Light Hearted

Suellen Wedmore and a first-order Fresnel lens on display at the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Massachuetts. Melanie Correia Suellan Wedmore‘s poetry has appeared in many publications and she has won numerous awards, including first place in both the Writer’s Digest Rhyming and the Non-Rhyming Poem contests. The poems in Suellen’s book A Fixed White Light enter the lives of six of courageous and...

The fog bell house at Pemaquid Point after the storms of January 2024 The lighthouse tower at Pemaquid Point in the town of Bristol, Maine, was built in 1835, which makes it one of the oldest on the New England coast. The historic fog bell building at Pemaquid Point was badly damaged by storms in January – the same storms that damaged more than 20 light stations in Maine and New Hampshire. Repair...

Key West Lighthouse, courtesy of KWAHS Key West Lighthouse has stood as a well-loved landmark in one of America’s most colorful cities since 1848, when it replaced an earlier lighthouse that began service in early 1826. The original tower was destroyed by a hurricane in 1846. The tower that stands today is constructed of brick and stands 73 feet tall. Dr. Cori Convertito, courtesy of KWAHS After t...

Larry Wright is a national gold medal award winning photographer who has been involved with lighthouse preservation since 1991. He was on the Board of Directors for the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association based in Mackinac, Michigan, for 20 years. Larry has co-written four books about lighthouses on the Great Lakes along with his wife Pat. They are The Great Lakes Lighthouses Encyclopedia ;...

Piney Point Lighthouse and keepers house, Maryland. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont This episode has three segments. In the first, photographer Pete Lerro describes a photo workshop he will be leading in Maine in October . In the third segment, Judianne Point discusses some exciting happenings at Chatham Light in Massachusetts and Beavertail Light in Rhode Island. Sandwiched in the middle is a c...

Concord Point Lighthouse, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont Concord Point Lighthouse in Havre de Grace, Maryland, was built in 1827. That makes it the second oldest standing lighthouse in the state. The conical, 36-foot tower was built of stone that was barged down the Susquehannah River from Port Deposit. In 1918, the light was automated. After that, the property changed hands at least 10 times a...

Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse The Annapolis Maritime Museum and Park , or AMM, is devoted to teaching people about the area’s maritime heritage and Chesapeake Bay ecology through exhibits, programs, and events. The museum is also the starting point for public tours of Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, a national historic landmark. Interviewed in this episode are Alice Estrada, the president and CEO o...

Ida Lewis This is an edited version of an interview first heard in episode 48 in February 2020. The guest is author Lenore Skomal. Ida Lewis was possibly the most famous lighthouse keeper in American history. She was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1842.  She became the official keeper at Lime Rock in Newport Harbor in 1879 and held the position for 32 years. Officially, Ida Lewis is credited wi...

Sea Girt Lighthouse Before Sea Girt Light was established in 1896, there was a long stretch of more than 38 miles with no lighthouses on the New Jersey coast from the Navesink Twin Lights south to Barnegat Light. In addition to helping coastal maritime traffic, the lighthouse served to aid mariners entering Sea Girt Inlet and Wreck Pond. The design of Sea Girt Lighthouse is unusual for the New Jer...

Terry Rowden This is an edited version of an interview that originally appeared in Light Hearted episode 25 in September 2019. Terry Rowden, a native of Michigan, served as a keeper at Little River Light Station in Cutler, Maine, for the U.S. Coast Guard from 1968 to 1970. Almost four decades later, when the Friends of Little River Lighthouse was founded as a chapter of the American Lighthouse Fou...

Cape May Lighthouse, New Jersey. USLHS photo by James Hill. Cape May Lighthouse stands at the southern tip of the state of New Jersey, on the north side of the entrance to Delaware Bay. The first lighthouse on the site was built in 1823, and the second in 1847. The locations of the first two lighthouses are now underwater. The extant 157-foot brick lighthouse began service in 1859. The property is...

This installment features highlights from an interview that was originally recorded in March 2019. Matt Rosenberg is a high school English teacher and also the seasonal caretaker and modern day keeper of the famous Cape Neddick Light Station in York, better known as the Nubble Light. Nubble Light Station, York, Maine The light station is owned by the Town of York and is managed by the town’s Parks...

