Light Hearted

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse is one of the most frequently visited attractions on the Maine coast, receiving about 100,000 visitors each year. The point, at the entrance to Muscongus Bay to the east and Johns Bay to the west, was the scene of many shipwrecks through the centuries. In May 1826, Congress appropriated $4,000 for the building of a lighthouse at Pemaquid Point. The original tower didn’t l...

Fay Howe, courtesy of her son, Don Watson. Fay Howe, as drawn by illustrator Brian Simmonds for “Lighthouse Girl.” This is part 2 of a two part interview with Dianne Wolfer, author of the award-winning children’s book Lighthouse Girl . The book tells the true story of Fay Catherine Howe, daughter of the lighthouse keeper at Breaksea Island in Western Australia, during World War I...

Dianne Wolfer Dianne Wolfer is an award-winning children’s author who lives on the south coast of Western Australia. A teacher who has worked in Tokyo, Japan, as well as in Nepal in addition to schools in her native Australia, she pens novels for children and young adults that focus on life in modern Australia and Pacific countries. Her 2009 book Lighthouse Girl won the 2010 West Australian...

Filmmaker Rob Apse was born and raised in Reading, Massachusetts, but he spent summers on the coast of Maine and at Great East Lake in New Hampshire, boating, fishing, and exploring. After graduating from Ithaca College with a degree in Cinema Production, he’s worked almost 10 years in creative marketing. After realizing he had a passion for documentary storytelling, he opened his own marketing st...

In March 1871, Congress appropriated funds for a lighthouse on the east side of California’s San Pablo Strait. It was decided that East Brother Island, about 1000 feet offshore on the east side of the strait, would be a good location. The style chosen was the handsome Stick Style design developed by architect Paul Pelz and used for several other West Coast lighthouses around the same time; a...

The Flying Santa tradition traces its origins to a pioneering pilot named Bill Wincapaw. Wincapaw flew amphibious airplanes around the Penobscot Bay region in Maine. He often relied on the area’s lighthouses to get him safely home. To show his appreciation to the lighthouse keepers and their families, on Christmas Day 1929 he loaded his plane with a dozen packages containing gifts for the lighthou...

The Chance Brothers and Company glassworks began producing glass in 1824 at their facility in Smethwick, West Midlands, England. Before too long, the company became known as the best glass manufacturer in Britain. In addition to producing sheet glass, Chance Brothers perfected methods of manufacturing optical glass for telescopes. In 1848, Chance Brothers began working on the manufacture of Fresne...

Offshore from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the Gulf Stream collides with the Virginia Drift, a branch of the Labrador Current from Canada. This current forces mariners heading south toward a dangerous twelve-mile long sandbar called Diamond Shoals. Countless shipwrecks there have led to the nickname “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” A lighthouse was first authorized at Cape Hatteras in 1794, and the...

The Nantucket South Shoals extend many miles south of Nantucket Island, which is south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The shoals were a great hazard to shipping, with more than 500 shipwrecks in the area. The first lightship was stationed at the Nantucket New South Shoals in June of 1854. The name eventually changed from “Nantucket New South Shoals” to just “Nantucket Shoals&#8221...

North Manitou Island is in northeastern Lake Michigan, about 12 miles west-northwest of Leland, Michigan. A lighthouse was first established on the island in 1896. A few years after the lighthouse on the island was established, it was decided that an offshore light was needed to mark a shoal in the busy six-mile-wide passage between the southern point of North Manitou Island and the mainland. The...

Stonington, Connecticut, grew into a thriving port known for its shipbuilding, sealing, and whaling. By 1819, the town had as many as 15 vessels engaged in fishing along with some engaged in coastal trade. In May 1822, Congress appropriated $3,500 for a lighthouse at the east side of the entrance to Stonington’s harbor. The stone lighthouse was first lit in 1824. In 1840, a new lighthouse was buil...

The 1861 building, known as Red Bluff Lighthouse. (Island County Historical Society) The promontory known as Admiralty Head, on the west coast of Whidbey Island in Washington, juts out into the east side of the entrance to Admiralty Inlet, a busy passage that leads to Puget Sound. Admiralty Head’s light station went into service in January 1861. It was originally known as Red Bluff Lighthouse. Bec...

