From the craggy coast of Maine, to New Jersey’s sandy beaches, the Atlantic coast is speckled with legends, like seashells. Legends told by sailors and flatlanders alike, of wonderful sailing ships, fierce blizzards and terrible wrecks; legends that are the lore and lure of the sea. Storytellers still recount the adventures of the surfmen who braved the gale to rescue the victims of shipwrecks, or the lonely vigil of the lighthouse keeper. The Revenue Cutters first sailed from New England ports, and their battles against smugglers and pirates are epic.
The first lighthouse in the country was built in Boston, and the first ship of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, Massachusetts, was built in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The federal government built a series of huts along the New Jersey coast to shelter shipwrecked mariners, and the U.S. Life-Saving Service performed its first rescue there in 1850. Those three agencies; the Lighthouse Service, the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service were later joined, so in truth, the history of the U.S. Coast Guard began on shores of the North Atlantic.
"Steer for yonder light"
Early settlers found New England a hostile home. The rocky soil was difficult to farm and the winters were severe. For a time the solution was easy; continued dependence upon Europe and the sea. Sailing ships brought manufactured goods like clothes from England. Colonial boats fished for cod, and later lobster, throughout Massachusetts Bay.
Navigation was difficult. Sailors depended upon the sun, stars and primitive compasses. There were no accurate charts of the American coasts. As early as 1700, colonists realized the need for lighthouses to guide ships to port. Massachusetts erected a lighthouse on a small island in Boston Harbor in 1716. The next year, a cannon was put on the island to be fired in fog and storms. Boston Light became both the first lighthouse and the first fog signal in the country.
More lights followed as Americas maritime trade grew: Brant Point on Nantucket in 1746; Beavertail Light, in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, in 1749; and Gurnet Point, at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1768. Sandy Hook Lighthouse was built on a New Jersey point outside New York harbor in 1764. Because it has never been rebuilt, Sandy Hook is the oldest original lighthouse operating in the country.
Lighthouses played a curious role in the American Revolution. The colonists and the British both took turns attacking Boston Light to prevent the other from using Boston harbor. The light was finally demolished. Nearby Gumet Light was struck by a cannonball from a British frigate. The first woman keeper was Hannah Thomas who took over at Gurnet Point Light in 1776 when her husband, General John Thomas, went to Canada to assume command of American troops there.
An incident in the next war with England demonstrated how important women would later become to the Lighthouse Service. During the War of 1812, the British warship Hogue sailed into the harbor of Scituate. The lighthouse keeper was away on business, but his two young daughters saw the danger. With a fife and drum, the girls hid in the dunes and began playing as loudly as they could. Thinking the Army of Two was a regiment of militia approaching, the British withdrew and did not attack.
After the revolution, the colonies gave 11 lighthouses to the new federal government. Realizing the importance of navigation to the growing country, Congress established the Lighthouse Service in 1789 to erect and repair all the lighthouses, beacons and buoys in the new United States. In 1790, President George Washington authorized the completion of a new lighthouse in Portland, Maine, the first built by the federal government.
As the number of lighthouses along the coast increased, it became increasingly difficult for the mariner at sea to distinguish the light of one port from another port. From a great distance, lighthouses looked like identical steady white lights. The easiest way to distinguish between the lights was to put more than one light together. The first twin towers were built on Thatcher’s Island, near Gloucester, in 1771. Twin towers also were built on Navesink Highlands, New Jersey in 1828. Three identical towers were built on Nauset Beach, Cape Cod.
Clearly, building several towers together was not always easy. Another solution was to change the way the light looked, for instance make one light steady and another nearby flashing. In 1797, "eclipsers" were installed on Cape Cod Lighthouse, in Chatham, making it the first light with an intermittent characteristic. During the next century, the lighthouses changed with America’s inventiveness, and a little bit of "Yankee know-how." A fog bell at White Head Light in Maine was powered by the tide. The flow of water wound a weight which drove the striking mechanism. Some later aids to navigation used automatic light-bulb changers.
The history of Navesink Light reads like a science primer. In 1841, the first Fresnel (pronounced fren-nel) lens used in this country was installed at Navesink. The lens, designed by a French optician, Augustin Fresnel, magnified the projected light through beveled prisms. A generator was installed in 1898 and Navesink became the first lighthouse to use an electric lamp, making it the most powerful lighthouse in the country, with 25,000,000 candlepower. Although the curvature of the Earth prevented ships from seeing the light itself beyond 22 miles, its beam was observed in the sky at 70 miles. The following year, Guglielmo Marconi transmitted from the light station the first ship to shore radio messages. In 1917, the first experimental radio beacon was installed there. Innovation was the hallmark of lighthouse engineering and building lighthouses was often a test of the latest technology. Perhaps no light was more challenging than the granite tower built off the coast of Massachusetts on Minot’s Ledge.
The rocks along the coast of Cohasset, Massachusetts, claimed many ships and many lives in the early part of the 19th century. Between 1830 and 1840, 40 ships sank in this treacherous area. Perhaps the greatest tragedy came shortly before a lighthouse was completed when the steamer St. John ran aground in an October, 1849 storm and 99 people were lost, mostly Irish immigrants. The Lighthouse Service constructed an iron skeleton tower on the Minot’s Ledge between 1847 and 1850. The engineers believed the open columns would allow the sea to pass below without resistance.
