, organized and ready to take charge. Farrand directed collectors to safeguard the expensive and vital French lenses and lamps. The lack of detailed orders left some doubt as to exactly how safe they should be made. Some collectors had already caused the lenses and supplies to be properly crated, inventoried and removed to warehouses, others simply left stations in charge of unarmed keepers. In perhaps a case of over-reaction, the Galveston collector paid a contractor $250 to entirely dismantle an 80-foot tower. The iron Bolivar Point lighthouse was taken down bolt-by-bolt and plate-by-plate, with one-inch plate probably used for the skin of a Confederate vessel. All Collectors were asked to report the status of stations in their areas of responsibility.

The Lighthouse Bureau started to implode only six months after its inception. With only one lighthouse still in operation, Farrand was released from the Confederate Treasury Department and returned to Navy duty by September 20. (His mark in history, by the way, is that of being the last major Confederate commander to surrender, about a month after Lee.) Thomas Martin was quickly appointed as Chief of the Lighthouse Bureau, ad interim, and served in that capacity until the Bureau entirely dissolved.

Martin acted quickly to preserve Confederate property for the anticipated relighting – once the Union forces recognized the futility of the blockade. In his first week on the job, he proposed a letter from the Treasury Secretary requiring collectors to remove and safeguard all property and provide inventories of all government property. He also required more formal transfers of lighthouse vessels to the Confederate Navy and Army, often with the provision that they “be returned in good order to the Lighthouse Bureau whenever required for that service,” plus or minus a few cannon-ball holes.

An End to Preservation

Extinguished lighthouse quickly became military assets. Intended for ships to sight from seaward, the lighthouses were usually the highest vantage point, well situated for defensive forces to spy on blockader movements or advancing enemy troops. Coastal lighthouses especially became sites for heavy gun emplacements or picket posts. At least one island station was turned into a bathing resort and brothel for blockade-weary Union sailors. Fine French lenses and lamps removed, they became lookouts for armies of both sides.

In most cases, lighthouses were damaged through individual acts: vandalism, accidents (the brothel burned in July ’63) or desperate attempts at destroying fortifications during a landing or retreat. Sometimes, the lighthouses simply stood in the way during exchanges of fire. One of the greatest dangers to lighthouse stations was neglect – site erosion refused to pause for the war effort. In at least one instance, the destruction was deliberate and coordinated. The general commanding Confederate forces in Texas issued explicit orders for field commanders to blow up all lighthouses if superior enemy forces attacked. Towers at Point Isabel, Padre Island, Port Arkansas, Pass Cavallo, and Matagorda Island were burned or mined with kegs of powder.

By the end of the first year of war, the Union had taken no significant ports. Indeed, the North had no campaign to be proud of. This changed when Commodore David G. Farragut steamed up the Mississippi to take New Orleans in late April 1862. His success shocked C.S. Lighthouse Bureau with the prospect that their lenses were no longer safe even in heavily fortified coastal cities. U.S. Treasury agent Maximillian F.Bonzano recovered an estimated $50,000 worth of lighthouse apparatus near the New Orleans Mint, perfectly crated and labeled for quick reassembly. In Richmond, Martin prepared letters ordering Confederate collectors to “remove the property belonging to the Lighthouse establishment under their charge to such points as in their judgment may be secure from the approach of the enemy.” The lights must be restored when victory comes to hand.

The U.S. Lighthouse Board was not inactive during this period. As strategic lighthouse sites were captured and made secure by Union forces, lighthouses were renovated and restored to operation. Technically, the Board acted under Congressional mandate to erect and operate lighthouses at specified locations, but in reality they responded directly to U.S. Navy or Army pleas for navigation aids to pursue the war effort. Unfamiliar with local, largely uncharted waters, Union blockaders operated in constant fear of grounding along the shallow Southern coast, under the guns of the enemy. Confederates prayed for offshore gales to cast the Yankee hulls into shoals within artillery range.

On July 5, 1862, an urgent dispatch arrived in Washington from the acting U.S. Collector of Customs at New Orleans requesting, immediate assistance in repairing recently captured stations. The Lighthouse Board immediately dispatched an engineer and by August 20 he had completed a survey of damage to be repaired. He also recommended Bonzano be appointed as acting lighthouse engineer to effect the repairs. Bonzano served in this capacity through the war and into the following reconstruction, supervising the reestablishment of lighthouses from Florida to Texas. Without authority to pay keepers, he arranged for Army rations and paid out a reported $15,000 of his own funds – a lifetime of income, in a time when keeper salaries averaged only a few hundred dollars per year. Most of his labor force was made up of “contrabands” – freed slaves so destitute he clothed them with Army discards.

The Dark at the End of the Tunnel

The Confederate States Lighthouse Bureau dwindled in activity until October 1862, when the last known Confederate lighthouse was extinguished on Choctaw Point at Mobile. On releasing the last keeper, Eliza Michold, the Bureau was reduced to only one employee: Thomas Martin. He continued in service, keeping track, when he could, of where lighthouse apparatus was stored, until General U.S. Grant viewed the spires of Richmond from only ten miles away.

Martin’s last annual report, submitted January 25, 1864, sadly advised Secretary Memminger that “The operation of the Lighthouse Establishment during the past year have been very limited in extent, being confined almost exclusively to the care and preservation of the Lighthouse property which has been taken down and removed to places of safety. Instructions were given to the various Superintendents of Lights to cause the illuminating apparatus and other fixtures to be carefully removed, boxed, and conveyed to different points of the interior, removed from the depredations of the enemy. I am happy to report that with two or three exceptions the efforts made in this regard were entirely successful, so that when any order may be issued by you for the resumption of the active operations of the Lighthouse Establishment (which time I trust is not far distant) no great difficulties will arise in replacing the machinery and carrying out the designs for which the Bureau were created.”

Thomas Martin was assigned two days later to the drudgery of paying war bond interest with worthless Confederate paper in the Office of the Treasurer, and then to the staff of the First Auditor of the Treasury. He was displaced from his comparatively plush offices by a jealous C.S. Surgeon General.

Lighthouse duties did not end there, however. Martin’s greatest challenge from this time onward was keeping valuable sperm whale oil out of the hands of his own countrymen. Until the Lighthouse Bureau folded, the C.S. Navy requisitioned the precious oil for gunboats, presumably for engine-room lubrication, and for lighting interior waterways not yet under Union control. The Bureau doubted the efficient use of such expensive oil, however. In one case the Confederate ram CSS Baltic had consumed 100 gallons, never even weighing anchor. “ This quantity of oil cannot be procured at any price,” Martin complained. His was a nation where the economy was in such a disaster that salt nearly equaled silver in value. Suspecting that many a card game had been played on the mess deck under a whale-oil lamp, he outright refused more requests for the precious oil “to avoid the embarrassment that would result from a total absence of oil when orders may be given to relight.” Martin was hopeful to the end that the Confederacy could survive and that his lighthouses would help restore the prosperity and dignity the South had known.

Confederate States Lighthouse Bureau records dwindled as territories came under the Stars and Stripes. The National Archives file ends abruptly with an insignificant document recording the storage of minor lighthouse property at Mobile, dated December 31, 1864. There was no Happy New Year. Thomas Martin had by that time joined a battalion of clerks and other bureaucrats, drilling each Wednesday at 1 p.m. for a desperate attempt to defend the capital.

Exactly when and how the Lighthouse Bureau entirely collapsed is not recorded. On April 2, 1865, with virtually every point on the Confederate coastline in Union hands, Jefferson Davis and several government officers forsook Richmond for a new capital in North Carolina. Was a Lighthouse Bureau Chief required there? Hardly. The last breath of the Confederacy was spent a month later in a skirmish a few miles from the ruins of the Port Isabel Lighthouse in Texas.

Fall of the Tallest Tower

No single act of destruction can typify events of the Civil War, but the loss of one lighthouse stands out as a significant catastrophe.

The Sand Island Lighthouse marked the entrance to Mobile, the South’s second-largest cotton port. At 200 feet in height, the tower was the grandest in the South, and perhaps the tallest masonry building in that nation. The Sand Island Lighthouse was erected in 1859 to overcome the shortcomings of the old Mobile Point Lighthouse at Fort Morgan. Balanced on putty-like soil, the tower was a monument to its builder, Lighthouse Board Engineer Danville Leadbetter.

Sand Island AL ca 1859

Confederate States collector T. Sanford hired a contractor to remove the nine-foot-tall, first-order lens for storage first at Mobile and later at Montgomery. The empty tower was used repeatedly as a lookout post as forces of both sides spied on each other’s strengths from aloft. Union glasses searched for weaknesses at the forts commanding the bay entrance and stood careful watch for the dreaded ram CSS Tennessee. Southern forces occasionally studied movements of the fleet from the tower.

The lens now in an enemy warehouse, U.S. lighthouse engineer Max Bonzano moved quickly to reestablish the light. He fit up a fourth order lens on December 20, 1862, under the protection of the Union fleet’s guns. He had hoped to install a first-order revolving lens soon afterward to support the anticipated invasion of Mobile.

Union men were not the only ones expecting an invasion. Fear reigned in Mobile that Union ships were preparing to pass the forts, as they had at New Orleans. They were unaware that the Union naval commander, Admiral David G. Farragut, was so frustrated in the siege of Vicksburg that he could not release enough ships to carry out any threat against Mobile.

Under orders from the engineer of the defenses of Mobile, a small Confederate force under Lt. John W. Glenn rowed from Dauphin Island’s Fort Gaines to Sand Island on January 31 to remove the offending tower. In a tactical blunder, he decided to first burn the keeper’s dwelling and four other buildings. The blockading USS Pembina spotted the flames and fired on the Confederates, forcing them to retreat. But Glenn returned to the tower on February 22, this time under the cover of darkness. By dawn, he had secreted a total of 70 pounds of black power at various places in the tower.

At 3 P.M., he lit the fuse and then left for Fort Gaines. “Nothing remains but a narrow shred [of brickwork] about fifty feet high and from one to five feet wide,” he boasted in his official report, adding, “The first storm we have will blow that down.” By incredible and sad coincidence, his report was addressed to Confederate Colonel Danville Leadbetter, the former U.S. Lighthouse Board engineer who had labored to create the “magnificent tower at Sand Island” only three years before.

The Future of the Past

Reconstructing events in the South during the Civil War is a monumental job, made difficult by an agonizing lack of organized, authoritative documentation. Confederate records amount to less than a cubic foot of papers, most of which are pay slips for keepers. Confederate Engineering reports of lighthouse damage, if there ever were any, apparently never reached Richmond, or perhaps never survived Richmond. Union civil records are limited mostly to the Lighthouse Board’s Annual Reports to Congress, which present a very slanted view (justifiably so, considering the times) with bands of lawless rebels blasting towers to rubble. On-scene Union reports were destroyed in a Commerce Department fire in the 1930’s, before the National Archives consolidated these records. Military operations exist in excruciating detail, to the point that they measure in miles of Archives shelf space and in hundreds of cubic yards. Undocumented local legends abound on the subject, often in conflict with scraps of available fact.

The American Civil War, the greatest single chain of events affecting our Southern lighthouses, deserves exhausting research and documentation.

Other Historical Information

History of the Administration of the Lighthouses in America by Wayne Wheeler

tomtag — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:55:11 +0000

The first colonial American aid to navigation, of which we have firm evidence, was the beacon erected at Nantasket (now Hull) Massachusetts in 1673. The beacon was a small stone tower erected at Point Allerton, a promontory guarding the south approach to Boston Harbor. The citizens of that community provided funds to furnish “fier-bales of pitch and ocum” in an iron basket surrounding the small beacon.

Our first lighthouse was erected of rubble stone on Little Brewster Island (in Boston Harbor) by the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1716 at a cost of 2,285 pounds. The first keeper of that lighthouse was George Worthylake who was paid the princely sum of 50 pounds a year. Other colonies also constructed lighthouses of rubble stone prior to the revolution. The Collector of Customs of the ports near the lighthouses collected “light-dues” based on the tonnage of vessels using the ports.

Congress 9^th Act

On August 7, 1789 the 9^th Act of our first Congress, and the first Public works Act, provided for the transfer of the twelve existing lighthouses in this country from the individual states to the federal government and provided: “That all expenses which shall accrue from and after the 15^th day of August 1789, in the necessary support, maintenance and repairs of all lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public piers erected, placed, or sunk before the passing of this Act, at the entrance of, or within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States, for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe, shall be defrayed out of the treasury of the United States; Provided nevertheless, That none of the said expenses shall continue to be so defrayed by the United States, after the expiration of one year of the day aforesaid, unless such lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public piers, shall in the mean time be ceded to and vested in the United States, by the state or states respectively in which the same may be, together with the jurisdiction of same.

The states, however, wary of a central government, dragged their heels and it wasn’t until 1797 (eight years after passage of the Act) that all lighthouses were turned over to the fledgling government. The twelve existing lighthouses were soon joined by four which had been under construction when we became a nation: Cape Henry, VA at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay (1791); Tybee, GA at the entrance to the Savannah River (1791); Portland Head, ME (1791) and Bald Head at the entrance to the Cape Fear River, NC (1796). Cape Henry is regarded as the first to be completed by the new government. By 1800 there were 24 lighthouses in the nation, all along the Atlantic coast.

The responsibility for lighthouses and other aids to navigation was placed under the Secretary of the Treasury, at that time Alexander Hamilton. He had appealed to President Washington: in keeping with our free country, lighthouses should be as free as the air and that this country should waive the lighthouse dues which had been imposed by the colonies and were standard at most ports of the world. George Washington agreed.

Local control of our lighthouses was assigned to the Collector of Customs of a port. Some Collectors had but one lighthouse to “manage”, while others had many under their control. And, because the collectors were politically appointed, the keepers were politically appointed. When the Whigs were in the White House the Whig keepers were in the lighthouses.