Drum Point Lighthouse Cove Point Lighthouse The exhibits at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland, focus on maritime heritage and the natural history of the Chesapeake Bay. On the museum grounds is Drum Point Lighthouse, a cottage-style screw-pile structure that was originally located on the Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Patuxent River.  The lighthouse was moved to its new ho...

This is an edited version of an interview first recorded in 2019 and appearing in Light Hearted episode 26. Eric Jay Dolin is the author of 14 books and dozens of articles on American history. The book that’s discussed in this interview is the acclaimed  Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse,  published in 2016. C. Douglas Kroll, in Sea History Magazine , wrote of ...

Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse Located in the inner harbor of Baltimore, Maryland, Historic Ships IN Baltimore celebrates more than 200 years of Maryland’s naval and maritime history. The site’s attractions include the sloop-of-war Constellation , the last sail-only warship designed and built by the United States Navy. Among the other highlights are the USS Torsk , a Navy submarine commissioned...

Borden Flats Lighthouse in Fall River, Massachusetts, was bought in 2011 by Nick Korstad under the guidelines of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, and Nick fixed it up and opened it up to the public for overnight stays. In 2018, it was bought by Kevin Ferias, who has continued to operate it as a very successful B&B. It’s now for sale , which is discussed in this interview. Eas...

Sandy Hook Light Station, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The lighthouse that stands at the end of the long spit of land known as Sandy Hook, on the approach to New York Harbor, began service in 1764, making it the oldest standing lighthouse tower in the United States. The octagonal rubblestone tower stands 103 feet tall. Tom Hoffman The light remains active, with the Fresnel lens still in plac...

Horton Point Lighthouse, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont Horton Point Lighthouse is on the north side of eastern Long Island, New York, in the area known as the North Fork. The granite and brick building consists of a two floor keeper’s dwelling attached to a square, 59-foot-tall lighthouse tower. The building was nearly demolished after World War II, but the Southold Historical Society and the...

Dianne Ballon Located in the historic shipbuilding city of Bath, Maine, the Maine Maritime Museum includes exhibits dedicated to the past, present, and future of Maine’s storied waterways. For lighthouse buffs, there’s an exhibit called “Into the Lantern: A Lighthouse Experience.” Opening this past February, the exhibit “Lost and Found: Sounds of the Maine Coast” is a collaboration between s...

Sally and Wayne Wheeler This is part two of a two part interview with Wayne and Sally Wheeler, recorded in Washington state in March 2024. Wayne is a former Coast Guard officer who founded the U.S. Lighthouse Society in San Francisco in 1984, and he is now the president emeritus of the Society. The idea for the formation of the Society blossomed when Wayne became the chief of the Aids to Navigatio...

Wayne Wheeler in 1983 The name Wayne Wheeler has become synonymous with lighthouse preservation and education. He’s one of the pioneers of the lighthouse preservation movement and one of the foremost experts on lighthouse history in the U.S. A 1962 graduate of Syracuse University, Wayne spent 23 years in the Coast Guard in the aids to navigation field. In the early 1980s, when he was the chief of...

Edward Peppitt is the southeast England representative for the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, or ALK , and he produces and hosts a podcast called Keeping Watch . He’s also a fundraising ambassador for Shift MS , a charity aimed at keeping multiple sclerosis sufferers as active as possible. Ed Peppitt at Happisburgh Lighthouse in England. Ed has written a new book called The Beacon Bike. It tel...

Gene Davis with a fourth-order Fresnel lens from New Dungeness Lighthouse, Washington. The Coast Guard Museum Northwest, located on an active Coast Guard base on the waterfront in Seattle, Washington, opened in 1976. The museum serves as a showcase for some of the Coast Guard’s most important stories, lessons, and accomplishments, and the museum’s extensive archives are available to researchers. I...

Tony Ashdon (left) with Light Hearted host Jeremy D’Entremont. Photo by John Lopez The guest in this episode, Tony Ashdon, spent 22 years in the Coast Guard including some time as a lighthouse keeper. Tony spent some years on an aids to navigation team that serviced lighthouses and other aids in District One, in the northeastern U.S. He was also part of an inspection team for a while. He spe...

The podcast “The Lighthouse Lowdown” was launched in 2022 by two residents of Kansas City, Missouri, Emily Straight and Vince Bailey. To date they have published almost 50 episodes, covering history, spooky stories, and all the “things that make lighthouses cooler than your average tower.” Emily Straight and Vince Bailey at Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse in North Carolina Emily...