Life in a Lighthouse (Minots Ledge)

8/9/2019 Life in a Lighthouse (Minots Ledge)

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This is an article on the Minot’s Ledge Light-house found in a collection of articles from Cen-

tury Magazine dating from 1883 to 1894. Minot’s

Ledge Lighthouse was built 150 years ago and is

located in Scituate, Massachusetts. It is currently

for sale. To read more about the Town of Scituate,

Massachusetts, please read The History of Scituate

Massachusetts, available at www.pdibrary.com

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Click here to read “Still Holding a Torch”, an article by The

Boston Globe on the 150th Anniversary of Minot’s Ledge Light

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LIFE IN A LIGHTHOUSE.

sand white tongues are licking the jagged out- savagely upon the tower, dashing tons of spraycropping of rock; they meet, pass over and un- high into the air above it-,-the shatteredder one another in their undulations, swish up remnants of the heaving mass that a momentand swash back again, separate into countless before struck the granite courses. For the seaminiature whirlpools-and then there is noth- meets its match in the lighthouse on Minot'sing left of the great wave but a circle of froth. Ledge. Yet the shattered wave has not spent

ENGRAVED BY F. H. WELI.INGTON.

IN A NORTHEASTER.

But it is in a northeasterly storm that the old its fury all in vain. It, too, can boast its mo-gray tower most grandly maintains its battle ment of triumph, for it has struck terror intowith the sea; for then the billows have had some hearts-not into those of the light-

the broad expanse of storm-swept ocean over house-keepers, for throughout the shock andwhich to gather force. Long livid lines of confusion of the storm the vigil in the watch-breakers rush out from behind the threatful room is faithfully maintained; but in thestorm-clouds that lower upon the horizon, like keepers' dwellings on shore, between whichthe battalions of an army marshaled by the and Minot's Ledge gleam three miles of whitepowers of the air and the sea against the water,-the winding-sheet of ships,-anxious

structure that man has reared in defiance of faces at the windows are watching throllghtheir prerogative. Each wave hurls itself the night for reassuring glimpses of the light,




which come only too fitfully when the tower is all"buried up " by the sea.

Landing on Minot's Ledge is easy enough in thesummer time when the sea is smooth; but in winterthere is hardly a time when the ladder that runsfrom the foot of the tower to the door forty feetabove is of any service. Owing to the peculiar washof the waves around the base, it is only on very rareoccasions that a boat can lie near the ladder with-out danger of being swamped or dashed to pieces.In summer, when it is too rough to land by theladder, visitors are hoisted up in a chair; but spacein the tower being very contracted, the keepers limitthe furnishings to the very minimum, and in the fallthe chair is shipped to Cohasset, where it hibernates.When, last February, I landed at Minot's, or ratherwas hoisted into it, the steps could not be used. Wehad been in sight of the tower since we had put out

from Boston Harbor; had seen it rising gray andgrim in all its loneliness out of the waves. As thelighthouse tender Geranium, a low, broad, blackside-wheel craft-not unlike a beetle in deliberate-ness of motion and looks, but nevertheless rejoicingin the title U. S. L. H. S.-headed for Minot's, andit had become apparent to the keepers that she wascreeping toward the tower, a figure appeared at thedoor, and, climbing half-way down the ladder, hung

to a rung with one hand, and, with an ax in theother, began chopping at something white which

A WINTER LANDING.

rose from the sea to where he stood. He

looked like a pygmy hanging there against theforty feet of granite up which the ladder ran.Soon afterward he ascended the ladder slowly,as if almost exhausted, and another man de-scended and took his place. "The ladder isheavily iced up, and they're trying to clearit," said the captain of the Geranium, who had

\ trained a spy-glass on the tower.Meanwhile the tender had been hove to

and the boat lowered. Pulling to a spar-buoy some three hundred feet from the

tower, we passed a line around it,

and, paying out from the buoy, allowedthe boat to drift within hailing dis-

tance of the keeper. The towerwas weather-streaked, and its

base up to high-water markwas covered with a

greenish black ooze.