It’s interesting to read about the involvement that our early leaders had with such trivial matters (for a Chief Executive) as appropriations for purchase of buoy chain and appointment of lighthouse keepers, it was surely a slower pace than today. The keeper of the Seguin Lighthouse in Maine wrote to President Washington requesting an extra allowance for clearing the land adjacent to his station. He received a letter dated Jan 24, 1797 “For the reasons assigned within, the allowance of $150 is approved by Go Washington.” On another occasion he made the following endorsement on a contract to furnish mooring chain for a floating beacon in Delaware Bay “April 27^th, 1798. Approved, so far as it respects the new chain; but is there an entire loss of the old one? Go Washington.” Earlier in 1796 President Washington signed an executive Act raising the annual rate of compensation for the 16 lighthouse keepers of the nation from $120 to $333.33

Between the establishment of the Lighthouse Service in 1789 and the year 1820 the responsibility for our aids to navigation bounced around Washington like a Ping-Pong ball. On May 8, 1792 the department of the Commissioner of Revenue was created and the responsibility for aids to navigation was shifted to that agency. This department was abolished on April 6, 1802 and lighthouses were back under Treasury. Then in 1813 The Commissioner of Revenue was re-established and that agency was again responsible for lighthouses and aids to navigation.

Four years later, in December of 1817, the Commissioner of Revenue was abolished for the last time, but the Act was not to take place until 1820. On July 1 of that year the Lighthouse Service shifted again to Treasury and under the watchful eye of the Fifth Auditor, Stephen Pleasonton, an accountant, who knew nothing of lighthouses, lighthouse equipment or engineering. Fifth Auditor Pleasonton held sway for the next 32 years; three decades during which other maritime nations of the world embraced the Fresnel lens (perfected in 1822) and other improvements in aids to navigation. This was a period in which our country lagged behind other maritime nations in aids to navigation.

Stephen Pleasonton

During Pleasonton’s reign as general superintendent of lights (1820-1852) the aids to navigation of this country increased from a rather modest 55 lighthouses and a few buoys to 325 lighthouses and lightships and numerous other aids to navigation (buoys, daymarks, range lights, etc).

The Fifth Auditor supplied the various lighthouses in his charge, and even had them inspected by contract. Local contractors made yearly visits repairing the illuminating apparatus as necessary and furnishing oil, glass chimneys and cleaning stores. This worked after a fashion when there were only 50 lighthouses, but as the number of stations increased, the time and paperwork necessary to manage individual contracts became impossible.

Thus, Pleasonton advertised for proposals for one contractor to furnish supplies for the entire Lighthouse Establishment and to keep all lighthouse apparatus in complete repair, bids to be submitted as cost per lamp per year; the winning bid was $35.87 per lamp per year. In those days before the introduction of the Fresnel lens in this country some lighthouses had as many as 30 lamps and reflectors in the lantern room.

The optical system in use during Pleasonton’s term was the catoptric system consisting of an Argand wick lamp(s) fitted with a parabolic reflector(s). Back in 1812 the government purchased a patent for a “reflecting and magnifying lantern” from Winslow Lewis of Boston for $20,000. Lewis was an unemployed ship captain with no engineering background or knowledge of optics. He apparently “borrowed” the Swiss Argand’s lamp and parabolic reflector design, although one critic of his optic stated that the reflectors were as close to a parabola as “a barber’s basin.” To make matters worse, Captain Lewis had round green lenses placed in front of the lamps, which drastically cut the range of the light. After Lewis had outfitted all of America’s lighthouses in 1815 the government started to remove the green “lenses”’ but it was many years before all of them were disposed of.

After Stephen Pleasonton took control he continued to rely on Winslow Lewis for technical advice and even awarded him several contracts to construct lighthouses, several of which collapsed in very few years.

Winslow Lewis

The Investigation of 1837-1838

The 19^th century was the Golden Age of lighthouses and maritime commerce. The number of lighthouses in this country went from 24 in 1800 to around 850 by the turn of the 20^th century. The first lightship station was authorized in 1822 and by 1900 there were 50 stations, on every coast and in the Great Lakes. Numerous types of fog signals were invented, our system of buoyage codified, the Light List developed and Notice to Mariners published in a consistent manner. While some lighthouses were constructed in the 20^th century, new fog signals developed and electronic aids to navigation (radio beacons, etc.) introduced, it was the 19^th century that saw the greatest growth of aids to navigation in this country and throughout the world.

As trade between America and Europe increased, and more and more Fresnel lenses were established in the lighthouses of Europe, our sea captains complained that our lighthouses were vastly inferior. In the 1830’s and 40’s two critics of our system, and Stephen Pleasonton were E. & W. Blunt, publishers of Blunt’s Coast Pilot (a publication of sailing directions used to this day). They wrote to Congress “the lighthouse establishment was badly managed.” In a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury (November 30, 1837) they stated that the annual sums appropriated by Congress “were not judiciously or energetically used.” They continued “the establishment has increased beyond the ability of any single individual at Washington to superintend in its more important details…” They also included editorials in the preface of the Coast Pilot blasting our aids to navigation. Another critic of our system of aids to navigation was I.W.P. Lewis, nephew of Winslow Lewis.

In 1837 Congress made an appropriation for the construction of a large number of lighthouses and other aids to navigation. However, the Act stated that before any of the funds could be expended the Board of Navy Commissioners should make an examination to determine whether safety of navigation required any additional facilities and, if so, what was the most suitable for each place. The navy department detailed 22 officers, which reported to Congress. As a result of this ‘investigation’ the construction of 31 planned lighthouses was deferred. The board reported that the arrangements in force for the managing of our aids to navigation were the most economical that could be devised but that they were “sufficiently effectual.” It recommended the creation of an office to be known as “The Auditor of the Department of State and General Superintendent of the Lighthouse Establishment.” This office was to take the responsibility from the 5^th auditor, but it never happened.

In 1838 the Senate passed a Resolution to import one or two Fresnel lenses for comparison and to investigate if our system of managing lighthouses should not be changed. The Congress also authorized the President to divide the Atlantic Coast into six districts and the “Lake Coast” (Great Lakes) into two districts and to assign a naval officer to each district. Under this Act, in August 1838, the districts were created and a naval officer was detailed to superintend each district. A Revenue Cutter, or hired vessel, was assigned to each officer so that he might inspect each lighthouse in his respective district.

As directed by Congressional fiat, a 1^st order fixed and 2^nd order revolving Fresnel lens were imported from France and installed in the twin towers of the Navasink lighthouse at the Highlands of New Jersey. Although even Fifth Auditor Pleasonton was impressed with the increased quality of light from the Fresnel lens, he declined to purchase them stating that they were too expensive. The fact of the matter was, that while the initial cost of a Fresnel lens was greater than a reflector system, in the long run it was considerably less expensive. First, a primary seacoast lighthouse might have 24 lamps with reflectors each burning oil, where a Fresnel lens relied on a single lamp thus resulting in a considerable savings of oil not to mention wick material, lamp replacements and time. Secondly, the silver on the face of the copper parabolic reflectors eventually wore out from polishing, where the Fresnel lens was basically good forever. But finances aside, the lenticular Fresnel system was vastly superior to the reflector system and Pleasonton just couldn’t see the value of importing them.

The 1st Order Fixed Lens bought for Navesink NJ

As instructed, the new District Inspectors began their investigation as to the state of “their” light stations.

In 1837 LT George M. Bache conducted an “inspection” of aids to navigation in the 3^rd District (Newport, RI to New York City). His comprehensive report included testimony from sea captains, findings of the state of lighthouses, recommendations for new aids to navigation as well as improvements to existing aids and the manner in which the system was being managed. Some of the more salient points raised by LT Bache were (1) “More accurate information respecting the utility of a light appears to be required before its establishment is authorized.” That is, perhaps the government should talk with ships captains and others aware of a particular area, that the amount and type of commerce transiting the area should be studied before a site and design were selected. (2) The exact site should be selected jointly by a seaman and the engineer. (3) The appropriation should be based on a final design (suited to the locality) and selection of the type of optic. (4) Better construction of lighthouses and lightships should be provided for. He also felt that those who had erected lighthouses in the past lacked the knowledge of setting up the illuminating apparatus and making repairs to same, that oil should be inspected before being accepted, that good management was missing and more inspections were needed. LT Bache even went so far as to suggest that the nation adapt a uniform system of buoyage.

While this seemingly damaging report was sent to the Secretary of the Treasury, it was responded to by the 5^th Auditor. Stephen Pleasonton countered that the Collector of Customs always selects the site for new lighthouses, acquires the land and accepts the low bid contract (missing the point made by Bache that qualified persons – sea captain, etc. be brought into the decision process). He also said that the lightboats were constructed in the same manner. Pleasonton then went on to explain how a contract was awarded to maintain a lighthouse for five years, at low bid. The President appointed the keepers, captains of lightships earned $700 a year and lightships were assigned a Captain, mate and 3 or 4 seamen plus a cook; that they couldn’t steal anything other than the illuminating oil as they were required to pay for all their own stores. He replied that when necessary to “suspend” (temporarily discontinue) a light the fact was always advertised, and finally, “I believe I have now given you full information as to every point which it appears to be material for you to know…” Pleasonton had ignored the questions and somehow survived the report.

An excellent example of just how far behind the state of the art Pleasonton and Winslow Lewis were, is reflected at the Nauset, Cape Cod, Massachusetts Light station which was constructed in 1838. Fixed and rotating Fresnel lenses (catadioptric system) had been in use in Europe since 1822. But even the archaic catoptric system had, since the turn of the century, provision for rotating banks of reflectors and producing a flashing characteristic. Yet at Nauset, Pleasonton had Winslow Lewis construct three towers in a row to provide a characteristic of three fixed lights. This was reportedly to ensure that this station wouldn’t be confused with the twin towers (2 lights) of Chatham. By not using the Fresnel lens, or even a rotating reflector system, the service would be required to maintain three towers (in lieu of one) and three banks of fixed reflectors each with 10 lamps to keep fueled, 10 wicks to trim and ten 13-inch reflectors to keep polished.

Shortly after the coast was divided into districts, the inspector for the 1^st District, Lt. Edward Carpenter USN inspected the lighthouses of his district and submitted a report in November of 1838. In the Nauset lights he reported – “Half-way between Cape Cod [Highland Lighthouse] and Chatham lights, on the Tableland of Nanset [Ed. Old spelling of Nauset], have just been erected three stone towers, 15 feet high and 150 feet apart… This is a clean, bold, regular coast; no port to be guided into by these lights, making it difficult, at first, to comprehend their use. Never, before, seen any similarly located, I found it difficult to reconcile myself to them on any terms. They were doubtless, given this triple appearance to distinguish them from Chatham lights…Nauset beach has always been considered a dangerous place for vessels…to guard against such disasters seems to be the object of these lights. I cannot, however, think that three lights are at all necessary. Any single distinguishable light that can be seen eight or ten miles will answer every purpose. Such a light is a revolving red light.” Lt Carpenter went on to justify why one rotating colored light would suffice and stated “I cannot believe that the government will consent to consume 900 gallons of oil, when 300 or 360 will answer every purpose.” He stated that he was going to recommend conversion to a single tower and light. At this point the station had not been placed into operation but the newly assigned keeper was expecting oil for that purpose momentarily.

Another inspection as a result of this Congressional inquiry revealed several lighthouses to be in deplorable shape. Lt Wm. D. Porter wrote:

“Smith’s Island - …This tower built of bad materials; the cement has already been affected by the atmosphere, and is crooked in many places. …Light badly kept. Keeper’s dwelling requires to be new shingled, new plastering for dwelling and kitchen; class for the house; new floors and hearth.

“Bowler’s rock light-boat – Found the captain, mate and crew absent…[the lantern] smokes badly…the boat requires calking and painting…

“Smith’s-point light-boat – Captain absent, with all the crew, for a week, the boat left in charge of a black boy, 14 years old; the lantern half-mast, and could not be hoisted by the boy…the boat requires new rigging; the lanterns are badly constructed, and the lamps lose oil…

“Highlands of Navesink – The revolving light burns fifteen lamps, with parabolic reflectors; the works [ed.- clockworks) slightly out of repair; the window sills and many of the beams rotten; silver burnt off the reflectors…tower leaks in many places; the light shows badly toward the north.”

On and on the report went, describing a lighthouse establishment out of control. There were some good reports, remarks of well kept stations and dedicated keepers…but for the main, a great deal was left to be desired.

Inspector Pleasonton managed to wiggle out of these reports to his superiors, but the sharks were gathering and new investigations were forthcoming.

The Investigation of 1842-1843

In February 1842 the House of Representatives Resolved, in part, “That the Committee on Commerce inquire into the expenditure of the lighthouse establishment since the year 1816, including expenditures for the building and repairing of lighthouses, light-ships…and make a report of the result of their inquires, and also to examine into the propriety of reorganizing this establishment; of changing the mode of its superintendency…and of so modifying the laws and practice under them…as to secure strict observation of the duties of superintendents and keepers of lights.” It was further resolved that the Committee should look into better regulations for the service and determine if the lighthouse service should be placed under the Topographical Bureau.

In May 1842 the Committee submitted their exhaustive report which, overall, took a rather kindly view of the existing administration as indicated by the following excerpt;

“From July 1820, when the number of lighthouses was 55, to the present year, when the number of lighthouses is 256, of light boats 30, of beacons about 35, and of buoys nearly 1,000, the establishment has been under the charge of the present general superintendent, the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury. It might well be expected that a twenty-two years’ service would have given to the incumbent an experience and a practical knowledge of his business, which should not, for slight causes, be lost to the public…” The report stated that maybe new expenditures should be made…that “When an old and well-tried system works tolerably well, change and experiments should be avoided.” And while it is true that complaints have been made…why, they would be made no matter who was in charge. The committee saw no reason to change or transfer the existing system…they stated that the system, as it existed, could compare favorably with any nation in the world.

On the day that report was submitted to the House of Representatives, Secretary of Treasury Forward appointed I.W.P. Lewis (Winslow’s nephew), a respected engineer, to make an examination of our aids to navigation and the management of same. I.W.P. Lewis inspected 70 lighthouses in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, which represented one third of the nation’s total.

