My New Years Wish

            I wish you and your family a very
                        Happy New Year.

     May you let your light shine to those around you.

My Christmas Wish

I'm taking time off, but I still want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas. 

  

 

 May you always let your light shine to those 

around you.

Like The Star That Guided The Wise Men Safely ...

Having visited over three-hundred lighthouses, only a few were part of a range light system. This is the only range light I've ever seen that was located in a church tower. (Click on pictures to enlarge.)

Like the star that guided the wise men safely to Bethlehem, this church light has guided the mariners at Beverly, MA safely to shore.

 The steeple of this 1801 First Baptist Church in Beverly, MA, houses the Hospital Point Range Rear Light.  In 1927, the light was installed in the steeple to work in conjunction with the front range light to guide mariners safely into the channel. The light is located in the square window about mid-way up the church steeple, and the church is located one mile to the west-northwest of the Hospital Point Range Front Lighthouse, pictured below. The church light (rear light), at 183 feet above the street, can only be seen two degrees either side of the range line by mariners. By aligning the two lights, front with rear, mariners knew they were safely in the middle of the channel. 

 The Hospital Point Range Front Light is also located at Beverly, MA.  The first lighthouse here was built in 1872 on the grounds of this one-time smallpox hospital. That lighthouse was a primitive wooden structure used only until the permanent pyramidal brick tower was completed the following year. From the first, Hospital Point Lighthouse has essentially been a range light. It was designed to show brightest along the center of the main ship channel between Baker and Little Misery Islands. The original light is a Federal-style light. Its flashing white front beacon is 73 feet above sea level and is visible all around. In 1947, the Hospital Point Range Front Light was automated and the station became quarters for the First Coast Guard Commander. At the time of my visit here in 2001, both of these range lights were active lights.

Remembering Pearl Harbor and The Lighthouses of Hawaii

This is a re-post from my blog post of December 2015, and like then, I only wish to highlight the lighthouses. Let me be clear. There is no intent on my part to take away or decrease the honor and respect we all should have for those individuals who gave their lives in service to the United States of America.

On Dec 7th 1941 at 7:48 am, over three-hundred-fifty Japanese fighter planes attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This attack destroyed many lives and property, and also started World War II. 

 In school as a young boy, I learned about the attack on Pearl Harbor. For you it may have been a different time and place. In fact, you may have a loved one who was there and told you of his or her personal experience on that dreadful December morning. No matter when we learned of the attack, each year since the tragedy we are reminded via various media of the tragic event. As it should be, the spotlight is on the attack and the loss of many lives. To my knowledge, none of the reports say anything about whether or not lighthouses were impacted. In remembering Pearl Harbor, for some reason I wondered about the lighthouses.

 So, did the attack on Pearl Harbor have any impact on Hawaii's lighthouses and their keepers? My research revealed several examples to the affirmative, but for brevity I'll share these few. 

The Barbers Point Lighthouse pictured below, the Makapu'u Lighthouse, and Diamond Head Lighthouse are all located near Honolulu on the eastern end of the island of Oahu. These three are part of the major lighthouses mentioned below the picture. Most likely, the Keepers for each of these lighthouses saw some of the fighter planes flying overhead or nearby their lighthouse that morning.

The Head Keeper at the Barbers Point Lighthouse documented his observation of the attack. In a letter he wrote a few days later, he described several events which occurred at his light station that morning. About one of those events he wrote the following: "At 8:00 am many planes were seen overhead, both Japanese and ours. Dog fighting continued for twenty minutes, bullets hitting the ground in bursts. Then all planes headed south, our planes chasing them. Seemed to have come from the windward side, and left the island on Barbers Point side." (Credit: LighthouseFriends for the quote from Keeper's letter.)

                     (Credit: Kraig Anderson; LighthouseFriends)

Throughout the islands of Hawaii there are a total of forty-three (43) lighthouses. Nine (9) of them are classified as major lights and thirty-four (34) are minor lights. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, every lighthouse had its light darkened and continued dark for the duration of the war. (Credit: LighthouseFriends.)

During the war, the Keeper's Dwelling at Diamond Head Lighthouse housed a Coast Guard Radio Station. 

I've been to Hawaii and visited the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, but regret I was not able to visit a lighthouse.

Few Keepers Lived In Dwellings Located Like This

 The Sombrero Key Lighthouse is located near Marathon, FL. Built in 1858, it is the tallest at 142-feet of the six skeleton towered Florida Reef lighthouses. It was the third one built in the series and the last of its type in which engineer Lt. George Meade played a significant role. The huge cast-iron structure stands on a coral bed almost five miles south of Vaca Key, FL.

 The one-story, thirty-foot, keepers dwelling was built of quarter-inch boiler iron and consists of four rooms. It was built on a platform forty feet above the water. The keepers could access the lantern room via an enclosed central circular stairway, or climb down a ladder to the water.

Over the years, this rugged tower has survived the mighty blows that Mother Nature has thrown at it, suffering only minimal damage. Periodic scraping and painting of the metal has kept the entire framework in remarkable shape. Coast Guard keepers left the station for good in 1963. The original glass-prism Fresnel lens was removed in 1982 and is displayed at the Key West Lighthouse Museum. A modern twelve-volt optic, which replaced the Fresnel lens, routinely furnishes a flashing white light that guides mariners past the surrounding reefs.

This light was active at the time of my visit in 2001. I saw the lighthouse from U.S. Highway 1 on my way to Key West, FL, but didn't get to photograph it. The above picture and some data was taken from a lighthouse magazine to document part of this lighthouse's history.