With a large harbor on Buzzards Bay, Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, developed as a center for shipbuilding, whaling, and coastal trade. Congress appropriated $5,000 on March 3, 1837, for a lighthouse at Neds Point, at the north side of the entrance to Mattapoisett’s harbor. The lighthouse was first lighted in March 1838. Neds Point Lighthouse. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The Coast Guard...

Round Island Lighthouse, in the Straits of Mackinac, is one of the most photographed lighthouses in Michigan. Thousands of people see it each year from the ferries that pass from Mackinac Island to Mackinaw City and St. Ignace. Round Island itself is about 378 acres and is uninhabited. It’s part of the Hiawatha National Forest. The lighthouse was constructed in 1895. It was decommissioned and aban...

In 1825, an act of Congress authorized the building of a breakwater off of Cape Henlopen in Delaware to create a protected harbor. The new harbor that was created was called the National Harbor of Refuge. In 1907 a lighthouse at the southern end of the outer breakwater went into service. The original structure was replaced by a 76-foot-tall cast-iron lighthouse in 1926 and automated in 1973. Harbo...

Annamaria Mariotti was born in Camogli, in northern Italy, and she still lives and works there. She is the author of many books, articles, and stories related to the sea. Her passion for lighthouses began with the Capo Sandalo Lighthouse on the Italian island of San Pietro and with the Lighthouse of Genoa. She’s visited many lighthouses in Italy, on the Atlantic coast of the United States, in Cana...

Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, located offshore from the southern tip of the peninsula where Annapolis, Maryland, is located, is the last surviving screw-pile lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay. The light station was established in 1838 and the current lighthouse was built in 1875. Today, the City of Annapolis owns the lighthouse. The City leases it to the Chesapeake Chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Socie...

Greens Ledge is one of several treacherous formations near Norwalk Harbor in Connecticut. Congress appropriated $60,000 for the establishment of a light and fog signal at Greens Ledge in 1899, and the 52-foot lighthouse was finished in 1902. Greens Ledge is a cast-iron tower on a cylindrical cast-iron concrete-filled foundation, typical of offshore “sparkplug” lights built in the late...

Shona Riddell Shona Riddell, who lives in New Zealand, has been writing for as long as she can remember. Both of her parents were writers, and Shona’s first article was published in 2000 in the New Zealand Herald. She was hooked, and in 2002 she completed a Graduate Diploma in Journalism from the Auckland University of Technology.  Since then she’s worked as a magazine writer, web writer and...

From the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s, Nantucket was the world’s leading whaling port. But the island’s east and south coasts remained devoid of lighthouses well into the 1800s, in spite of the high volume of shipping traffic passing the island and the presence of dangerous shoals offshore. Finally, in the late 1840s, a bluff at Sankaty Head in the village of ‘Sconset on the island’s sou...

Hilton Head Island, part of South Carolina’s Lowcountry region, is widely known for its twelve miles of pristine beaches and its golf courses. The Hilton Head Rear Range Lighthouse overlooks the award-winning Arthur Hills Golf Course at the Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort. The range light station was decommissioned in 1932. In the mid-1980s, the lighthouse was incorporated into the new golf cours...

With its long coastline and about 790 islands, Scotland has been home to a large number of lighthouses. The Northern Lighthouse Board , founded in 1786, currently operates and maintains 206 lighthouses across Scotland and the Isle of Man. Automation of lighthouses began in Scotland as early as 1894, when the Oxcars Light in the River Forth had its two lightkeepers withdrawn. Fair Isle South was th...

The U.S. Lighthouse Service constructed the Staten Island Lighthouse Depot on the former site of the New York Marine Hospital. The depot, which began operation in 1864, was the key manufacturing, storage, supply, and maintenance center for the Lighthouse Service’s Third District. Activity at the depot included experimentation on lamps, illuminants, and Fresnel lenses. Under the Coast Guard in the...

Split Rock Lighthouse , one of the most picturesque lighthouses in the United States, is located on a 127-foot-high cliff on the northwest shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. By the late 1960s, the Coast Guard deemed the lighthouse obsolete and it was discontinued as an official aid. Split Rock Light Station, USLHS archives Today the light station is the centerpiece of Split Rock Lighthouse State...

The Aleutian Islands are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller islands that form a dividing line between the Bering Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Scotch Cap Lighthouse was established at the southwest corner of Unimak Island, the largest of the Aleutians, in 1903. It was the first station established on Alaska’s outside coast. Scotch Cap in the 1940s (courtesy...