The I.W.P. Lewis Report

After a general introduction, describing the unusual features of the Maine coast, etc., I.W.P. Lewis seriously questioned the decisions that had been made as to the placement of lighthouses and minor aids to navigation, use of characteristics and even inaccuracies of charting the aids to navigation. He found that small backwater lights had more reflectors in the lantern rooms than major seacoast lighthouses. “None of the great coast lights have more than ten lamps, except those near Portland, which have but fifteen. The beacon-light on Penobscot River has as many lamps, and much larger and better reflectors, than the great coast light of Petit Manan, where three wrecks have occurred since the period of this examination [Ed. – about four months]…As a rule of universal application to the lighthouses of this coast, resulting from careful observation in clear weather, it may be stated that the towers can be seen further by day than can the lights they respectively bear by night. In the structure of the lanterns and fitting up of the illuminating apparatus, all established rules and principles governing the subject are set at defiance…”

Concerning buoys and beacons he noted, ”Many of the existing beacons are located in close harbors, where they are of but little use, while there are but four on the entire coast of Maine that occupy exterior positions; and the same remarks apply to the buoyage of these waters. There are buoys in abundance on Kennebec River and in the snug harbors…but on the immense number of outlaying rocks and dangers there are none whatever; not one buoy, beacon, or spindle, to be seen in the whole navigation of Penobscot Bay. More than 10,000 sail of merchantmen pass annually through the Muscle Ledge passage…and this channel being notoriously dangerous, the utmost care is observed, by those who enter it, to avoid the sunken rocks and ledges, notwithstanding which, every day, almost, vessels are seen hard and fast upon one or other of these dangers,” Lewis slashed away, holding back nothing, “The mere arrangement of distinguishing lights on the coast of Mane will prove that there is neither knowledge of the wants of navigation, nor any attempt made to ascertain those wants.”

Lewis was appalled at the lack of variety on light characteristics assigned. He was amazed that certain areas of the coast had several lights in a row that were multiple or of the same flashing characteristic and that “From Monhegan island seven fixed lights are visible in one view.” It was very difficult, if not impossible, for a mariner to tell which light was which, or to fix his position. He noted that all the lights of Penobscot Bay were fixed and that there were only four rotating (flashing) lights on the coast of Maine and that they “are so badly fitted up that they frequently stop in their rotations, and become fixed lights in effect, though visible only in two directions.”

In Massachusetts he found the greatest danger to lie with the “Cohasset rocks” (better known to us as Minot’s Ledge). Ships entering Boston Bay during a northeast storm are driven on the ledge, which is “annually the scene of the most heart-rending disasters.” Although petitions had been circulating for years to erect a lighthouse on Minot’s Ledge nothing was done about it and, in fact, the situation was acerbated by the presence of the Scituate Lighthouse ‘behind’ the reef. I.W.P. Lewis stated “one of the causes of frequent shipwrecks on these rocks has been the lighthouse at Scituate, four miles to leeward of the reef, which has been repeatedly mistaken for Boston Light, and thus caused the death of many brave seamen and the loss of large amounts of property. Not a winter passes without one or more of these fearful accidents occurring. Notwithstanding this fact of the mistaken location of Scituate light (which is of no local importance whatever, standing at the entrance of an obscure harbor…) has been notoriously public for years, and nine out of ten of the wrecks on Cohasset rocks [Ed.- 416 wrecks in the general area in 9 years] attributed to its evil influence; still no report has ever been made to Congress by the superintendent.”

Lewis continued his inspection noting that off the beaten path lighthouses often had more lamps and reflectors than major seacoast or harbor lights, like Boston; that some areas had clusters of lights and other stretches were devoid of any light at all. He attacked the rated range of the various lights. The Lighthouse Service stated in Light Lists that a light with an elevation of 70 feet could be seen for 19 miles, when in fact the curvature of the earth will only allow a light at this height to be seen for 11 miles, not that the crude lamp reflector system would have that range were it properly elevated.

The inspection then shifted to the construction of the lighthouses. He began by castigating the vary mortar that they were constructed with, stating that the mixture of lime and sand was in such proportions that no “set” could be possible. He stated that there were two basic types of lighthouse in his area of inspection, “conical towers of rubble stone masonry, and wooden-frame towers, erected upon the roofs of the keepers’ dwelling-houses…a description of one of each kind will apply to all.” He noted that the rubble towers were capped by large slabs of soapstone laid on the top of the tower (projecting over from six to twelve inches) and not in anyway fastened to it. Thus during storms water was driven up the tower and between the soapstone slabs and tower wall and that “large quantities of water remain [in the tower] after every rain storm.” Then the water seeps down through the tower destroying the weak mortar, leaving sand and rotting the wood frame of the structure. Of course in winter this effect is worsened with the advent of ice, or the freeze-thaw situation. He found of the 31 lighthouses upon the coast of Maine, 24 were “injured from this cause alone.”

Of the wooden tower on the roof, type of structure he stated, “The angle posts [of the lantern] rest upon the attic floor beams, and are not supported by studding of any kind from below; consequently the whole weight and stress of the tower and lantern are borne by the horizontal beams…In every example of this method of construction…the same results were apparent viz: a distortion of the framing of the roof of the house by lateral swaying motion of the tower in storms, and constant opening of all the joints, causing profuse leakage. The same movement of the tower destroys the plastering of the ceilings beneath, and the frame work of the house rapidly decay.” He was shocked by not only the method of construction and workmanship, but by the design of the quarters. “… a division of the principal floor into three rooms, having a cellar beneath, and three above in the attic, which are always small and inconvenient, besides being cold and uncomfortable. The details of the work and materials are of the very roughest description, requiring regular annual repairs…At every station the complaint of smoky chimneys was made…very few of the stations were provided with the proper means of obtaining pure water…” he found that many remote and isolated stations either had no boat assigned or a boat too small to safely make it to civilization.

His findings for the construction of the lighthouses of Massachusetts were similar to his report on those of Maine.

In February 1843 Lewis submitted his report to Congress, through Treasury Secretary Forward. Secretary Forward included his recommendations with the report which stated, in part, that no further appropriations should be made for the erection of any lighthouse unless a competent engineer ascertained its necessity, suitability of site and a detailed plans and cost estimate for all buildings of the station. He also suggested that anytime repairs to any aid to navigation were estimated to exceed $500, funds should be approved by the Secretary of the Treasury. Finally he requested that the supervision of lighthouses be placed under a “competent and scientific engineer” who would be paid $3,000 a year.

I.W.P. Lewis’s report was made with such vigor that Stephen Pleasonton”s rebuttal, made to Treasury Secretary Spencer (who had replaced Forward) characterized the report as “these calumnies” and declared himself as “having been grossly misrepresented by him.”

Pleasonton wrote to Spencer “Sir: The lighthouse establishment within the States of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and its management, having been grossly misrepresented by a man employed by your immediate predecessor to inspect the same, and these calumnies having been communicated to the House…I took [liberty] to instruct the …superintendents, not only of these states, but in all the states bordering upon the Atlantic, to open books at their respective Custom Houses, and to ask the masters of ships and other vessels, as they visited the custom-houses to make entry, to enter in those books their several opinions as to the quality of all lights from Maine to Louisiana, and forward these books to me prior to the meeting of Congress at its present session.” Pleasonton went on to state that the “books” that he was forwarding contained the names of 1,000 masters of ships and other vessels who all attested to the excellence of the aids to navigation of this country. He also forwarded favorable testimony from the Marine Society of Portland, Maine representing 1,400 ships and other vessels.

He added to this vote of confidence the following statement: “In the report [I.W.P. Lewis’s] before alluded to, is an affidavit by one Daniel Bryant procured with a view of impeaching my character in connection with Mr. Winslow Lewis, who was employed by Mr. Bancroft to build three small lighthouses at Nauset Beach [Ed.- the Three Sisters of Nauset on Cape Cod]. Unfortunately for Daniel Bryant, there is not one word of truth in his disposition in regard to myself.” Pleasonton explained that Mr. Bancroft, Collector of Customs at Boston, was directed by him to advertise for proposal for the lighthouses (which had been approved by Congress), give the job to the lowest bidder and appoint a mechanic to oversee the project and make payment if the job was well done. Winslow Lewis was the low bidder, something that happened with amazing regularity, and Daniel Bryant was appointed mechanic or inspector.

On July 30, 1838 Bancroft wrote to Pleasonton that the work was complete “and done in a manner to do credit to Mr. Lewis, and was the best work of the kind, probably, in my district.” On the same day Daniel Bryant certified that the contract had been fully complied with and Lewis paid.

However, four years later the 2 December 1842 affidavit of Bryant stated: ”When the job was finished, I was called upon by the contractor to sign a certificate that the terms of his contract…had been honorably fulfilled. This paper I refused to sign, and referred the contractor to the collector at Boston…After a delay of some time, I received notice to call upon the collector at the Custom-house; and when I called there, I was directed to sign the certificate of approval before named.” When Bryant inquired as to why he should sign, the collector told him that the Fifth Auditor had accepted the work and that he should sign as a matter of form (it was just government paperwork). David Bryant did sign thinking that his objection to the quality of the work was waived.

Pleasonton wrote that he never received a letter from Winslow Lewis, nor never wrote a line to Mr. Bancroft and that…”This man, Bryant, will be indicted, and probably punished, for perjury in this case.” Things were heating up for the Fifth Auditor.

The names that he submitted in his defense did stay his “execution” for another eight years, but one has to wonder about the politics of the situation. Perhaps the Collectors of the various ports had some influence over the local mariners. And many of the names were no doubt those of mariners who had never been to Europe; had never seen the “light” and had nothing with which to compare the weak reflector system.

A prominent Boston Journal said: “The report that resulted from this partial survey was a severe blow to the defenders of the old [reflector] system; and if the Government had possessed the proper energy and vigilance, such an array of facts could not have been passed over unnoticed. A most important benefit, however, resulted to the public from the detail of the defective condition of the lighthouses, and particularly as to the illuminating apparatus contained in this report of Mr. I.W.P. Lewis; for it compelled the general superintendent of lighthouses to bestir himself and “get things a little more to rights.” But Stephan Pleasonton wasn’t about to “get things a little more to rights.” The report and recommendations were tabled by Congress to the next session.

In June 1845 the new Secretary of Treasury, R.J. Walker, detailed Navy LT’s Thornton A. Jenkins and Richard Bache to investigate the world situation. They were sent abroad “to procure information which may tend to the improvement of the lighthouse system of the United States; and as it is alleged that important improvements have been made in the lighthouses of Europe, especially those of France and Great Britain, the Department wishes to understand fully what those improvements are, and if they are adapted to introduction in our country.” They were instructed to obtain information on the organization of the various systems, construction methods, lighting apparatus, costs, instructions to keepers and even information on types of buoys used abroad.

After spending a year abroad the young officers submitted a report in June of 1846 that recommended the reorganization of the Lighthouse Establishment by the appointment of an engineer and optician and number of District Superintendents under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury. They recommended that the engineer would make the plans, drawings and specifications for all construction work and inspect each lighthouse at least once a year. The optician would test illuminates and lens apparatus and visit each lighthouse once a year to make repairs and adjust the apparatus. The coasts were to e divided into ten districts, each placed in charge of an officer of the Navy who would inspect his lighthouses once a month and establish positions of aids to navigation by angles, bearings, etc., and make regular reports to the central office.

Secretary Walker submitted the very detailed report and recommendations to Congress stating “The report of the inspecting officers detailed…to examine the lights of our coasts showed their absolute defects; the present report shows deficiencies as compared with other countries. The trial made of one of the French lights [Fresnel lens] at Sandy Hook …has been very successful, but the use of this apparatus has not been extended.” The Secretary noted that the law still required the old reflector system be employed. He went on to suggest that our system had grown to a point that one man could not attend to all the details concerning construction, contractual matters, modern developments and inspections…not to mention having the expertise to understand all the ramifications to navigation matters. Secretary Walker thought that the formation of a board was the answer and that such a board might include the 5^th Auditor, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, two naval officers and two from the Army (a Corp and Topographical engineer) and a junior Navy officer to act as secretary. He requested permission to appoint such a board.

Congress dragged its feet in this matter until March of 1851 when suddenly an Act was approved in which the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to place Fresnel lenses in lighthouses “as rapidly as he thought best,” to appoint a board of proper persons to inquire into the condition of the establishment, to make a (yet another) detailed report, and to detail from the Army engineering officers to superintend the construction and renovation of future lighthouses.

The Lighthouse Board

On May 21, 1851 Treasury Secretary Corwin appointed the board which consisted of Commodore W.B. Shubrick, USN (president), CDR S.F. DuPont USN, General Joseph G. Totten, U.S. Engineers, Col. James Kearney, U.S. Topographical Engineers, Prof. A.D. Bache, Superintendent U.S. Coast Survey, and LT. T. A. Jenkins USN (Secretary). Finally professionals were about to take charge of the aids to navigation of this country. This ad hoc committee, in short order, submitted to the Congress a most comprehensive report of some 760 pages and 40 Plates.

Commodore William B. Shubrick

The report detailed construction of towers and dwellings, instructions as to how keepers were to perform their duties, ability and fidelity of the inspectors, mode of procuring and furnishing oil and other stores to the light stations, methods of testing supplies and types of reports to be placed into the new system. The report recommended that Fresnel lenses be placed in all of our lighthouses and that they be classed by Order, like the French) 1^st Order being the largest and 6^th the smallest). Every aspect of construction, inspection and administration was laid out in fine detail. The report also recognized Mr. Pleasonton, who had administered the lighthouse service for over 30 years, a period in which the number of lighthouses had grown from 25 to well over 300. They said “great credit is due to the zeal and faithfulness of the General Superintendent and to the spirit of economy which he has shown,) which spirit, perhaps, accounted for the “lack of zeal exhibited for the adoption of modern improvements”; and went on to say that, really, it was too much to expect that one person had the ability to manage such a vast organization and to stay on top of all the new developments, as well as ensure that all aspects of the service were running smoothly.

