Pemaquid Reflections Pemaquid Lighthouse, Maine - 

What do the native American Abanakis, the Vikings, shipwrecks, the War of 1812, ghostly images of a bride-to-be and the Maine quarter all have in common ? The Pemaquid Neck and the Pemaquid Lighthouse that's what.

Maine's most famous lighthouse marks the west entrance to Muscongus Bay in from the Atlantic, near the town of Bristol. This lighthouse is considered the flagship of the 60 currently active in the State. In 2003, Maine citizens voted to have Pemaquid Lighthouse represent the State on the backside of their quarter. The cliffs in front of the lighthouse from the ocean side are geologically unique and are well weathered from centuries of storm exposure. High tidepools offer plenty of opportunity for lighthouse reflections as you can see ! Pun intended . . .

The word Pemaquid means "situated far out" in the Abanaki native language. While some historical records show excavated evidence (in the form of coins and jewelry) of Viking settlements as early as 1000 A.D. (authenticated by carbon dating), at this location and others such as northern parts of Newfoundland, Canada. Most authenicated historical accounts show Pemaquid to have had flourishing trade and fishing industries in the New World long before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620. The Icelandic Sagas also reflect the cultural and history of known Viking encounters and established settlements both in Greenland and in the New World as early as 950 AD. The Sagas as they are referred to, included poetry and literary writings with passed down heritage about this time period. History has recorded that the Vikings as a culture were relentless explorers with skilled navigational prowess.

Many shipwrecks have occurred at Pemaquid Point over the years, before and after the lighthouse was built. The first recorded shipwreck off Pemaquid Point was that of the 240-ton English galleon "Angel Gabriel" in 1635. Having sailed from Bristol England with passengers, crew, supplies and livestock for the New World settlements, it took two months for the ship to reach the Maine coast. While most of the crew were ashore during the first night for much deserved shore leave, the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 hit the area and the ship was dashed against the rocks. All cattle and horses were lost. Only two of the remaining crew aboard made it safely to land. There was one crew member whose journey on the ship was to be his last before returning to Maine and his bride-to-be. It is said her ghost haunts the lighthouse even today, while she awaits her financee to reach shore after the sinking. Visitors have reported seeing a momentary glimpse of a shadowy female form dressed in a white gown. Lights have turned on and off mysteriously in the tower at all hours of the night with no one present.

Even after the lighthouse was built there were devastating shipwrecks including the Edmunds (1903), Annie Collins (1891), Alice Higgins (1893), the Sadie / Lillie (1903) and the Willis Guy (1917). In 1813, during the War of 1812, the U.S. sailing warship Brig. "Enterprise" fought it out with the English warship "Boxer". Neither ship sank but both were heavily damaged with casualties on both vessels including both captains, all witnessed by Bristol inhabitants from shore.

Originally commissioned by our sixth U.S. President John Quincy Adams for $4,000, the Pemaquid Light started off atop the keeper's dwelling in 1827, at the SE point of the Pemaquid Neck (Maine term meaning a long finger of land). It had to be reconstructed as a new 30 foot whitewashed conical rubblestone tower in 1835 where it presently sits, overall some 79 feet above the water below. The original stone masons in 1827 used salt water as a mix with the lime mortar which caused the demise of the original structure. Extensively repaired again in 1857 after storms and exposure to the elements, its ten-sided iron lantern room was fitted with a 4th order Fresnel Lens and a new one and a half story keeper's dwelling. The original Fresnel lens still operates today and allows the beam of light to be seen some 14 miles out to sea. A fog-bell brick structure was added a few years later (seen in red brick in the photo above) and the bell had to be hand operated until an adjacent weight tower was added years later so the bell could activate mechanically.

In 1934, Pemaquid became Maine's first automated sentinel of the night along the Maine's rugged coastline. The fog-bell brick structure and weight tower had to be reconstructed after they were destroyed by hurricane Bob in 1991.

The most dangerous part of taking this photo was keeping an eye on the crashing waves behind me. It was a fairly calm day on the water as I was standing about ten feet from the water line but swell after swell threatened from behind. Photo was taken late in the afternoon with a Nikon D800, 24-70mm zoom lens set to 32mm, f/14 at 1/60s, matrix focusing at ISO 100. This photo is perhaps one of my most favorite of the that trip to Maine.

Cape Florida Light

The Dead Man Beside Me

The history of the Cape Florida Lighthouse is 200 years long and protracted with such events as construction fraud, destructive hurricanes, beach erosion that threatened the tower's stability, death, struggles for survival, violent attacks by indigenous people, fires, oil lamp explosions, civil war vandalism, then reconstruction. This short blog will recap but a few events in its colorful history. Stay tuned for the Rest of the Story in a future blog. . . 