ENGRAVED BY CHARLES STATE.

Around the basethe sea was gur-gling. Occasion-ally a breaker

swept threaten-ingly toward theboat, and themate in the stemwould haulherin

by the cable to-ward the buoy,while the crew




backed water clear of the combing crest, whichwould have swamped herbut for this manceuver-ing. Out of the ocean before us rose course aftercourse of solid masonry to a deep, narrow door-way far above us, where, his hands grasping ironsupports, he himselfleaning out over the water,

stood what seemed from our distance a diminu-tive human figure in dark blue. The answer toour hail came back faintly above the noisy sea.It was too rough to land at the ladder, and evenif it were not, the lower half was so thicklyincrusted with ice that no one could retain afoothold on it; but if the block and tacklecould be rigged before the sea roughened, Imight be hoisted into the tower. The assist-ant inspector had told me before I left thetender that this might be the only way of land-ing me, adding, " I f you don't like the looks

of the rig, come back, and we'll try some otherday"; so that I had determined to make theattempt, no matter at what risk. In a deep port-hole two stories above the door a spar had

been rigged. To this was attached a blockthrough which ran a rope ending in a loop. Acoil of line fastened to the loop was held in thehand of the keeper, who stood in the door-way. The boat was paid out from the buoy,the keeper threw the line, and as it fell acrossthe boat one of the crew seized it and hauledit in. Straddling the loop, and grasping therope above it with both hands, I gave thesignal, and the keepers began hoisting, whileone of the boat's crew slowly paid out the

line to which the loop was attached. I wasliterally hanging between sea and sky, beinghoisted upward and at the same time acrosstoward the tower. It was a gray day. Wherethe sea below me shallowed over the jaggedrocks around the base of the tower, I saw atangle of slimy seaweed swirl half-way up tothe surface and sink slowly out of sight. The

little craft was now rising upon the waves, nowlying in the trough of the sea, now backingtoward the buoy, now moving away from it,according to the changing condition of thesea-and at Minot's it is ever changing. An

accident to the boat or to the man who held theline attached to the loop, and no earthly powercould have prevented my being dashed againstthe tower. But at last I had been raised to alevel with the door, and was allowed to swingslowly into the arms of the keeper, who hauledme in, and was apparently as glad as I was to

see me safely landed.I found myself in a circular, brick-lined room,

or rather cell, which received its only lightthrough the deep, narrow doorso high above thebase of the tower that, as one lookedout throughit from the center of the room, it framed innothing but a distant vista of heaving sea and

gray, scun-ying clouds. In the wall opposite

A SUMMER LANDING.

the door was a small, deep window,like the port-hole in a casemate.It s heavy wooden shutter was se-curely bolted, yet water was drip-ping from the granite recess into a

bucket on the floor, with such forcedoes the sea strike the tower on

Minot's Ledge. An iron stairwaycurved along the wall through aniron ceiling to the story above. The

granite floor was wet from spray that

had been blown in through the door-way, and the roar of the sea rever-berated within the confines of theroom.

By all who are familiar with thedangers to which it is exposed and

the difficulties which had to be over-come in its construction, the Minot'sLedge Lighthouse is . considered agreat work of engineering-greater,

many experts think, than the famousEddystone, because outlying ledgessomewhat protect the latter against theassaults of the sea, and the rock on which

...



ENGRAVED BY R. C. COLLINS.

THE WRECK OF THE FIRST LIGHTHOUSE.

it stands, being all above water, offers a betterfoundation surface than Minot's. The OuterMinot, the most exposed rock among theledges on which the Minot's Ledge Lighthousestands, is entirely submerged at high tide.Not until three quarters ebb do the first jag-

ged points jut out above the water, and prelim-inary surveys showed that a surface only thirtyfeet in diameter was exposed at extreme lowtide.