Both houses passed this organic Act and on 31 August 1852 it was signed by the President. The ad hoc committee became the U.S. Lighthouse Board and would hold sway for the next 58 years.

The Secretary of the Treasury was to be president but, in his (usual) absence, a chairman was chosen. Commodore Shubrick was named the first chairman. Joining him on the board were Professor Joseph Henry (Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution), Capt. E.L.F. Hardcastle USA as Engineer Secretary. Shubrick served on the board, with some breaks, for 19 years, and Professor Henry was chairman for seven years. Other respected civilians who served on the board during this important period of lighthouse development were A.D. Bache, Mendenhall and Pritchett (all one time superintendents of the Coast and Geodetic Survey) and Henry Morgan, President of the Stevens Institute. Notable Navy officers were Jenkins, Dewey, Evans and Schley. The Army Engineers was represented by Totten, Humphreys, Franklin, Poe and Casey. Meade, in later years in Command of the federal troops at Gettysburg was engaged in lighthouse construction for six years in Delaware and Florida where he constructed Sombrero and Sand Key lighthouses, the first of the giant Florida reef structures. Other board officers that later served the Confederacy were CDR Semmes and Generals Rosecans and Beauregard.

The Lighthouse Board took up its duties immediately upon being organized. As instructed by the Act they divided the coasts of the country into twelve districts; seven on the Atlantic, two on the Lakes, two on the Gulf and one on the Pacific. At first an Army or Navy officer was assigned as inspector. Later each district would have a naval officer as inspector and an Army Corps of Engineer officer as engineer.

The board took immediate steps to replace all reflector systems with Fresnel lenses and by 1859 the substitution was nearly complete. The contract for the first 8 lighthouses for the west coast had been awarded in 1852 and the board immediately sent a change order to the contractor deleting the reflector system from the contract. The west coast lighthouses were to have Fresnel lenses from the beginning.

This was also the era in which the price of sperm whale oil skyrocketed. At first, following the lead of Europe, the Lighthouse Service substituted Colza oil (a wild cabbage) for whale oil to fuel the lamps. But our farmers could not be enticed to grow this crop in ample amounts and the service employed lard oil as the principal illuminate. The 1850’s also saw the development of several types of fog signals, invention of the bell buoy, construction of the first Lighthouse Service tender the Shubrick (which was assigned to the west coast), codification of a uniform system of buoyage and streamlining of the Notice to Mariners.

Lighthouses in the southern states suffered badly during the Civil War. A great many were partially or totally destroyed. In some cases the Confederates removed the lenses from the towers, hiding them until after the war was over. Nearly all the lightships in the Chesapeake were taken or sunk to obstruct various channels. Some 164 lighthouses were, in one way or another, placed out of commission during the hostilities. The management of the service also suffered as naval and army offers were reassigned to the military duties. The board tried to cooperate with the naval forces by relighting as many towers as was possible. In 1862 a bill was introduced into the Senate to transfer the Lighthouse Board to the Navy department. The Secretary of Treasury asked Admiral Shubrick his opinion of the proposal and Shubrick shot back that one need only to look at the progress made between 1852 and 1862 as compared to the situation prior to 1852 to see the folly of this reorganization. The bill failed.

Another attempt was made in the period 1882-1885. This proposal would combine the Lighthouse Service with the Life Saving Service and Coast Survey and transfer that amalgamation to the Navy. The Secretary of the Navy argued that those three services were maritime in nature and had no relationship to the Treasury…but the reorganization was thwarted.

In 1874 Congress extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Board over the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio Rivers, providing for such “beacon lights, day-beacons and buoys as may be necessary for the vessels navigating these streams.” The Act also provided that the rivers be divided into two (new) districts. The first light in the river districts was established at Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, MO in December 1874.

In 1883 several severe shipwrecks in Alaskan waters caused the board to establish 14 iron buoys in the new territory. However Alaska wouldn’t get its first lighthouse until after the turn of the century.

On July 26, 1886 Congress authorized an increase in lighthouse districts to sixteen, the rivers were now divided into three districts and by this time the west coast had two (California & the Pacific Northwest).

A Presidential Executive Order on May 1, 1900 placed the Puerto Rican Lighthouse Service under the Lighthouse Board. Several requests were made during this era for an increase of the Districts from 16 to 18 so that Puerto Rico and the Dutch West Indies could be districts. Requests were also made to provide for the Hawaiian lighthouses, should they be transferred to the U.S. Lighthouse Service. Although there were some aids to navigation in Alaskan waters (which were under the Pacific Northwest District) no lighthouses had been constructed. On the first of January 1905 the Hawaii lighthouses became a sub district of the 12^th (California) district. Later that year the Midway aids to navigation joined Hawaii under the 12^th District with Guam and the Samoan islands following suit in 1905.

Lighthouses Transferred to Commerce Department

The Department of Commerce was created by an Act on May 14, 1903. A provision of the act required the transfer of the Lighthouse Board from Treasury to this new department. The Lighthouse Board, by this date, had been in existence for over 50 years and had not only increased the number of aids to navigation in the country, but had carried out some notable and difficult lighthouse construction (Minot's Ledge, Tillamook Rock and St. George Reef to name but a few).

Bureau of Lighthouses Created

In June of 1910 Congress passed an Act that reorganized the Lighthouse Service. The Lighthouse Board had now been in control for 58 years. Total lighted aids had increased from around 335 when the board assumed control to nearly 4,000 (this includes minor lights and lighted buoys). Fog signals had increased from 49 to 457, and buoys from 1,000 to 5,300. The board, which had been necessary to oversee a system too complex for one man had now, itself, become obsolete. Congress now thought that a pyramid structure was necessary with a single bureau chief at the top of the pile. We had come, in a way, full circle. Congress also felt that assigning military officers as engineers and inspectors of the districts (for short periods of time) caused the loss of continuity. They wanted the assignment of a civilian inspector, who would hopefully serve for many years, to provide continuity.

The Organic Act of 1910 authorized that civilian personnel manage the system, and a period of three years be used to implement the new system. Further it increased the number of Districts to 18 to establish separate districts for Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska. In the future each district would be managed by a single head, a District Inspector (in 1918 this title was changed to District Superintendent) who answered directly to the Commissioner of Lighthouses on all matters relating to his district. Each district was staffed with an assistant, a clerk and an engineer.

George Putnam, who had a long and distinguished career with the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, was appointed the first Commissioner of the new bureau. He would reign until May 31, 1935 when he was forced to retire due to age. Prior to assuming control over the Lighthouse Service, Putman was director of the coastal surveys of the Philippines. Once appointed to the new bureau he took firm control and instituted, not only the new administration, but many changes as technological advances were developed, among them radiobeacons. At his retirement luncheon Secretary of Treasury Roper congratulated Mr. Putnam on his distinguished career of 45 years and noted that while aids to navigation had increased from around 12,000 to 24,000 during his tenure, the number of employees dropped from 5,832 to 4,980. Putnam was replaced by H.D. King who headed up the bureau until the Coast Guard assumed control in 1939.

George Putnam Commissioner of the Lighthouse Bureau

President Roosevelt’s Reorganization Order #11 consolidated the Lighthouse Service with the U.S. Coast Guard to take effect on July 1, 1939. It read: “Bureau of Lighthouses – The Bureau of Lighthouses in the Department of Commerce and its functions are hereby transferred to and shall be consolidated with the administration of the Coast Guard in the Department of Treasury.” And, thus, lighthouses were back under Treasury again.

After the reorganization the keepers had several options: (1) Quit, (2) Retire (if they had enough time in service (3) Remain a keeper (wearing the USLHS uniform) (4) Transfer into the Coast Guard at an applicable (lateral) rate. Keepers who transferred were given a petty officer rank that equaled the pay they were then drawing; a head keeper might become a 1^st class, an assistant 2^nd or 3^rd. etc., and most keepers were given a boatswain mate rating. While some personnel remained “keepers,” there was an advantage to transferring to the Coast Guard. The storm clouds of WWII were gathering. Because keepers were Civil Service they were eligible for the draft.

During the 1960’s, when automation was in full swing, light stations were a strange mix of civilian and enlisted Coast Guard. By this period the few keepers remaining from the Lighthouse Service had acquired seniority, and knowledge, to the extent that they were head keepers of the manned stations to which they were assigned. They were provided two, or three, young Coast Guardsmen to assist in running the station. By the late 1970’s all civilian keepers had retired with exception of Frank Schubert, keeper of the Coney Island, NY station. Also by the end of the 1970’s most light stations of this country were unmanned, less than ten remained at the start of 1989 and this number dwindled to zero within the next few years.

After 273 years, the era of manned lighthouses in this country was fast approaching an end. That unique way of life passed as surely as had the era of the tall ship and steam locomotives. Somewhere, in a remote area of Canada or perhaps India, people are still assigned to a lighthouse to fulfill the role of weather watcher or to assist with a remote communications link. And there are stations, constructed long ago in the age of steam and clipper ships, where a scientist will reside to study and manage our wildlife. But the era of the manned light-station, and the Golden Age of Lighthouses (the 19^th Century) has passed.

Modern inexpensive electronics (both ashore at major sea coast lights and aboard all size vessels) have obviated the need for people to tend the flame, record weather and watch for vessels in distress.

As our civilization progresses, we move two steps forward…and sometimes one step backwards. In the areas of convenience, cost of goods and their availability, health and creature comforts, we continue to gain…in matters of a slower paced way of life and the personal touch, we sometimes lose – ebb and flow. Progress continues but, for us, a quaint, unique and altruistic way of life has passed over the horizon.

Other Historical Information

Chronology of Lighthouse Events by Thomas Tag

tomtag — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 19:55:50 +0000

Introduction

The following document is a chronology of the major technical events that occurred in lighthouse development throughout time, from the earliest entry of 1300 BC to the last recorded event of 1990.

The document is broken down into major time periods as follows:

Chronology prior to 1800

The period 1800 to 1849

The period 1850 to 1899

The period 1900 to the present

Each line item identifies a specific important event in lighthouse history.

Chronology before 1800

1300 BC The Trojans built an early fire tower or lighthouse at Sigeum.

280 BC The Pharos of Alexandria was completed in Egypt.

280 BC The building of the Colossus of Rhodes was begun in the eastern Mediterranean on the Island of Rhodes.

40 Caligula built a stone tower lighthouse at Boulogne in Gaul (now France).

50 The Romans built a fire beacon at Ostia, one of their more significant ports.

53 The oldest lighthouse in England was built by the Romans at Dover.

1200 First recorded use of Navigation Buoys in Guadalquivir River Seville, Spain.

1280 The church of Brielle in the Netherlands gave permission for the establishment of two ‘fire beacons’ at the mouth of the Meuse estuary.

1323 Small light at St. Catherine’s on the Isle of Wight in England.

1400 Cresset - A hollowed out stone bowl filled with oil and a wick was used at St. Michael’s Mount lighthouse in England.

1400 A navigation light was built in Venice that burned oil.

1500 Wood burnt until around 1500 then coal took over.

1500 Early 1500s use of coal as a fuel.

1514 Charter granted to Trinity House by Henry VIII.

1532 The earliest use of reflectors was on the Baltic Sea at the Lighthouse of Gollenberg which had a single candle lamp backed by a metal reflector.

1540 Coal fire light at Tynemouth England.

1540 First use of candles in England, at North Shields.

1566 Trinity House given Seamarks charter.

1571 Leonhard Digges, in England, used a parabolic reflector to ignite gunpowder at a distance.

1584 Cordouan lighthouse tower construction began at mouth of Gironde in France. This tower replaced a small structure.

1607 First Trinity House light.

1611 Cordouan Lighthouse, in France was completed.

1614 Caligula’s stone tower lighthouse at Boulogne fell down.

1616 The first English lighthouse to use mined coal was Dungeness.

1618 First double tower light to provide a distinctive characteristic in England was at Wintertonness.

1624 Jens Pedersen Groves in Denmark invented the Vippefyr or lever light in which an iron basket containing burning coals was raised, very simply by a lever, some 14 to 30 feet above ground level or above the top of a tower.

1635 German Feuerwuppe was invented; it was their version of the Vippefyr.

1636 Isle of May light established in Scotland using coal as an illuminant.

1650 Vippefyr light established near Skagen Harbor in Denmark.

1660 Johan D. Braun designed and manufactured cast-steel reflectors in Sweden.

1665 The Royal Glass Works, for runner to the Saint Gobain Glass Works is established in France. Saint Gobain is the major producer of glass for Fresnel lenses.

1669 Use of reflector at Landsort lighthouse in Sweden.

1673 The beacon at Point Allerton, Massachusetts, was illuminated with ‘fier bales of pitch and ocum.’

1680 One of the first lighthouses with an enclosed lantern was built at St. Sgnes in the Scilly Islands of England.

1681 J. D. Braun given Swedish patent for steel mirrors.

1687 The lighthouse of Orskar, in Sweden had six large reflectors, shape unknown, with two lamps each.

1699 Tallow candles used at Eddystone in England.

1710 Metal reflectors were used in Germany at Travemünde.

1716 Lighthouse on Little Brewster Island Boston lighted by Tallow Candles, followed later by Spider Lamps.

1717 Wood burning Fire Basket in use at Cordouan, France is converted to the burning of coal.

1719 First fog signal in America was a cannon at the Boston Lighthouse on Little Brewster Island.

1726 Lighthouse established by Zaccheus Lumbert at Tarpolin Cove on Naushon Island, MA.

1727 Monsieur Bitry rebuilt the lantern at Cordouan, in France. It burned 225 pounds of coal a night. He created an inverted cone in the ceiling that projected downward 3 feet and covered its surface with tin plates to form a reflecting surface.

1730 First use of oil in British lighthouses was about 1730.

1731 Robert Hamblin succeeded in obtaining a patent for the use of lightships for lighting of the British coasts. The patent granted to Hamblin was revoked shortly after its issue.