In the early 1820's, a parcel of three acres of land on Key Biscayne was sold by the Waters Davis family to the federal government. Keep in mind it was only in 1821 that the US government took control of southern Florida from Spain. Spanish Explorer Juan Ponce De León had named the southern tip of Florida as Cape of Florida in 1513.
After surveying the southern Florida coastline, the U.S. government was eager to erect a light tower that would significantly aid maritime navigation around the southern tip of Florida. Hopes were that it would also greatly reduce future ship wrecks on the Great Florida reef and minimize black pirate activity along the Florida coastline. The lighthouse was located at a slight land projection that came to be known as Cape Florida and was the closest land mass to the prevailing Gulf Stream ocean currents and trade winds. Coupled with the North Atlantic Drift further north, the Gulf Stream helps accelerate traversing the north Atlantic to Europe. 

Soon after being awarded the contract to construct the first lighthouse in southern Florida on Key Biscayne, as well as one in Key West and Dry Tortugas, Samuel Lincoln set sail from Boston to Florida in August of 1824 with plans and construction materials on board. He and his crew never arrived and were never heard from again. Assumed lost at sea, he was replaced by Noah Humphreys to build the lighthouse at Key Biscayne. The original 65 foot brick tower built with a concrete base set on a coral reef had an internal wooden staircase, and was completed by the end of 1825. ( It was later determined that the contractor had defrauded the government by making the upper brick walls of the tower hollow so as to save the cost of brick and to make the schedule.) The area of land where the lighthouse was being built was a vital sailing off point for black Seminoles escaping slavery to freedom in the Bahamas where slavery had been outlawed. Known as the Saltwater Railroad, the building of the lighthouse and the bustling activity in Key Biscayne hindered this escape route.

After being appointed as the first lighthouse keeper, Captain John Dubose, found it necessary, after a few years, to move his wife, 5 children and two former African-American slaves to safer surroundings in Key Biscayne, just north of the lighthouse. However it soon became apparent to him, this was not far enough away from the local Seminole tribes that were growing increasingly hostile. He then moved them to Key West. Hostilities grew even bolder by 1830 when, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, formed in 1824, tried enforcing the Removal Act passed by Congress. By coercing the Seminole nation to relocate to the Indian Territory, established in what today is known as Oklahoma, they outraged them even further and began the Second Seminole War. Subsequently, on July 23, 1836 a band of Seminoles attacked the lighthouse compound in their growing hostility to the US government. 
When in early July, Dubose decided to visit his family in Key West, he left only assistant keeper John W.B. Thompson in charge at the compound along with Aaron Carter, an older African-American handyman. The Seminoles aggressively attacked with muskets in hand. Seeing the attackers coming, the two men escaped from the keepers' quarters and made it to the top of the lighthouse tower with their own muskets and keg of gunpowder. The wooden staircase and wooden windows were set aflame by the attackers. Fires were heightened by the leaking 225 gallon lamp oil tank at the base of the tower which had suffered musket ball holes. The heat from the burning staircase and the subsequent breaking glass lenses and window panes in the lantern room forced the two men out onto the two foot wide open grate metal balcony. Now being targets of the Seminoles from below, Aaron Carter succumbed to a total of 7 musket ball wounds. It is recorded that the elder Carter, with tears in his eyes said to Thompson, ". . . I am wounded, save yourself " and took his last breath. Thompson, laying beside Carter, was not much better off having endured repeated musket fire from below and suffered life-threatening wounds to his feet and legs. He laid there on the balcony grating in a semiconscious state for almost 12 hours enduring thirst, hunger, musket ball wounds and fire burns all the while with attackers continued their rampage below.

With his clothes now on fire, Thompson, stood up to the railing and was considering jumping to his death after recommending his soul to God as he later stated. But rather, he managed to hurl the remaining gun powder keg down to the bottom of the fully inflamed wooden staircase hoping to end his misery by toppling the entire tower in an explosion. The result however was that only the staircase collapsed and the fire extinguished. The explosion and resulting pillar of fire was seen by the U.S. Naval schooner Motto, some 12 miles away. By morning, when they reached the Lighthouse, the seamen from the ship found Thompson barely alive at the top of the tower, and the attackers temporarily gone. Thompson was unable to get down due to the staircase's destruction and his serious injuries. With a series of ropes and pulleys, and some ingenuity, two naval seamen from the Motto were able to reach the top of the tower and rescue Thompson.

Thompson was sent to a military hospital in Key West and later to Charleston, South Carolina to recover. Though severely handicapped by his injuries for the remainder of his life, he continued to live out his days. 

In light of the ongoing hostilities with the native Seminole nation, the island of Key Biscayne was uninhabitable for settlers and the lighthouse lantern went dark from 1836 until 1846. But in 1847. . . .