The lighthouse on Minot's Ledge standswithin the shadowofa tragedy. It isthe second

structure erected upon the ledge. The firstlight-house and the lives it held were claimed by thesea. Begun in 1847 and completed in Novem-ber, 1848, it was overwhelmed in April, 1851.It s destruction was the most tragic event in thehistory of our lighthouse establishment. The

structure was an octagonal tower supportedupon wrought-iron piles strengthened by braces.The piles penetrated five feet into the rock.On the braces, thirty-four and a halffeet abovethe rock, the keeper had constructed a platformfor the storage of bulky articles, and had fas-

tened to the lantern-deck, sixty-three feet abovethe rock, a five-and-a-half-inch hawser whichhe had anchored to a seven-ton granite block.Along this hawser articles were hoisted up to

the platform, and there landed. These" im-provements" were convenient-and fatal; not,however, to the keeper who made them, forhe was on shore when the stonn which has

368

become historic for its fury burst over thecoast.

On Monday, April 14, 1851, there was astrong easterly gale blowing. At that timethere were on the tower two assistant keepersand a friend of the principal keeper. The visi-tor became frightened at the first indication of

a storm, and, in response to a signal from thetower, a boat put off from Cohasset and tookhim ashore. On Tuesday the wind swungaround to the northeast, the most dangerousqua.ter from which the elementscan hurl them-

selves upon Minot's, as they then rejoice in theaccumulated fury of miles of wind-torn sea.By the 16th it had increased to a hurricane,and the tower was so completely buried in theheavy seas that nothing of it could be seen by

the group of anxious watchers at Cohasset.About four o'clock in the evening of the 16ththe platform was washed ashore. Then thewatchers knew that the water had risen to

within seven feet of the tower. At nightfall itwas seen that the light was burning. It wasobserved at fitful intervals until ten o'clock that

night, when it was finally lost to sight. At oneo'clock on the morning of Thursday, April 17,just at the turn of the flood, when the out-streaming tide and the inrushing hurricanemet at Minot's, a violent tolling of the light-house bell was heard. After that no sound roseabove the din of the stonn. About six o'clockin the morning a man walking along the shore




saw a chair washed up a little distance aheadof him. Examining it, he recognized it as hav-ing been in the watch-room of the tower.After this discovery no one had any doubts of

the tragedy whichhad been enacted behind thecurtain of the storm. When it lifted, naught

was seen over Minot's Ledge but the sea, its

white crests streaming triumphantly in thegale.

I t is believed by those competent to judgeof such matters that the destruction of thetower was due to the surface which the plat-form constructed by the keeper offered to thewaves, and to the strain of the hawser uponthe structure. Every time this hawser wasstruck by a sea it actually tugged at the tower.There seems also little doubt that the sumappropriated by Congress for the building of

the lighthouse was insufficient by about twothirds for such a structure as the perilous situa-tion called for.

When the site was visited after the disaster,the bent and broken stumps of the iron pilingwere found in the rocks. Their appearanceindicated that before the tower fell it had beenbent to leeward until it actually hung over thewild and crested waters. This brought tomind the sudden violent tolling of the bell at

one o'clock in the morning of that fatal 17th of

April. No other conclusion seems possiblethan

that when the tower heeled over to leeward eachwave, as it swept over the parapet, struck the belland set it swinging, so that the sea itself tolledthe knell of the souls it was about to claim.

There is an incident in the tragedy of Minot'sLedge that should always be remembered.Up to the last moment the men on the towerkept the light, for its gleam was seen throughthe storm-scud until the hurricane closed intoo thick for the light to be visible. Of themen who thus did their duty face to face withdeath for the honor of the lighthouse service

of the United States, one was a German, theother a Portuguese. No monument has beenerected to these brave fellows; probably theidea of one has never been broached. Not

even their names are remembered; for if youattempt to discover something of these humbleheroes in Cohasset, all you will learn is that

one was a "Dutchman" and the other a" Portugee."