1732 David Avery succeeded in establishing friendly relations with Trinity House, and with its co-operation put the Nore Sand Lightship in position. This was a small vessel fitted with a number of little flat-wick lanterns fixed at the extremities of the yardarms. The light produced was dim and frequently blew out.

1734 First Canadian lighthouse at Louisbourg Nova Scotia.

1736 Copper reflectors used with candles at North Shields in England.

1738 A flashing light was invented by Jonas Norberg in Sweden with about 500 candlepower. It was abandoned because it produced too much condensation and tended to freeze up in winter.

1738 The first mention of a parabolic reflector suggests that five parabolic Braun cast-steel reflectors, each with from two to six lamps were installed at the Orskar lighthouse in Sweden.

1748 G.L.L. Buffon suggested reducing the thickness of a lens by grinding out steps in concentric zones with each step shaped to the curvature of the original lens.

1750 Polished brass reflectors were installed at the Korso light in Sweden.

1752 Large convex lenses were built into the lantern glass at South Foreland in England.

1752 Lizard Light built, in England, with 4 towers burning coal.

1753 A moving screen was used at Uto in Sweden to alternately light two separate channels from one light source. This light is also reported to have used mirrored reflectors.

1755 Small lenses were actually applied in several lighthouses in England and Ireland.

1757 Air whistle and trumpet powered by a horse used at Beaver Tail lighthouse in Rhode Island.

1757 Jonas Norberg experimented at the lighthouse at Korso Sweden with reflectors rotated back and forth by hand (oscillated) to produce flashes. Norberg’s reflectors were parabolic and eight inches in diameter.

1759 Smeaton first used flat wick lamps in Eddystone, however, they failed due to smoke build up in the lantern room.

1759 Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse was fitted with twenty-four tallow candles.

1763 Irish Ballast Board created.

1763 The first scientifically designed parabolic reflectors were a design by Mr. Hutchinson of Liverpool England. Hutchinson’s 1763 reflectors had a ‘spreading burner.’ The size of the burner was 3 inch for reflector 3 feet, 12 inch for reflectors 7 ½ feet, 14 inch for reflector 12 feet. The wicks were trimmed every 4 hours.

1763 Light at Leasowe in England used a coal fire.

1764 Spider lamp burned fish-oil using a solid wick with the lamp suspended by iron chains from the lighthouse dome. Used at Sandy Hook, in America starting in 1764. It had 48 lamps burning oil.

1765 Lavoisier, in France, proved that a parabolic reflector, with a light source at its focal point, was the best way to concentrate light into a beam and to direct it as needed.

1766 First recorded fog signal using a bell at Nidingen, Sweden.

1767 First buoy in U.S., wooden cask buoys, used in Delaware River.

1767 John Smeaton designed a Swape ‘Lever Light’ for Spurn Point in England.

1769 Jonas Norberg experimented at the lighthouse at Orskar, Sweden with improved reflectors rotated back and forth by hand (oscillated) to produce flashes.

1770 Teulere’s reflectors began use in France.

1770 William Hutchinson designed a dual tin reflector with a single two-spout lamp.

1771 Pierre Tourtille-Sangrain, in France, invented a spherical reflector with two burners.

1772 Bidson Hill near Liverpool, in England had a wooden tower where Captain Hutchinson tested his reflecting mirror for Lighthouses. In 1772 he was paid 20 guineas for his reflecting lights used at the lighthouses of this port. This was Hutchinson’s largest reflector at thirteen and a half feet diameter.

1772 A large brass reflector was installed at the Harwich high light, in England behind a coal fire.

1773 The ribbon wick was invented by Monsieur Leger.

1773 Pierre Tourtille-Sangrain’s reflectors were first installed at the lighthouse at St. Mathieu, France.

1775 Proposal to show a green light at the Smalls lighthouse, in England was the first use of a colored light in England.

1776 Ezekiel Walker rebuilt the Hunstanton lighthouse, in England and installed lamps with 18-inch parabolic reflectors made of pieces of mirror glass.

1776 John Smeaton designed a funnel chimney to provide a draft for the coal fire at the high light at Spurn Point, in England.

1777 Navigation Bell (for fog) at Bamburgh Castle North Humberland, in England.

1778 Spangle light at Lowestoft, in England, had a special concave drum reflector with 4000 glass facets.

1779 Three copper lamps and reflectors were ordered by the Trinity House for the Casquet lighthouses, in England.

1780 The first use of Wooden Spar Buoys, in America, was made in Boston Harbor.

1780 Spherical Reflectors were under test in France.

1780 Borda proposed the use of a reflecting circle, in France.

1780 The first attempt at the construction of Buffon’s idea of a one-piece lens made in concentric zones was made by the Abbé Rochon, in France.

1780 First attempt to use coal gas by Trinity House, in England.

1780 François-Pierre Amié Argand began work on the hollow or double air current wick lamp with a tubular chimney, as well as simple reflectors and wick lifting mechanisms.

1781 Jonas Norberg succeeded in manufacturing a rotating light. This gave the possibility to give each lighthouse its own character. He arranged reflectors on a stand rotated by a clockwork. First lighthouse with a revolving beam using the Jonas Norberg system was at the Carlsten lighthouse near Marstands, Sweden. This was a reflector system with three oil lamps and each lamp had 2 reflectors associated with it.

1781 Coal oil was proposed as a fuel for lamps.

1781 Spherical reflectors with oil lamps were installed at La Heve, in France.

1781 Trinity House used oil lamps with reflectors at the Casquet lighthouse, north of Guernsey in England.

1782 Cordouan lighthouse coal fire replaced with 80 spherical reflectors and lamps with flat wicks by Tourtille-Sangrain. The light was so poor that mariners earnestly requested a return to the old coal fire.

1782 Lemoyne suggested using lights that flashed at regular intervals, every lighthouse having its own distinguishing rhythm.

1782 François-Pierre Ami Argand completed his basic lamp design.

1782 British construct a lighthouse on the Great Lakes at Fort Niagara.

1783 Joseph Teulere proposed the use of improved parabolic reflectors and lamps in France.

1783 Jan Pieter Minckelares invented a way to produce coal gas.

1784 Joseph Teulere’s reflector was built by J. C. Borda and was first installed at the Dieppe Lighthouse in France. It used 5 parabolic reflectors based on the Jonas Norberg rotating system. J. C. Borda, created true parabolic reflectors using Argand lamps. Borda also invented the use of reflector lamps mounted in several tiers on square or polygonal frames that were turned on a vertical central shaft, creating a revolving characteristic for the lighthouse.

1785 Wicks woven in stocking form (hollow) began to appear for use in Argand lamps.

1785 A rotating reflector light based on the Jonas Norberg design was installed at Liverpool, England.

1785 Benjamin Thompson, known as Count Rumford, invented the first multiple wick lamp.

1786 Northern Lighthouse Board authorized in Scotland by act of Parliament.

1786 One of Thomas Smith’s earliest lamps for lighthouse use consisting of an Argand style lamp and a parabolic reflector made of polished tin was put on trial at Inchkeith lighthouse, in Scotland.

1786 New Swape Light (a kind of Vippefyr) at Spurn Point, in England, used coal till 1816 then the Swape was removed and replaced by a lighthouse with reflectors.

1786 Lenses were installed at Portland Bill, in England sometime between 1786 and 1790 by Thomas Rogers. They were 21 inches in diameter and 5 ½-inches thick. The lamp flame was 3 inches in diameter and behind the flame was placed a glass spherical reflector 12 or 18 inches in diameter that was silvered over on its convex side with quick silver. These lenses were also used at the Hill of Howth and at Waterford, in Ireland.

1786 Thomas Smith began making tin reflectors.

1786 Thomas Smith developed reflectors with a new design. They were octagonal 12 inches in diameter made of 48 pieces of mirror glass.

1787 First Scottish use of large (18-inch) reflectors made of mirror glass set in plaster by Thomas Smith. (at Kinnaird Head lighthouse) The reflectors were larger than his original 1786 design, composed of 350 facets of silvered glass.

1787 Ambroise-Baunaventure Lange invented the constricted lamp chimney that provided additional outer airflow across the wick increasing the brilliance of the flame.

1787 The Guyton de Morveau invented the first use of multiple concentric wicks in a lamp.

1787 Peter Kier invented the Hydrostatic lamp, where a heavy liquid flows below the oil to raise it to the wick.

1788 The Marquis Antoine de Condorcet suggested building a reduced thickness lens based on Buffon’s principles but made from an aggregate of separate rings.

1788 Trinity house first adopted silvered parabolic reflectors and Argand burners at the Portland lighthouse. This was the first use of Argand lamps in England.

1788 First use of a rear spherical mirror to direct light forward through the flame by Thomas Rogers. Thomas Rogers' spherical glass reflectors were made of blown-glass-half spheres made into mirrors. Alan Stevenson proposed in 1834 to make similar mirrors.

1788 Thomas Rogers designed lenses 21 inches in diameter and made by grinding down a single slab of glass. His lenses were five inches thick.

1789 First U. S. Congress passed law establishing the American Lighthouse Service. Congress’ 9^th act took over all Colonial lighthouses.

1789 Thomas Rogers invented a plano-convex lens with his partner George Robinson, an optical expert that was used at the Portland Low Light, in England. This made the Portland Low Light the first lighthouse in the world to use a magnifying optical lens.

1790 The first revolving reflector light was established at the St. Agnes lighthouse on the Islands of Scilly, in England.

1790 Monsieur Guinand in France first produced a true optical glass lens of nine inches in diameter.

1790 J. C. Borda built the 24 reflector and lamp system for Cordouan lighthouse and installed it in 1790 after the lighthouse was rebuilt by Joseph Teulere. This reflector system used the Jonas Norberg rotating design. Cordouan lighthouse in France began using a rotating light, with parabolic mirror metallic reflectors. Monsieur Lenoir made the reflectors used at Cordouan from steel faced with 3 or 4 leaves of silver. The lamps used were made by Monsieur Quinquet and had no chimneys.

1790 Mr. Lincoln in Boston proposed a solution to smoke within the lantern room. He redesigned the ventilator and added holes around the lantern room for incoming air and provided an air inlet below the lamps.

1790 Spider lamps (a pie shaped pan of oil from which 4 wicks protruded. There were four such pans) were used at Boston light, in America. They gave off acrid fumes and continued in use until 1812.

1791 Beacon on Baker’s Island, in Boston harbor, built by Salem Marine Society.

1791 The New London lighthouse, in America was lighted by three spider lamps with three solid wicks in each.

1792 The French Lighthouse Service put under the Ministry of Marine.

1792 Cape Henry lighthouse, in America used 8 bucket lamps in two tiers each with 8 quarts of Herring oil.

1792 Captain Richard Walker designed parabolic reflectors made on a wooden frame coated with plaster into which 721 pieces of mirror-glass were set. The reflectors were installed at the Walney light, in England.

1792 Records mention three floating beacons in the Chesapeake Bay, in America.

1793 President George Washington approved a contract for a floating beacon for the Delaware River.

1794 American, Sir Benjamin Thomson who was also known as Count Rumford, designed a version of the Argand lamp that produced 12 candlepower.

1795 Ezekiel Walker described how to set mirror facets into a parabolic plaster shell. He used one-half inch long facets of mirror glass tapering in width arranged in long rows and fixed in position with varnish and white lead.

1796 First use of polished-metal-parabolic reflectors in Germany at Memel (now in Lithuania)

1797 An Act of Congress provided for 16 buoys for Boston Harbor, in America.

1798 Eclipser installed at Cape Cod lighthouse built by John Bailey of U.S. showed light for 50 seconds and then dark for 30 seconds used a screen revolving around the oil lamps so that their light would be obscured at intervals operated by clockwork.

1799 Bernard-Guillaume Carcel invented the pump style lamp. This lamp used the oil overflow principle to help cool the wick especially in multi-wicked lamps. It had a double piston operated by clockwork, which forced oil through a tube to the burner.

1799 Phillip LeBon d’Hambersin, in France, was given patent in 1799 for making illuminating gas from wood. He called his invention the Thermo Lamp. The Thermo Lamp was first used in the lighthouse at Le Havre in the same year.

Chronology from 1800 to 1849

1800 Light began to be measured, in France, using its equivalent in Carcel burners.

1800 Gas from carbonizing wood used at lighthouse in Porkkala, Finland.

1800 Cast iron lighthouse proposed by Rennie for Bell Rock.

1800 Early experiments with Coal gas by Trinity House in England.

1800 Dr. Van Marum invented a lantern ventilation system.

1801 First experiments with the electric arc light were conducted, in England, by Johann Ritter and Sir Humphry Davy.

1801 The Harwich Lighthouse, in England used a flat brass plate as a reflector behind a coal fire.

1801 Revolving light producing 3 flashes was built at St. Agnes, in England.

1801 The last glass facet reflector was built in Scotland by Thomas Smith.

1801 Bordier-Marcet purchased Argand’s lamp factory in France.

1802 Argand invented a reflector with two curves, one parabolic and one an ellipsoid. This was proposed by Argand for use in lighthouses, but was abandoned in 1803.

1802 Humphry Davy showed the Royal Society in England that a platinum wire heated by electricity produced light.

1803 Porpoise oil tested at the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, in America.

1803 First Scottish use of polished silver-plated parabolic reflectors and Argand burners was made by Robert Stevenson at Inchkeith lighthouse.

1803 Early cast iron lighthouse was built at Swansea, in England.

1805 Coal gas tried with reflector behind the flame by Trinity House.

1805 French lighthouse Service put under Commissioners of Roads and Bridges.

1806 First use of red color characteristics in a lighthouse optic was invented by Benjamin Milne in England and installed at the Flamborough Head lighthouse, England.

1806 Hydrogen gaslights were experimented with in England.

1807 George Robinson installed lenses 4 ½ inches in diameter in front of the flame of the Argand lamps at the Flamborough lighthouse, in England.