Cockspur_Tower_Georgia

Cockspur Island Lighthouse - In The Line of Fire

Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island, Georgia (to the left side and out of view in this photo) was fully occupied as a Confederate fort with a garrison of about 361 men at the beginning of the Civil War. But the Union wanted to end the choke hold that allowed the South to protect the port of Savannah. On April 10, 1862, Union forces began firing varying sized rifled artillery rounds from 11 artillery batteries equipped with 36 of the newly invented “Parrott” rifled cast iron cannons. Artillery batteries were stretched out along the north beachhead of Tybee Island across the Savannah River. The furthest east battery positions on the beach were still able to reach the walls of the Fort with shells despite being some 3400 yards away. This was entirely possible only because of newly invented precision military technology of the rifled cannon. Closer batteries, with smaller sized ammunitions, were located less than 1600 yards away from the walls of the Fort. After 30 hours of relentless precision bombardment, the Confederate forces surrendered Fort Pulaski. The Fort had been built between 1829 and 1847 with roughly 25 million bricks, 7.5 ft thick walls, 25 feet high, and built by enslaved peoples rented from nearby plantations. It was one of over 42 coastal “Third System” fortifications built by the Federal government after the War of 1812. Once thought invincible to standard cannon ball munitions, the new technology of rifled cannons made the U.S. coastal forts very vulnerable.

The Cockspur Island Light located at the SE tip of Cockspur Island was only accessible by boat or by foot at extreme low tide and was directly in the line of the artillery shelling by 3 batteries easterly positioned on the Tybee Island beach. The Light had been extinguished at the beginning of the Civil War so as to not aid Union naval blockades or assaults. The tower was not the military objective of the Union attacks on the Fort but stood in the direct line of fire of those 3 battery positions. In order to be an effective bombardment on the Fort, the Union’s "Parrott" rifled artillery rounds and percussion shells were hurled in such a trajectory over the brick Lighthouse Tower that it suffered no significant damage. 

Courtesy of Google and American Battlefield Trust here is a Link to the Union Pre-Attack Strategy Map: https://images.app.goo.gl/Vm9f1qZviuYBWfu8A

The original brick Light tower on this site was only intended as a daymark and was built between 1837 and 1839, but was also destroyed by a hurricane in 1839. Six years later, the famous NY architect John S. Norris was commissioned by the US government to rebuild the original lighthouse but as an illuminated tower. By 1848 this Lighthouse and Keeper’s quarters were completed on this islet consisting of oyster shells and rip-rap rock. The brick tower of 1848 was again destroyed by a hurricane in 1854 but rebuilt in 1855 on the same foundation albeit enlarged. This is the current tower shown in the photo. After the Civil War, in 1866, the light was relit. After the hurricane of 1893 it was also painted white to serve as a daymark for navigation . In 1909 this seemingly insignificant little brick tower Lighthouse's beacon was finally extinguished as a navigational light on the Savannah River. By 1909 major commerce was increasing to the Port of Savannah and sea traffic was redirected to the deeper north channel of the River.

By August 1958 President Eisenhower signed into a proclamation a transfer of ownership of the Cockspur Island Light from the US Coast Guard to the National Park Service. Preservation of this Light Tower, Georgia’s smallest, is ongoing. In 2007, the Light was relit for historic recognition.

Baltimore Harbor Light_Maryland

America's Only Nuclear Powered Lighthouse-

Originally funded in 1894, construction was not completed until 1907 and finally lit in 1908. It is located on Chesapeake Bay, as the last lighthouse built on the Bay it marks the entrance to the Craighill Channel near the mouth of the Magothy River leading to Baltimore Harbor. Construction difficulties included flooding and subsequent sinking of the caisson, re-erecting the caisson and fierce winter storms delayed the completion for almost 18 years. As it turns out, the BHL (Baltimore Harbor Light), as it was known, became one of the most difficult lighthouse construction projects ever built in the United States. Above the waterline it stood 53 feet and some 88 feet below the mean water line, resting on 91 pilings driven into the muddy bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.

It was a partially filled with concrete, steel caisson foundation with a 30 foot diameter building platform, painted white brick octagonal two story super structure measuring 24 feet in width, mansard shaped slate tile roof and with a black lantern enclosure to top it off.  The original caisson engineering criteria was that it needed to resist 100mph winds, 30,000 pounds of ice pressure per square foot and almost constant 3 mph underwater currents.

In 1964, the U.S. Coast Guard buoy tender White Pine installed a 60-watt nuclear isotopic power generator about the size of a 55 gallon drum weighing 4600 pounds, as an experiment to see if such a power source could be used in remote areas for sustainable long term power. The BHL was America's only, and the world's first, nuclear powered lighthouse. After two years, the nuclear powered generator was removed having proved itself worthy. As a side note, while the generator was being installed, the lighthouse was passed by the world's first nuclear powered cargo-passenger ship, the historic NS Savannah, now currently moored at the Port of Baltimore, Maryland.

The lighthouse lantern is currently solar powered and still maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard; the lighthouse is fully restored and privately owned.

Photo taken in September 2023 from the shoreline along Shipsview Road near Cape St. Claire, Maryland using a Nikon D850 DSLR, Nikkor 500mm lens (hand-held), manual exposure setting f/14, shutter speed 1/250, ISO 125.