" They hung to duty to the last," said thepresent keeper of Minot's Ledge Lighthouse,concluding his story of the tragedy to me onenight in the watch-room, while a northeasterroared around the lantern, and the spray camerattling down upon it, the old tower meantimeshaking the water off like a dog that has had

a wetting. Such l;lights our thoughts naturallyreverted to the men who had perished at theirposts on the very spot where the tower in which

VOL. XLVII.-48.

we sat was built. The body of one of themwas found- among the seaweed around East

Shag. The other was never recovered.Of these two whose spirit is it that is be-

lieved to revisit Minot's Ledge? For there havebeen keepers of the present tower who haveaffirmed that one of those who perished with

the old lighthouse haunts the .spot. Strangenoises have been heard in the oil-room-sud-

den rattling of cans and clinking of glass, as if

some one were at work there. Stories are alsocurrent of the mysterious filling of the lampand cleaning of the lens and lantern. In theold tower, when a watch was at an end, thekeeper in the watch-room summoned the keeperbelow by rapping on the stovepipe which ran

up from the lower room, and the other keeperwould rap in reply to notify the watch that

he had heard the signal and would be upimmediately. In the present tower the watchis called and the answer given by electric bells.One night, as the midnight watch was drawingto a close, the keeper in the watch-room, whohad been brooding over the destruction of theold tower, quite unconsciously leaned forwardand rapped with his pipe. A few minutes laterhe was startled to hear an answering rap frombelow. Every moment he expected the otherkeeper to appear and relieve him. After waitingin vain, he pressed the button of the electric

bell, and after the usual interval the bell in thewatch-room rang the reply from below, and

the steps of the relieving watch were' heard onthe iron stairs. He had not heard the rapping,and therefore had made no reply, his first in-timation of the change of watch having beenthe ringing of the bell !

The Minots are off the southeastern chopof Boston Bay. Vessels standing in for BostonHarbor, and losing their bearings in a north-easter, would be apt to be driven on the ledges,unless warned off by a friendly beacon. Indeed,

here was, before the establishment of the light,a veritable ocean graveyard. Even since thenthere have been heartrending disasters, such asthe breaking to pieces of the ship St. John on

the Hogshead, when all but on'e of the hun-dred and sixty people aboard her were lost,the survivor being a woman who, lashed to aspar, was washed ashore in a half-frozen con-dition. Many corpses, among them womenwith children clasped to their breasts, driftedin on the" porridge-ice" with which the har-bor was filled.

After the destruction of the first lighthouse,Congress made an appropriation for the build-ing of another. The tower which now standsupon Minot's Ledge was designed by GeneralJ. G. Totten, and erected by Captain Bartons. Alexander, both of the Engineer Corps of

the United States army. Captain Alexander's



37 0 LIFE IN A LIGHTHOUSE.

work on the tower is considered second in im-portance only to that of the designer; for, ow-ing to the exposed site, many difficulties had tobe overcome in the course of construction.Work could be carried on only from April toSeptember, the sea being too rough at other

times to admit of the workmen gaining a foot-

ing on the ledge, or even of approaching itwith safety. The first blow was struck Sun-day morning, July I , 1855. Thebuilding of Minot'S Ledge Light-house was a work for humanity, and

therefore Sunday, the first day the

weather had been propitious for be-ginning operations, was utilized. The

weather allowed of only one hun-dred and thirty working hours at the

ledge that entire season. Preparinga partly submerged rock to receivethe foundations of a granite toweris quite a different matter from dig-ging a hole in the ground on shore.Guards in boats constantly pliedaround the ledge to pick up work-men who might be washed off intothe sea, and their services were fre-quently required. Not until July 9,1857, could the first stone be laid.During that season there were againonly one hundred and thirty working

hours at the ledge. Anticipatingsuch a contingency, Captain Alex-ander had picked out a force of good

all-round workmen, so that whenwork had to be suspended on the

ledge the morale of his force wouldbe maintained by keeping the menoccupied on shore in· shaping the

granite blocks for the tower, and fit-ting the courses on a model, so that

no time would be lost in correctingerrors after the blocks had been ship-

ped to the ledge. As a matter offact, work on the model disclosedseveral miscalculations which wouldhave caused annoying delay had theynot been discovered in time to be rec-tified on shore. The tower was com-pleted September 16,1860, in 1102hours and 21 minutes, at a cost of