1807 Robert Stevenson invented lightship lantern that surrounds the mast, which was first used on the lightship located at the Bell Rock lighthouse, Scotland, construction site.

1807 George Robinson became consultant engineer to Trinity House.

1808 The electric arc light was demonstrated by Sir Humphry Davy.

1808 Bordier-Marcet invents the ‘fanal a double effet’ reflector.

1809 Robert Stevenson designs reflector/lamp where lamp can be lowered to polish and clean the reflector. Also invented drip cup to collect surplus oil, frost lamp to liquefy oil, 24-hour oil supply.

1809 Robert Stevenson began trials of various colors for distinguishing lighthouses. He tried red glass chimneys and green glass sheets as well as other colors.

1809 Bordier-Marcet invents the ‘fanal sidereal’ reflector.

1809 Thomas Rogers installed lenses in front of the Argand lamps at the Holyhead lighthouse in Wales. These were the lenses seen and probably copied by Winslow Lewis for use in America.

1809 Monsieur De La Rue placed a helical shaped platinum wire in a vacuum inside a sealed glass tube and applied electricity producing the first experimental incandescent light bulb.

1810 Original patent by David Melville for a gaslight.

1810 Robert Stevenson experiments with small lenses very similar to those used by Robinson. He also experiments with a larger red glass lens, however the experiments prove that this style of lens is of no value.

1810 Winslow Lewis designed a crude Argand style lamp with a crude parabolic reflector and lens assembly. U.S. Patent no. 1305-X.

1810 Control of the Irish lights is given to the Ballast Board in Dublin.

1811 Sir David Brewster suggested building a large lens from an aggregate of pieces of separate rings for use as a burning lens. He did not pursue his design and no attempt was made to actually produce a lens of pieces of separate rings.

1811 A Commission on Lighthouses was appointed in France on April 29, 1811.

1811 Robert Stevenson invented a vertically opening screen to create a flashing characteristic.

1811 The Bell Rock lighthouse was completed in Scotland using newly designed silvered metal reflectors by Robert Stevenson.

1811 Robert Stevenson designed an apparatus for automatically tolling a bell on a buoy at the Bell Rock.

1812 Bordier-Marcet patented the Fanal Sidereal reflector in France.

1812 Brewster's treatise on Burning Instruments was published in 1812.

1812 Winslow Lewis Patent ‘Reflecting and Magnifying Lantern’ was sold to the U.S. Government for $20,000 and became the standard American lamp and reflector until 1852. The Lens was bottle green 9 inches diameter and 2 and a half to 4 inches thick.

1813 Improved patent for gas light for use in lighthouse by David Melville.

1814 Lighthouse in Uto Finland had a huge parabolic frame of wood covered with small pieces of mirror glass moved by hand to different positions (oscillating).

1816 The last coal fire in Scotland was discontinued on the Isle of May.

1817 Coal gas used to light Beavertail lighthouse at Newport RI, using David Melville's system. This was the first known use of Coal gas in a lighthouse.

1817 David Melville invents an oil heater for use with Winslow Lewis lamps.

1818 Coal gas first used at lighthouse at the Salvore lighthouse, near Trieste, Italy.

1818 In Britain a rotating four-sided box punched with letters of the alphabet is designed for lighthouse characteristic, by T.S. Peckston.

1818 First American-built lighthouses on the Great Lakes at Buffalo NY and Presque Isle (Erie) PA.

1819 Bordier-Marcet invents fanal sidereal reflector.

1819 Fresnel on June 21, 1819 first began his work in the French lighthouse commission.

1819 Fresnel completes his first report on optics for lighthouses on August 29, 1819 just two months after starting work on the project.

1819 Fresnel began the design of a large 3-foot diameter lens that was built by Soleil. It was used by Arago and Matieu in the trigonometrical survey of France. Later in 1821, it was used at Cape Grisnez, in France.

1819 Fresnel and Arago invented the multiple concentric wick lamp, using the Carcel clockwork pumps.

1819 Siren invented by Charles Cagniard de La Tour.

1820 The last glass facet reflectors in Scotland were removed and replaced with silvered metal reflectors.

1820 Fresnel began to design a lighthouse lens.

1820 The first American Lightship in Chesapeake Bay off Craney Island near Willoughby Spit.

1820 Stephen Pleasonton appointed fifth auditor of the treasury in charge of American navigational aids.

1820 First use of Oil gas at Holyhead in Wales.

1820 First bell fog signal in America at West Quoddy Head in 1820.

1821 Fresnel completed the design of the first bulls-eye panel for a first-order lens.

1821 Fresnel and Arago invent burner with multiple concentric wicks.

1821 On November 1, 1821, Colonel Colby wrote to Robert Stevenson informing him of Fresnel's lens and lamp designs and experiments in France.

1822 Last light to burn Coal in England was at St. Bees. Note: Some sources say it was 1823.

1822 Prototype lighthouse lenses were first made for Fresnel by Monsieur Soleil of Paris.

1822 Fresnel published his “Memoire sur Un Nouveau Systeme d’Eclairage des Phares” on July 29, 1822.

1823 First Fresnel first-order lens was approved by the lighthouse commission and installed on July 23, 1823 in the Cordouan lighthouse tower at the mouth of the Gironde River, in France.

1823 Pintsch's oil-gas tried at South Foreland lighthouse in England.

1823 Bordier-Marcet invents the ‘fanal a double aspect’ reflector.

1824 Fresnel completed the design of the first third-order fixed lens.

1824 Robert Stevenson traveled to France to see the Cordouan lighthouse and then ordered the first Fresnel Lens for use in Scotland.

1824 Fresnel and Arago completed the design of a gas burner for use with Fresnel’s lens.

1825 Fresnel completed the design of the first third-order fixed-flashing lens.

1825 French Chemist Chevreul patented the Stearin candle.

1825 Limelight invented by Thomas Drummond.

1825 Mercurial rotation was first proposed by Fresnel, but it was never built by him.

1825 The French lighthouse Commission adopted the exclusive use of the lenticular system of illumination and at the same time, the plan of Admiral De Russel for systematic placement of all major lighthouses.

1825 First use of a revolving light on a light-ship at the Nore Sand in England.

1825 François Soleil opens his factory for production of Fresnel lenses in Paris.

1825 Augustin Henry (later Henry-Lepaute) developed his first rotation clockwork for Fresnel.

1826 Fresnel completed the design of the first catadioptric lens.

1826 The Drummond Lime Light was first used in the Irish geological survey.

1827 First large catadioptric prism rings were built by Monsieur Tabouret in 1827 just before Augustin Fresnel's death.

1827 Experiments were made in 1827 with a lens proposed by Sir. David Brewster and made by Mr. Gilbert.

1827 Mr. Wilson of Troon first used the raising and lowering of the gas supply to produce a flash in a gaslight.

1828 Robert Stevenson proposes uniform system of buoy marking and color for use in the river Forth in Scotland.

1828 The first lens discs of fourteen inches diameter were produced by Georges Bontemps who later joined Chance Brothers of Birmingham, England.

1829 The Drummond Lime Light = 264 Argand lamps based on Trinity House experiments.

1829 Barcelona Lighthouse used gas from a natural pocket of hydrogen gas to light its lamps, but the gas gave out in 1838 and the light was converted to oil. This was first gas Lighthouse in America.

1830 Alexander Mitchell first invented the screw pile.

1830 Henry Lepaute invented the escapement lamp using two groups of alternating pumps with metal pistons.

1831 The Cookson Company, of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, produced the first annular lens in England, from a single slab of glass using Buffon’s design.

1832 The first dioptric lens in Norway/Sweden was in the lighthouse on the Isle of Oxoe.

1833 Mr. Oldham designed a replacement for the Carcel lamp in Scotland.

1833 Various lenses and chemical lights were tried in experiments by the Northern Lighthouse Board in Scotland.

1833 Trials of the Drummond Lime light were made in Scotland.

1833 Alexander Mitchell received his patent for the screw pile. It was first used at Malpin Sand lighthouse, in England, in 1841.

1834 Alan Stevenson proposed placing a segment of a spherical mirror behind (on the landside) of a fixed lens.

1834 Robert Stevenson experiments with Drummond's Limelight.

1834 Robert Stevenson began using Isaac Cookson of Newcastle to build improved revolving machinery.

1834 Alan Stevenson sent to France to acquire knowledge of the Fresnel system.

1834 Holyhead Harbor Light and Swansea in England lighted with oil-gas.

1835 Alan Stevenson proposes adding reflecting prisms below the lenses of Fresnel's revolving light. Design first built in 1843.

1835 Sir Goldsworthy Gurney proposed the Bude lamp in which a jet of oxygen gas is added to the oil flame. This made the flame far more brilliant but charred the wick.

1835 The first dioptric lens was installed in Scotland at Inchkeith, and was made by the Isaac Cookson Co.

1836 The first dioptric lens was installed in England at Start Point, and was made by the Isaac Cookson Co.

1836 First attempt to make a 1st order fixed dioptric drum in one piece (instead of 32 pieces as done in France) by Cookson in England, a manufacturer of mirrors at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The French soon after made single piece drums of 2 meters diameter.

1836 Franchot invented the moderator lamp. The chief feature of the moderator lamp is its use of a spiral spring, which forces the oil upward through a vertical tube to the burner. This was much simpler in construction than a Carcel lamp.

1836 Faraday appointed scientific advisor to Trinity House.

1836 John Lake makes first proposal for use of iron in building a lighthouse, and suggested the use of the electric-arc lamp in lighthouses.

1836 Alexander Mitchell's first screw pile lighthouse at Maplin Sands, in England was the first iron Lighthouse built.

1836 Mr. E. Sang built small harbor light with diagonal astragals.

1836 The first Scottish dioptric fixed light was erected at the Isle of May, the work having been executed by the Isaac Cookson Co.

1836 Chance Brothers Glass works is founded in England.

1837 William Bush developed a patent for erecting a caisson for a lighthouse upon sand banks.

1837 Bude light proposed to be adapted for use in Lighthouse. Bude light produced by throwing oxygen into a flame of ordinary fatty oils.

1837 The first use of Coal gas on a pier in Troon.

1837 Wilkins invented the Pneumatic lamp where oil was raised to overflow the wicks through the use of air pressure.

1837 The first lightship on the Great Lakes was established in the Mackinaw Straits.

1837 A triangle chime is used as a fog signal at the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse in America.

1838 A Congressional Committee made a report recommending the importation and trial of two lenses from France and Captain Perry, of the United States Navy was assigned the task of traveling to France and procuring the lenses.

1838 Alexander Mitchell erects lighthouse at the Maplin Sands in England using his invention of screw piles. A fog bell is also installed.

1838 A fog bell operated by the tide was installed at the Whitehead Lighthouse in Maine.

1838 Jean Jacques François takes over the former Soleil lens works in Paris.

1838 Augustin Henry (later Henry-Lepaute) establishes his lens and clockwork factory in Paris.

1839 The Bude light trial at Orford Low lighthouse, in England.

1839 Henry N. Hooper Co. of Boston began building parabolic reflectors and lamps that were exact copies of the then current English design.

1839 Benjamin F. Willard invented a revolving light, using clusters of reflectors with revolving shields that produced a flash characteristic.

1839 I.W.P. Lewis develops a number of improvements in the design of the lantern room.

1839 Wilkins invented the hydraulic lamp, which used gravity feed to raise the oil to overflow the wicks.

1839 The first true American Light List was published. A much inferior version had been published by Winslow Lewis in 1817.

1839 The first buoy used on the Great Lakes was placed at the mouth of the Neenah River.

1839 James Timmins Chance joins Chance Brothers Glass works.

1839 Andrew Morse invented the Perpetual Fog Bell Striker first used at the Whitehead Lighthouse in America.

1840 Last Winslow Lewis magnifier lens removed.

1840 A test was made of B. F. Greenough’s ‘Chemical oil’ lamp at the Boston lighthouse. This lamp burned Camphene.

1840 Experiments done showed that if an 8-beam lens was rotated at 40-60 rpm, a steady (fixed) light of approximately 6 times the normal fixed lens was produced.

1840 The first American lighthouse tender was placed in service.

1840 14 English reflector lights installed at Boston.

1840 Winslow Lewis had an iron die made that allowed him to make true parabolic reflectors.

1840 Thilorier invented an improved Hydrostatic lamp.

1841 The first Fresnel lenses installed in America at the Navesink Lighthouse in New Jersey. First order lens in south tower, second order lens in north tower, purchased by M. C. Perry.

1841 First experiments in Switzerland with submarine warning signals.

1841 The first use of Wood (Rosin) gas in the United States was at the Christiana Creek

Lighthouse using rosin gas made in a retort in a small building next to the lighthouse.

1841 A small-unmanned light vessel with only a fog bell was approved by Congress in America.

1841 First use of cast iron plates to create a lighthouse was by Sir Samuel Brown at a small tower at Gravesend Pier in England.

1841 Mr. Greenough patented a lamp burning Camphene for use in lighthouses.

1842 Experiment to see if lens revolving very rapidly could create a very bright replacement for a fixed light, but it did not work.

1842 First 3rd order lens with catadioptric prisms was at the Gravelines Lighthouse in England.

1843 First first-order catadioptric lens designed by Alan Stevenson, built by François Soleil and installed at Skerryvore lighthouse, in Scotland.

1843 First Lighthouse Libraries deployed in Scotland.

1843 Foucault first introduced carbon electrodes for arc lights.

1843 C. Wheeler, keeper at Thatcher's Island lighthouse, in America, invented the nurse lamp.

1843 Lard oil was tested at the Cleveland Light, in America.

1843 Dr. Potts, of England, patented the Pneumatic Pile a hollow cylinder of metal closed at the top and open below, placed upon the sand desired for a foundation, and forced down by exhausting it of air.

1843 Michael Faraday suggested the use of copper tubes to improve ventilation within the lantern room.

1844 Alexander Mitchell assigned his screw-pile patent to I. W. P. Lewis and a U. S. Patent was issued.

1844 Winslow Lewis and Benjamin Hemmenway patented an improved lighthouse lamp with features that continued in use for many years.