$3°0,000. In shape it is the frustumof a cone, one hundred and fourteenfeet and one inch in height, includ-ing the lantern. The first full course

of masonry is thirty feet in diameter. Exceptfor a narrow well running down through the

center to the rock, the tower is a piece of

solid granite masonry to the store-room, fortyfeet above. The well, besides storing waterfor the keepers' use, serves as an indicatorof danger; for should there be a crack in

the masonry, it would leak. The store-roomis one of five stories above the solid base.Each consists of one circular room lined withbrick, and has a deep port-hole. All the stair-ways in the tower are iron, and so are the

ceilings, except that of the fifth story, which isgranite, is arched, and forms the top of the

tower proper. These rooms are fourteen feetin diameter. The watch-room, lantern, and

ENGRAVED BY H. DAVIDSON.

WATCHING THE LIGHT.

dome are built above the tower proper, thecornice of which forms a parapet ar.ound the

watch-room,while part of he bronze metal ceil-ing of the latter serves the same purpose for the

lantern-deck. The lantern is framed in iron,and iron supports slant from the edge of the

lantern-parapet to the top of the framework.



to


The masonry work of the base is strength-ened by eight iron shafts set in the rock at thesame points as the piling of the first tower;there are dowels between each course in thebase, and the courses above the base are dove-tailed. Indeed, the whole tower is so closelybolted and knit together that it seems destined

to last as long as the rock on which it stands.Over the store-room is the kitchen, where the

keepers also eat their meals. Above this is thebedroom of the assistant keepers, that of thekeeper being on the third floor. Though fur-nished with only the most necessary articles,there is little moving room left. Toilet is madeat the kitchen sink, an arrangement which ex-perience has proved to be the simplestand thebest adapted to the circumstances. The fourthfloor is the oil-room, where the nights' supply

of oil for the lamp is kept, the annual consump-tion being about 875 gallons. The watch-room- t he drawing-room of Minot's Ledge Light-house-is above this. Here the keepers sit whenthey are not busy during the day, and fromhere they watch the light at night, the watcheslasting from 4 P. M. to 8 P. M., 8 P. M. to 12 M. ,

12 M. to 4 A. M., 4 A. M. to 6 A. M.

The routine of duty on Minot's Ledge is thesame as in any other lighthouse, but it is gonethrough under somewhat different circum-stances. At the end of the dog-watch at 6

A. M., the assistant keeper, who also officiates ascook, prepares breakfast. This is usually readyby half-past six. The electric bell rouses theother keeper from his sleep in time for him tomake his toilet. This is a very simple matteron Minot's Ledge-at least in winter. I t doesnot take a man long to put on his clothesthere, because, on account of the dampness andtold of the sleeping-rooms, he usually goes tobed with most of his clothes on. I rememberone night, when the tower was" sweating" in-side, as it often does in winter, we divested our-

selves only of jackets and shoes, piled sheets,blankets, and quilts over us, and even then had

difficulty in keeping thoroughly warm. I havereferred to the bucket which stood under thestore-room window to receive water whichmight drip from the sill. A bucket stands un-der every window in the tower. The windowson the northeast side are always kept closed inwinter, and the heavy wooden shutters bolted,yet the seas strike the tower with such search-ing power that it was found necessary to run a

little gutter along each sill, and to lead a rubbertube from it into the pail; and during severestorms the pails on the weather side often re-quire emptying once an hour. Noone thinksof going to bed on Minot's Ledge in winterwithout a cap or other warm head-covering.

By the time one is dressed-if putting onone's shoes and jacket can be called dressing-

and has washed in the icy water from the wellin the granite base, the breakfast is steamingon the table; and a very good breakfast it

usually is, for Minot's Ledge is bountifullystocked with provisions. Good food and apipe of good tobacco are the only luxuries that

tend to ameliorate life in this tower.

Breakfast over, and the dishes washed(neatness is of course scrupulously observed),the lamp is trimmed and polished, the lenswiped, and the lantern cleaned. As regards thelamp-chimney, if you ask a lighthouse-keeperthe best way to wash lamp-chimneys, he willtell you the best way is not to wash them at

all. Rubbing with a dry cloth is the correctmethod. There is considerable brass-workabout the lamp to keep as bright as a mirror,and the care of the lens is a delicate matter.

To those whose idea of a lens is derived froma camera or a telescope, the lens which sur-rounds a lighthouse lamp will be a novelty.I t is a veritable structure in itself, consistingof rings of glass, many of them prismatic,built around the lantern. In a second-orderlight like Minot's, the lens stands four feethigh. Not a breath must dim the clearness of

CLEANING TH E LANTERN, OUTSIDE.

this beautiful glass-work, which on a bright dayreflects all the hues ofthe rainbow, and at nightcauses the lamp to cast its grateful rays fifteenand a half miles out to sea.

Cleaning the lantern is at times an arduous

- - - - - .



37 2

/,


task, and not infrequently a peril-ous one. The spray is apt to freezeupon it, and no matter how sav-agely the gale may be blowing,the keepers are obliged to braveit outside upon the lantern-deck,nearly ninety feet above the sea,

while washing the ice off the glasswith glycerin. As the upper partof the lantern cannot be reached

from the deck, it is necessaryfor the keepers to stand uponthe narrow rail of the para-pet and, leaning forward,grasp an iron support withone hand, while washing theglass with a cloth in theother. The coldand dangerto which the keeper is ex-posed while performing thistask during a winter galecan readily be imagined. Amisstep would precipitatehim into the riotous sea farbelow.

When lamp, lens, and

lantern have been clean-ed, and the yellow shades

inside the lantern low-ered, the lens is care-

fully covered witha white cloth,andthe keepers do

chores, suchas mak-

ingtheir

beds,

TH E ACCIDENT TO THE KEEPER .

renovating the white paint on the brick lining,and putting on necessary little touches here andthere to maintain the scrupulous neatness of thepremises which is embraced within the meaningof the phrase" keeping a good light." That isthe test by which a lighthouse-keeper stands orfalls. I t means that he must not only get out

of the lenticular apparatus and its accessoriesin his care a ray that will pierce the darkness asfar as the full capacity of the apparatus willpermit, but also that he must keep the premisesin perfect order. The esprit de corps that pre-vails in the lighthouse service is well illus-trated by the fact that the keepers of. the firsttower on Minot's Ledge" kept a good light"

up to the moment the tower was overwhelmedby the sea. '

The leisure hours are spent in the watch-room. In size it is little more than a cell, but

it has the advantage over the rooms below that

it receives daylight through the lee port-holeand through a manhole in the ceiling leadingto the lantern-deck. I t is ten feet in diameter,but not even all of this small space can be util-ized. There are a manhole in the floor for thestairway from below, the stairs to the lantern-deck, the columnar supportof the lamp, whichtakes up the center of the room, and at one sidethe incased machinery for striking the fog-bell,which stands on the parapet outside. Add to

these a stove, two chairs, and a high, shallowdesk, and it may easily be realized that thereis little moving room left. On the desk is thelighthouse journal, which takes the place of thelog-book on a vessel. Herein are noted thevisits of the inspector, the coming and goingof the keepers, and similar details. You mayalso read such entries as :

"Broke ice from lantern. Tower heavily icedup. " . A lonesome, snowy day."

The present keeper does not enter itemslike the last. "Every day here is lonesome,"

he said, " so that I might just as well enter,- 'A lonesome, sunny day.'''