1844 Theodore Létourneau takes over the former Jean Jacques François lens works in Paris.

1845 Lieutenant Thornton Jenkins took a trip to Europe to review the light systems.

1845 Alan Stevenson suggests use of buoys with phosphorescent paint or a glass globe filled with such a preparation.

1845 Alan Stevenson experimented with Naphtha as a lamp fuel in Scotland.

1845 The pneumatic pile lighthouse was invented by Dr. Potts, and first tried at the Goodwin Sands in England.

1845 First electric arc lamp patented by Wright in England.

1845 Alexander Gorgon first suggested use of locomotive whistles in England as fog signals and proposed using reflectors to concentrate the sound.

1845 First cast iron lighthouse built by Gordon at Morant Point, Jamaica.

1845 Henry-Lepaute Sr. Invents the first lighthouse lamp suitable for burning mineral-oil, although mineral oil was not used in it at this time.

1845 J. W. Starr was given a patent, in England, for a carbon rod lamp bulb, where a carbon rod was placed into a vacuum inside a glass bulb and heated by electricity.

1845 Wagner invented his version of the pump lamp, which was a great improvement over the Lepaute Escapement lamp.

1845 Henry-Lepaute Sr. invents the improved Moderator lamp, which used a heavy piston to replace the spring operated Franchot version.

1845 Bucket lamps were still in use at the Cunningham Creek light in Ohio.

1845 Cookson Glass works, maker of Fresnel lenses in England, goes out of business.

1845 Sir David Brewster and others ask Chance Brothers to make Fresnel lenses.

1846 John de la Haye, of England, proposed construction of a skeleton lighthouse. It was Mitchell's screw pile lighthouse using Potts pneumatic piles. Minot's ledge lighthouse, in America (the first one) used pointed piles driven into the rocks.

1846 Coal fires still used at Nidingen in the Cattegat, in Sweden.

1846 Last use of Sperm oil in England at this time colza started in use.

1846 Kerosene was distilled from coal by Dr. Abraham Gesner, a physician from Cornwallis, Nova Scotia.

1847 Refined olive oil in use in Liverpool, in England.

1847 Alexander Gordon proposed a combination lens and reflector holophotal system.

1847 Coal Gas used in lighthouse at Hartlepool, in England, with gas burner invented by Mr. M' Neil.

1847 The first boat made of iron was used as a lightship at Merrill’s Shell Bank Louisiana.

1848 First attempt to create a standard system of Buoyage in America.

1848 George W. Smith developed improvements in lenses for revolving lights.

1848 Monsieur Georges Bontemps left Choisy-Le-Roi glass works in France and went to work for Chance Brothers, in England, where he was essential to Chance’s manufacture of optical glass.

1848 Létourneau proposed lengthening the duration of the flash in rotating lenses by dividing each flash panel into two vertical portions.

1848 Monsieur Tabouret, Augustin Fresnel’s assistant joins Chance Brothers.

1848 Electric lamp designed by Mr. Staite and Mr. Petrie, ran on batteries. Failed due to battery life and poor clockwork.

1848 The 1st order Fresnel lens for Carysfort Reef, in America, was purchased in France and was never claimed by Pleasonton from the New York Customs House. It was sold for scrap after a year or two and when the Government found out they entered a lawsuit to reclaim it. It was eventually assembled and put on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and later installed.

1848 The last use of coal in remote places.

1849 In the Cape Green Point, Cape Mouille and Cape Agulhas Lighthouses near the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, sheep’s tail oil was used. This oil was procured from the tips of the tails of the cape sheep.

1849 Thomas Stevenson invented the holophotal system using a reflector lens combination with a hemispherical metallic reflector, attached behind a truncated parabolic reflector. This reflector was used at the north harbor lighthouse at Peterhead, Scotland.

1849 Thomas Stevenson designed totally reflecting glass prisms formed into a hemisphere, the formula for this glass prism mirror were calculated by William Swan.

1849 A Compass Lamp with 8 wicks was still in use at the Vermilion Ohio lighthouse.

Chronology from 1850 to 1899

1850 The first total glass holophotal lens was proposed in March 1850, and was built by John Adie who was an optician.

1850 An Act of Congress provided for the systematic coloring and numbering of all buoys used within the United States.

1850 The first screw pile lighthouse in America was installed at Brandywine Shoal.

1850 The first iron buoys in America were installed at Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey.

1850 Jacob Custer invents early clockwork driven fog-bell striker in America.

1851 The Lighthouse Board was established the review the U. S. Lighthouse System.

1851 The Horsburgh lighthouse in Singapore was fitted with 9 holophotal reflectors designed by Thomas Stevenson.

1851 Celadon L. Daboll invented the reed-horn fog signal.

1851 On March 3, 1851 Congress directed that “hereafter, in all new lighthouses requiring new lighting apparatus, and in all lighthouses as yet unsupplied with illuminating apparatus, the lens, or Fresnel system, shall be adopted.”

1851 Thomas Stevenson placed the first apparent light in operation at Stornoway Bay in Scotland.

1851 Chance Brothers of Birmingham built its first Fresnel lens.

1851 On of the early clockwork driven fog-bell strikers was developed by the Lowell Machine Shop in America.

1852 Louis Sautter buys the former Létourneau Lens Works in Paris.

1852 Charles Babbage developed a plan for distinguishing lights with a numerical system of occultation.

1852 Professor John Adie constructed the first spherical prism mirror based on a proposal by Thomas Stevenson in Scotland.

1852 The Lighthouse Board was organized and replaced Stephen Pleasonton in controlling all of the Lighthouse Establishment in America.

1852 First true bell buoy was invented by Lt. Brown of the US Lighthouse Service.

1853 Jabex Stone’s patent buoy was tested by the Lighthouse Board.

1853 The Jones Fog Bell Company installed their first clockwork driven fog bell at the Whitehead Lighthouse in America.

1853 George G. Meade invented an improved hydraulic lamp.

1854 The plan of Charles Babbage for distinguishing lights was tested by the Lighthouse Board.

1854 Steam whistle fog signal invented by Robert Foulis in Nova Scotia.

1854 George Herbert designed buoys with their mooring chains located at their center of gravity which Trinity House began using. Herbert also designed a floating lighthouse.

1854 The bell buoy was first used in America.

1854 Augustin Henry becomes Augustin Henry-Lepaute.

1855 A fog cannon was placed at the Point Bonita lighthouse in San Francisco and was the first fog signal on the Pacific coast.

1855 Chance Brothers of Birmingham began to produce lenses.

1855 The United States Lighthouse Board first experimented with mineral oil (kerosene).

1855 The Lighthouse Board investigated the use of steam whistles as fog signals.

1856 Frenchman Monsieur Maris invented a single wick lamp that could burn kerosene.

1857 V.L.M. Serrin invented an arc lamp with automatic adjustment of the carbon rods through the use of both clockwork and electrical solenoids.

1857 The first use of electricity by the Trinity House in England set up experimentally in the South Foreland Lighthouse.

1857 The Lighthouse Board purchased its first side-wheel steamer tender the Shubrick.

1858 Gardiner and Blossom got the first American patent for an electric incandescent lamp.

1858 C. W. Harrison invented an arc lamp where the positive electrode was a cylinder made of carbon that turned beneath the negative carbon rod to make regulation of the distance between the poles easier.

1858 Brooklyn Flint Glass Company proposed the use of their pressed-flint-glass lenses for lighthouses. In 1858 they produced a very small number of pressed flint-glass sixth-order lenses.

1858 J. W. D. Brown, in England, proposes the use of superimposed (Bi-form) lenses. They are not tried.

1859 All lighthouses in America were converted to the use of the Fresnel lens except for two.

1859 Professor Justus von Liebig invented a method of coating the back of glass reflectors with pure silver; increasing their reflecting properties up to 91% light reflection.

1859 The first lens pedestal with an integrated rotation clockwork was delivered by Henry-Lepaute to the Dagerort Lighthouse in Russia.

1860 Celadon L. Daboll panted the compressed-air-fog horn in America.

1860 The first use of porcelain reflectors plated with platinum at the Sunderland lighthouse in England.

1860 Joseph W. Swan first developed the electric filament light bulb.

1861 Linseed oil and peanut oil were tried as a fuel for lighthouse lamps in France. They were found inferior to other fuels.

1861 John Wigham invents an early lighted buoy used on the River Clyde in Scotland.

1862 The first practical use of electricity at the Dungeness Lighthouse.

1862 Frederick Barbier and Stanislas Fenestre form Barbier & Fenestre to make Fresnel lenses.

1863 The first use of electricity in France at Cape La Heve lighthouse.

1863 Captain William B. Franklin invented an improved hydraulic lamp for use in fourth, fifth and sixth order lenses.

1864 U. S. begins use of Lard Oil and introduction was by Professor Joseph Henry. From 1864 through 1884, Lard oil was in general use in U. S. because it was cheaper than Colza or Sperm oil.

1865 The John Wigham gas system and Crocus burner put into use at Howth Baily, Dublin Ireland.

1865 Carl Gustaf von Otter, invented Venetian Blind style shutters worked by clockwork to create a flashing characteristic.

1866 The first American experiments were made with the arc lamp and electricity.

1866 Werner Siemens invented the dynamo generator, in Germany.

1867 Lard oil became the principle fuel used in the U. S.

1867 Sautter Lemonnier & Cie. developed the first spherical mirror for use with the arc lamp in France.

1867 The Lighthouse Board first experimented with fog sirens.

1867 Professor Holmes perfected his Dynamo-Electric generator.

1868 The Corning Flint Glass Works is established in America.

1868 Captain H. H. Doty invented burner changes allowing the burning of Mineral oil in all current burner sizes including first through third order which could not previously use mineral oil (paraffin or kerosene).

1868 Magnesium was tried as a lighthouse illuminant in America.

1868 John Wigham in Ireland invents the Composite gas Burner with 108 gas jets. It is installed at the Howth Baily Lighthouse.

1868 John Wigham in Ireland invents a clockwork control for his Composite Gas Burner creating what was called the “Intermittent Burner” when used inside a fixed lens.

1869 Paraffin (also known as Schist oil and Kerosene) replaced Colza and Sperm oil as the fuel used in Scottish Lamps.

1869 Joseph Funck invented an improved hydraulic lamp with a float to control oil flow to the burner.

1869 The George M. Stevens Company makes its first clockwork driven fog-bell striker.

1869 The first lighthouses to be equipped with steam whistles in America were West Quoddy Head and Cape Elizabeth Maine.

1869 Pintsch buoys first used in Suez Canal.

1870 H. H. Doty received a United States Patent no. 109,303 for his invention of ‘Improvement in Apparatus for Burning Paraffin and Other Hydrocarbon-oils’ on November 15, 1870.

1870 Doty showed his kerosene lamps to David and Thomas Stevenson in Scotland, and they put one of his lamps on trial at the Girdleness lighthouse.

1870 Trinity House developed a single-wick-kerosene lamp.

1870 Joseph Funck an engineer with the Lighthouse Service was working on lamp improvements to allow the use of Mineral Oil.

1870 Paul Lemonnier forms partnership with Louis Sautter creating the Sautter-Lemonnier Company.

1871 Trinity House engineer, James Douglass completed the design of his first multi-wick lamp for burning kerosene.

1871 John Wigham invents the “Group-Flashing Burner” using his intermittent burner inside a flashing lens at the Rockabill Lighthouse in Ireland.

1872 John Wigham in Ireland first used a Superimposed (Bi-form) lens.

1872 John Wigham first proposes the Hyper-radial lens and the French firm Barbier & Fenestre begins the first designs.

1872 Chance Brothers hires Dr. John Hopkinson as its Scientific Advisor.

1873 The initial use of Kerosene (also known as mineral oil or Paraffin) in U. S.

1873 A second study of the potential use of Mineral Oil was made in 1873 because of the cost of Mineral Oil being much less than Lard Oil.

1873 Professor Ferdinand Osnaghi, of Vienna Austria, developed an improved holophotal reflector for use with the electric arc lamp.

1874 The “Group Flashing Lens” was invented by Dr. John Hopkinson, in England. The group flash was made by splitting up the lens into several portions to give a group of two or more flashes in quick succession.

1874 French Colonel Alphonse Mangin invented the Mangin mirror, a lens mirror hybrid used to produce the effect of a parabolic mirror.

1874 Joseph Funck was assigned to analyze American lamps for any design changes needed to burn kerosene.

1874 The first catadioptric Fresnel lens for use on a lightship was delivered to Sweden by Henry-Lepaute.

1875 The first request by the Lighthouse Board for the construction of libraries for the keepers.

1876 First 50 Keeper’s Libraries constructed and put in use, in America.

1876 Use of Kerosene held up by H. H. Doty’s patent for mineral oil lamps.

1876 First trial of the J. M. Courtenay ‘Whistling Buoy.’

1876 Joseph Funck invented the constant-level lamp used in projector (range) lights.

1876 Joseph Funck was given a patent for his kerosene burner in America.

1876 Julius Pintsch’s first lighted buoy installed in Finnish Gulf.

1877 The invention, in Germany, of a carbon rod for use in arc lamps with a soft graphite core.

1877 John Wigham in Ireland creates the first superimposed 4-high quadri-form lens for the Galley Head Lighthouse.

1877 Barbier & Fenestre, in France, creates the first drawings for a Hyper-radial lens.

1878 Kerosene used heavily in the United States.

1878 First use of the Pintsch oil-gas in a light on a buoy, in England. The buoy was placed in the Thames Estuary off Sheerness.

1878 A major electrical arc lamp installation was completed at the Lizard lighthouse in England.

1878 The U.S. Government wins its case against H. H. Doty allowing it to use Joseph Funck’s design for kerosene lamps.

1879 The Lighthouse Board first experimented with the Topophone to locate fog signals from a ship.

1879 Thomas Edison receives patent 223,898 for an incandescent lamp bulb with a filament made of carbonized cotton thread.