An entry that tells ofbreaking ice from thelantern andof the icingup ofthetoweris usu-ally made after a heavy northeaster-one

ofthose storms during which the lighthouse'is so completely buried by the heavy seasthat from the shore the tower by day and thelight by night are invisible" except perhapsat fitful intervals; and the keepers' familiestake turns standing watch at the windowsof the dwellings, fearful of a repetition of

the calamity of April, 185 I. During suchstorms the heavy seas strike the tower abouttwenty feet above the base with such forceas to send tonsofspray some twenty-five feetabove the dome,-or over a hundred feetinto the air,-and the great mass, not los-ing its onward rush, comes crashing down



LIFE IN A LIGHTHOUSE. 373

upon the lantern, and streams over it on to the

parapet and into the ocean beyond. Hang-

ing from davits on this side, with some ninetyfeet of rope coiled near each davit, is a smalllife-boat. Though it is swung eighty feet abovethe sea, it would be dashed to pieces againstthe parapet if it were on the weather side.

Even as it is, the water pours into the boat withsuch force that it would probably be brokenfrom the davits were it not kept unplugged.

I shall never forget my sensation when the

first heavy sea struck the tower during mystay there last February. I was sitting with theassistant keeper in the watch-room. Both of

us were reading. At the head of three of the

staircases in the tower are heavy iron doors.Suddenly there was a clangorous shock, as if

these ponderous doors had crashed to in uni-son, and a moment later all the demons of the

storm seemed to be let loose around the top of

the tower, such was the confused roar oCwindand water above and about us, the only rhyth-mic sound being the dismal striking of the fog-bell. "She 's taking on a sea," was all the

keeper said. After one of these storms the

tower is covered with ice, and tons of it hang

from the side of the parapet. As the weathermoderates, heavy pieces break off with a loud

report, and plunge into the ocean.Even in perfectly calm weather sounds of

the sea eighty feet below rise to the watch-room. The store-room door is kept open asmuch as possible for ventilation, and the swashof the waves around the foot of the tower trav-els up through the five stories to the watch-room like a long-drawn gurgle. This, variedwith the turmoil of the storm, is all the keepersof Minot's Ledge hear in winter besides theirown voices. About their only diversions arereading, and playing games, like cards and

draughts, and of these they naturally weary.Even in playing games they cannot make them-

selves comfortable; for as there is no space fora table in the watch-room, they are obliged tostand up to the bell-casing. "The trouble withourlife here," said the keeper, "is that we have

too much time to think." Not many years agoone keeper thought so much that he left the

watch-room, went below, and cut his throat.Instances when keepers new to life on Minot'shave been so frightened by the shock of onlymoderately heavy seas against the tower that

they have left it the first chance possible, havenot been uncommon. "No money '11 hire me

to stay on Minot's," exclaimed one of these de-serters, as he followed his gripsack down the

line into the boat.On the lantern-deck above the watch-room

is a spy-glass, and frequently the keepers trainthis glass upon their dwellings ashore. The

principal keeper has children who are attend-

ing school, and at the hour for their leavingor returning home he will invariably be foundglass in. hand in the lantern or on the para-pet. In some respects this proximity to shoreadds to the loneliness of life on Minot's. The

keepers see what they crave constantly beforethem without being able to attain it. If, for

instance, the keeper's children go to or returnfrom school at some unusual hour, and he

misses seeing them, he worries until he catches

Tl-lE FOG-BELL.

a glimpse of them again. The keepers arealso alarmed if they see a small boat puttingout from shore in winter time, apprehensivethat it means bad news from home. ,

Pacing the parapet is the only outdoor ex-ercise Minot's Ledge affords. I t may readily

be imagined that neither a tennis-court nor abase-ball diamond can be laid out on it. I t isa few feet in width, and encircles a room onlyten feet in diameter. One cannot walk cleararound because the fog-bell obstructs the pas-sage on one side, and in winter the gale isusually so savage that one dare not ventureon the weather side.