1880 Dr. Hopkinson removed the outermost catadioptric reflecting prisms and replaced them with refracting-only prisms made of dense flint glass to allow greater angles of refraction in these first order and larger lenses.

1881 C. R. Nyberg and G. W. Lyth designed an oil-gas buoy lamp that worked unattended for 10 days.

1882 L. F. Lindberg designed light screens that used heat from the lamp to rotate around the lamp producing flashes.

1882 All American lightships after No. 44 built in this year, were built of iron or steel.

1883 First unattended lighthouse built at Pillau in Poland using Pintsch gas.

1883 An automatic occulter produced flashes by controlling the gas passing from the reservoir to the burner on a Pintsch gas system.

1883 First use of mineral oil (Kerosene) in a first-order lens in the United States at the Navesink Twin lights.

1883 The start of trials to find the best form of electricity generator and arc lamp to use in lighthouses was conducted at the South Foreland lighthouse in England.

1883 The first Gamewell automatic fog-bell striker is developed.

1885 Kerosene became the principal fuel for US Lighthouses.

1885 Incandescent gas mantle invented by Carl Auer von Welsbach in Vienna.

1885 A major test of the relative properties of oil, gas and electricity for lighthouse illumination was held at the South Foreland Lighthouse in England.

1885 Joseph Funck invented the 8-day lamp for use on rivers and pierheads.

1885 The first Hyper-radial lens panels were made by Barbier & Fenestre for Messers. Stevenson and were tested at the South Foreland light using a ten-ring gas-burner that were nearly twice as powerful as a standard first-order lens using the same burner.

1886 The Statue of Liberty, in America, was first lit with electricity using an arc lamp.

1887 Chance Brothers produces its first Hyper-radial lens.

1887 Stanislas Fenestre dies and Barbier & Fenestre becomes F. Barbier & Co.

1888 Joseph Funck invented an improved fourth-order lamp with a flame-spreader button.

1888 The first American buoy to be lit with electricity using an incandescent bulb was at Gedney’s Channel.

1889 The use of electricity and the incandescent bulb was demonstrated at the Lighthouse at Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

1889 A kerosene lamp was developed for use in an unattended buoy.

1889 David Heap improved the 8-day Lamp by using an Argand style burner and a cut glass lens. He also invented the 5-day Lamp.

1890 Leon Bourdelles, in France, invented the mercury float system for lens rotation.

1890 David Heap invented the Twinkling light, which used Venetian blinds to provide a characteristic for American lights.

1890 David Heap invented an eclipser mechanism for use in harbor lights in America.

1890 Sautter Lemonnier becomes Sautter Harlé when Harlé joins the firm.

1891 Permanent wick lamps were introduced in France.

1891 David Heap’s twinkling light was first installed at the Fairhaven Bridge light in Massachusetts.

1891 A mechanism for revolving the lamps about the mast, to obtain a flashing light was tried on American lightships, but was a failure.

1891 The first American lightships to be self powered were built.

1892 Acetylene process invented by Leopold Willison in Canada.

1892 Kerosene was the only fuel in use in the United States.

1892 David Heap and Joseph Funck invented the Funck-Heap lamps for use in fourth, fifth and sixth-order lenses, which became the American standard kerosene lamps.

1892 David Heap invented the use of red cylinders to replace red chimneys.

1892 The first American lightship lit with electricity was the Cornfield Point, No. 51.

1892 John Wigham in Ireland proposes the “Giant Lens” one and one-half times the size of a Hyper-radial lens. One is built by F. Barbier, but never installed in a lighthouse.

1893 David Heap began using ball bearings to replace chariot wheels.

1893 In co-operation with Julius Pintsch, Gebr. Picht & Co. delivered its first complete Fresnel lenses.

1894 F. Barbier & Co. becomes Barbier & Bénard and continues to make Fresnel lenses.

1895 The Benson-Lee Automatic Lamp was developed in Europe and chosen for installations in Scotland. It used a wick tipped with tar that required no trimming for 4 to 5 days.

1896 A method was developed, in France, to store compressed Acetylene by dissolving it in Acetone held in steel cylinders.

1896 Wilhelm Weule produces its first lens products in Germany.

1897 David Heap, in America, invented a buoy using acetylene gas.

1898 The first true American lighthouse lit with electricity was at Navesink, NJ.

1898 South Tower of Navesink Lighthouse electrified using an arc lamp.

1898 A Luchaire Incandescent oil vapor lamp was first used at L’lle Penfret lighthouse in France.

1899 David Heap invented the Heap Air Pressure Lamp, which was pumped up with a bicycle pump.

Chronology after 1900

1900 Acetylene gas was first used at the Cloch lighthouse in Scotland.

1901 Radio communication was experimented with on the Nantucket Lightship in America.

1901 Arthur Kitson invented a burner in which, instead of the oil being vaporized at the wick and burnt as an open flame, it was converted into vapor under pressure in a retort and then mixed with air in a mixing chamber to form a gas for heating an incandescent mantle.

1901 Barbier & Bénard becomes Barbier, Bénard & Turenne – BBT lens makers.

1902 Diaphone foghorn was invented by J. P. Northey in Canada.

1902 First beacon light using non-compressed acetylene installed on the Mobile Channel in America.

1902 Sir Thomas Matthews, Chief Trinity House Engineer, improved the design of the Kitson I.O.V. lamp.

1902 The Heligoland lighthouse in Germany began using Mangin mirror searchlights for illumination.

1902 C. W. Scott developed an I.O.V. lamp in Ireland.

1903 Compressed acetylene gas was first used in America at the Jones Rocks beacon in Connecticut.

1903 A parabolic cylinder mirror was installed at the Travemünde lighthouse in Germany.

1903 The Lighthouse Service was transferred from the Treasury Department to the Commerce Department.

1904 A Luchaire I.O.V. lamp was first used in America at Sandy Hook lighthouse.

1904 Canadian, Leopold Willson generates Acetylene gas inside a buoy.

1904 AB Gasaccumulator Company (AGA) is formed by the take over of the former Carbid Co. and Dalén was employed as a Consultant Engineer.

1904 John Höjer approached the Gasaccumulator Company (later called the AGA) to try to solve some of the problems in the use of Acetylene.

1904 Sir Thomas Matthews invented the triple-mantle I.O.V. lamp in England.

1904 The lightship Nantucket was permanently equipped with radio communications.

1904 Chance Brothers took the design of the Incandescent Oil Vapor (I.O.V.) lamp that had been invented in France in 1898, and improved its design.

1905 One of the last Vippefyres to be used was as a small local light on the island of Gothland in Denmark.

1905 Gustaf Dalen invents the AGA flasher.

1905 The Germans (Prussians) invented the Differential Arc lamp.

1906 Dalén was employed fulltime as the Chief Engineer at AGA. Acetylene was also known at that time as Dalén gas.

1906 Dalén invents the AGA compound to produce safer acetylene gas cylinders.

1906 The U.S. Lighthouse Service first began using submarine bells as fog signals.

1906 Two acetylene gas buoys using the self-generating method of gas production were placed in service in America.

1907 Dalén invents the acetylene pressure regulator.

1907 Dalén invents the Sun-valve.

1907 The first use of the Dalen sun-valve was made at the Furuholmen lighthouse in Sweden.

1909 Raymond Haskell developed the spherical-glass-split-mirror reflector-lens combination in America.

1910 Chance Brothers triple Mantle IOV burner introduced in England.

1910 The Lighthouse Bureau asked Macbeth-Evans Glass Co. to produce a fifth-order lens in America for use on lightships.

1910 The Lighthouse Board was terminated and the U.S. Lighthouse Service became the Lighthouse Bureau.

1910 A buoy using compressed acetylene gas was installed in the Ambrose Channel in New York.

1911 Sirens were tried in place of whistles on American lightships.

1913 Macbeth-Evans produced the first fourth-order lens made in America.

1913 The Bush Bluff lightship, in America, was fitted with a revolving parabolic reflector mounted on a gimbaled arm, using an incandescent electric light bulb.

1915 The first use of the diaphone fog signal in America.

1915 Dalén invents the lightship lens pendulum.

1915 The first use of an oscillator fog signal on a lightship in America.

1916 The first use of flashing acetylene lights in America on the Mississippi River.

1916 The first use of automatic light bulb changers in America.

1917 Gustaf Dalen invents the automatic mantle changer.

1917 A thermostat was developed by the Lighthouse Bureau to warn keepers by ringing a bell when fluctuations occurred in the I.O.V. lamp.

1917 A post lantern with an automatically occulting light was designed by the Lighthouse Bureau.

1917 The first experimental radio beacon for determining location was set up in America.

1920 The Tyfon fog signal is invented in Sweden by H. Rydberg.

1921 David Hood improves the Kitson burner with an autoform mantle.

1921 First use of a radio beacon on the light vessel ‘Ambrose’ at the approach to New York Harbor.

1921 A long operating time fog-bell striker was developed and sent to Fort Adams Light in Rhode Island in America.

1922 The first electric filament lamp installed at the South Foreland lighthouse in England.

1922 A gong buoy was designed by the Lighthouse Bureau in America.

1922 The Lighthouse Bureau began to produce its own acetylene lanterns rather than buy them from outside manufacturers.

1923 The fog valve (hygroscopic fog detector) was invented by F. C. Hingsburg of the United States Lighthouse Service.

1925 The first radio fog signal on a lightship on the Great Lakes was installed on the Huron lightship.

1926 Dr. Genthe Glass was founded to assist the Wilhelm Weule Company.

1928 The use of reflectors that were chrome plated was tried for those sites still using reflectors.

1928 Neon filled light bulbs were tried for lighthouse use in America.

1928 The first automatic radio beacon was installed in America.

1929 The first synchronized radio beacon and air fog signal was installed at Cape Henry Virginia.

1930 An alternative to dioptric apparatus is the use of large segmental silvered glass parabolic mirrors arranged around a common light source. This idea was developed by Charles Stevenson.

1933 A photoelectric alarm system was developed in America to check the operation of unattended lights.

1934 The first radio-controlled lightship is placed in service in America.

1934 By this date nearly all of the Pintsch Gas buoys in America had been converted to acetylene.

1936 A battery powered solenoid-operated fog bell striker was installed at Peshtigo Reef Light Station in America.

1936 Macbeth-Evans Glass Company merged with the Corning Glass Company.

1937 A 375mm.-duplex lantern was designed for use on a single-masted lightship in America.

1937 Fog signals remotely controlled by a modulated light beam were tested in America.

1938 The Lighthouse Bureau radio laboratory was completed.

1939 On July 1, 1939 Congress merged the Lighthouse Bureau into the United States Coast Guard.

1939 On July 7, 1939 the Lighthouse Bureau went out of existence.

1947 Xenon discharge lamp was used for the first time in a lighthouse in England.

1952 Henry-Lepaute factory in Paris burns down. New factory established in Littre au Mesnil-le-Roi.

1955 The navigation aids portion of Chance Brothers is sold to Stone Holdings forming Stone-Chance.

1958 First prefabricated telescopic lighthouse with a caisson was erected at Grunkallen in Sweden.

1958 The first lighthouse with a helicopter-landing pad at Grundkallen Sweden.

1965 The Airchine foghorn invented in Canada to replace the Diaphone.

1970 Sautter Harlé is absorbed by Alsthom and no longer makes navigation aids.

1972 The last member of the Henry-Lepaute family leaves the business.

1977 The last paraffin burner in operation by the Trinity House in England was replaced by an electric light and that burner is now on display at the Trinity House’s National Lighthouse Museum in Penzance.

1977 Stone-Chance is sold to AGA (AB Pharos).

1981 Barbier, Bénard & Turenne - BBT is merged into CIT ALCATEL.

1983 The Nantucket Shoals Lightship was replaced with a large buoy. This was the last U.S. Lightship in operation.

1984 AGA Navigation Aids is sold becoming AB Pharos Marine.

1985 CIT ALCATEL sells the former BBT forming GISMAN.

1985 Lightship Nantucket I decommissioned. This was the last Lightship owned by the U.S. Government.

1989 Automatic Power is merged with AB Pharos Marine.

1990 GISMAN owner of the former BBT becomes Samtec-GISMAN.

Other Historical Information

US Lighthouse Society - Other Historical Information

Treasury Department and the Lighthouse Board by Thomas Tag

Click below to download the Story "The U.S. Lighthouse Board: Progress through Process"

1881 Instructions to Light Keepers

Lighthouse Exhibits at Local and World's Fairs by Thomas Tag

Lighthouse Depots by Wayne Wheeler and Thomas Tag

The Detroit Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot

Saint Joseph Supply and Buoy Depot

Milwaukee Temporary Depot 1900-1905

Milwaukee Supply, Repair and Buoy Depot

Charlevoix Buoy Repair and Storage Depot

USLHS DEPOTS – 1915

First District

Second District

Third District

Fourth District

Fifth District

Sixth District

Seventh District

Eighth District

Ninth District

Tenth District (Lakes Ontario & Erie And the St. Lawrence River)

Eleventh District (Lakes St. Clair, Huron and Superior)

Twelfth District (Lake Michigan)

Sixteenth District

Seventeenth District

Eighteenth District

Nineteenth District

The Confederate States Lighthouse Bureau by David Cipra

State Lighthouse Establishments During Secession

An End to Preservation

The Dark at the End of the Tunnel

Fall of the Tallest Tower

The Future of the Past

History of the Administration of the Lighthouses in America by Wayne Wheeler

Congress 9th Act

The Investigation of 1837-1838

The Investigation of 1842-1843

The I.W.P. Lewis Report

The Lighthouse Board

Lighthouses Transferred to Commerce Department

Bureau of Lighthouses Created

Chronology of Lighthouse Events by Thomas Tag

Introduction

Chronology before 1800

Chronology from 1800 to 1849

Chronology from 1850 to 1899

Chronology after 1900

**Click below to download the Story "The U.S. Lighthouse Board: Progress through Process"**

Congress 9^th Act