During my stay at Minot's I often wentout on the parapet at night, and peered overthe rail into the blackness below me, out of

which issued the voice of the sea. There wassomething indescribably grand in this surgingof the unseen ocean. One night, after a gray,threatening day, as I was standing upon the

parapet, I heard a sudden rush of wind, and

through the halo that surrounded the lanternthere scurried what seemed to be myriads of

white, ghost-like birds without a twitter or even



374 LIFE IN A LIGHTHOUSE.

the rustle of a feather, driven before the storm,and vanishing into the darkness as suddenly asthey had emerged from it. Cold, feathery flakesblown into my face told me that this weirdeffect was produced by a snow-squall whirlingaround the tower. Another night, as I cameout upon the parapet, I was startled to find

the sky ribbed with black lines that formedthe framework of a huge dome centeringdirectly above the tower. A fog had closedin, and against it were projected the vastlyelongated shadows of the iron supports that

run from the lantern-deck to the dome aboveit, while the light, as it was thrown upon thefog by the lens, filled in the spaces with a dunglare that was unearthly in its effect.

The boat. that swings from the parapeteighty feet above the sea is lowered only inemergencies. I t is remembered of a formerkeeper that when a small craft was capsizednear the tower, he leaped into the lighthouseboat, cast off the lines, and let it descend at fullspeed. Fortunately, neither cable fouled, other-wise the boat would have remained hanging,stern or bow up, as the case might have been,and the keeper would have been dashed topieces on the rocks; for, as it was low tide, theledge was not wholly submerged. At one timea dory was swung from the parapet. While akeeper was letting himself down in it the

wood-work in the bow gave way, and the doryhung. by its stern, the keeper falling from agreat height headlong into the water. Luckilyit was flood-tide, but he struck with such forcethat he penetrated the water far enough to feelthe seaweed on the rocks, and he suffers fromthe effects of the shock to this day. I t wasdiscovered that some one had tampered withthe dory-with the purpose, it is supposed,of creating a vacancy in the lighthouse ser-vice, repulsive as the thought may be.

There are four keepers at Minot's Ledge,

or, to be more exact, one keeper and three as-sistants.. They alternate two and two on thetower every fortnight, excepting when stormyweather forbids a landingat the ledge. Keepershave been storm-bound there seven weeks,and

when the storm abated sufficiently for them tobe lowered by the rope, have discovered, whenthe boat came out for them, that the door wasso heavily iced up they would be unable to

open it for several days. I t may seem that,with every other fortnight ashore, the keepersof Minot's Ledge have an undue proportionof vacation. But as a matter of fact the twoweeks on the tower drag like two years, whilethe two weeks ashore glide by like two hours.The time ashore is not a holiday, for there is

much work to be done about the dwellingsandgrounds. Yet the position of keeper or assist-ant on Minot's Ledge is eagerly sought fo r -

by those who have never tried it. Were Iasked after my experience on Minot's Ledgeto define a sea-rock lighthouse, I should reply," A prison surrounded by water."

The keepers' dwellings are prettily situatedon the Cohasset shore. In an emergency themen on the tower set a signal, in response towhich the keepers on shore put off in a smallboat. Several days elapsed after I had finishedmy work on Minot's Ledge before the keeperthought the sea had gone down sufficiently towarrant him in setting the signal. By the timethe boat was half-way out the waves had

roughened up so that he was obliged to lowerthe signal, and the little craft turned back. Iwas detained for three days longer before theboat, after the fourth attempt to reach thetower, succeeded in taking me off by meansof the block and tackle. No wonder that

days before their tour of duty on the tower

ends, the keepers anxiously watch every changeof the weather. I experienced the sensation of

joy that must thrill through them when theyreach shore, when at last I sprang from thegunwale of the little boat tei terra )irma.

Passing up the road that led to the village,I turned as it wound away from the shore fora last look out to sea. On a rocky slope nearthe dwellings stood one of the keepers, spy-glass in hand. About him, and looking anx-iously seaward, was a group of women and

children. Beyond the low land of the little

harbor the sea was boiling over innumerablerocks and ledges. Against the background of

ominous storm-clouds stood the gray tower,the waves, as they dashed against it, toss-ing the spray high up toward the parapet,from which only a few hours before I had

watched the keepers' boat put out from shore.Such was my last glimpse of Minot's Ledge

Lighthouse.Gustav Kobbl.

Documents

Life in a Lighthouse (Minots Ledge)