The beacon was lighted on January 1, 1850, but it survived barely a year. Storms in March and April the following year battered the light, loosening and bending cross braces in the pedestal framework. A storm that began April 8, 1851 struck the fatal blow against the weakened structure. Sometime during the night of April 16, the main support stilt snapped and the tower swayed at the mercy of wind and wave. The two keepers rang the lighthouse bell, heard by the residents of nearby Cohasset even above the roar of the storm. They also sealed a note in a bottle and pitched it out to sea. The note, found by a fisherman the next morning, read, "The lighthouse won’t stand over to night. She shakes two feet each way now." The bell was silenced when the tower fell into the sea during the early hours of April 17. The two keepers donned life preservers and jumped into the ocean. One drowned and the other died of exposure on a bare rock.
Construction of a second tower began in 1855. The stubs of the previous stilts were removed and the uneven surface of the ledge was cut into steps. The work went slowly because the rock was only exposed at low tide and engineers were stumped by several problems.
One difficulty ingeniously solved was how to keep the mortar from being washed away before it dried. Workers spread out a piece of muslin and covered it with mortar. Then the finished stone was laid on the muslin and plastered with mortar. Finally, the muslin was wrapped around the stone to prevent the mortar from dissolving in the seawater.
The second tower was lighted November 15, 1860. Minot’s Light stands today against waves that sometimes crest above its 97-foot peak. One lighthouse historian called Minot’s Light "The single greatest engineering achievement" of 19th century lighthouse construction in this country.
Today, the life of a lighthouse keeper might seem idyllic but the word they used most often to describe their lives was lonely. The lights were isolated, often on remote islands; and keepers could only be away a few hours during the day, and had to remain at the light constantly during bad weather. The keeper’s job revolved around maintaining the lamp, tower and quarters. When Lighthouse Service inspectors visited, the first thing they inspected was the dustpan. A polished dustpan was the mark of a good lighthouse. During the 1800s, lights used lamps that burned whale oil or lard. The quality of the light depended upon how well the wick was trimmed. Gradually, keepers were nicknamed "wickies."
The duties of a lighthouse keeper were tedious and often dangerous. In addition to the endless maintenance of light and structure, keepers had to be alert and ready to respond to vessels in distress. Many keepers were women who, like Katie Walker, assumed the duties their father or husband could no longer perform. Katie Walker remained keeper of Robbins Reef Lighthouse in New York harbor for 34 years.
Perhaps the most famous woman keeper was Ida Lewis. She was keeper of Lime Rock Lighthouse in Rhode Island for 32 years. Her fame was a result of the many daring rescues she performed. An excellent swimmer and an expert sailor, she made her first rescue as a teenager and her last at the age of 64. In all, she is credited with saving more than a dozen lives.
With electricity, keepers no longer had to remain awake all night and watch the burning wick. By the 1920s, lighthouses were built with equipment that did not even need a keeper to turn the light on. These "automated" lights were the most recent development in the advancement of lighthouse technology but also meant the end of an era. The days of the lighthouse keeper were numbered. In fact, with improved navigation, including such electronic aids as radar and radio navigation, lighthouses themselves were no longer as important as during the earliest days of the colonies.
A life by the lighthouse
Abbie Burgess was 14 when she first went to Matinicus Rock, off the coast of Maine. Her father was keeper there for eight years. She helped him light the 28 lamps that warned ships away from the dangerous ledges in Penobscot Bay. In 1856, winter supplies were running desperately low and Keeper Burgess decided to make a winter trip ashore to fetch food and medicine for his invalid wife. He left Abbie in charge of the light. Soon after he left, a storm blew in and he was unable to return for several weeks. As the gale raged, Abbie moved her mother and the children into the light tower for safety. The waves completely washed away their first home on the island, and from the tower, Abbie watched the destruction below.
"The new dwelling was flooded and the windows had to be secured to prevent the violence of the spray from breaking them in. As the tide came, the sea rose higher and higher, till the only endurable places were the light-towers. If they stood we were saved, otherwise our fate was only too certain. But for some reason, I know not why, I had no misgivings, and went on with my work as usual. For four weeks, owing to rough weather, no landing could be effected on the Rock. During this time we were without the assistance of any male member of our family. Though at times greatly exhausted with my labors, not once did the lights fail Under God I was able to perform all my accustomed duties as well as my father’s.
"You know the hens were our only companions. Becoming convinced as the gale increased, that unless they were brought into the house they would be lost, I said to mother: "I must try to save them." She advised me not to attempt it. The thought, however, of parting with them without an effort was not to be endured, so seizing a basket, I ran out a few yards after the rollers had passed and the sea fell off a little, with the water knee deep, to the coop, and rescued all but one. It was the work of a moment, and I was back in the house with the door fastened, but I was none too quick, for at that instant my little sister, standing at the window, exclaimed, "Oh, look! look there! The worst sea is coming!"
"That wave destroyed the old dwelling and swept the Rock. The sea is never still and when agitated, its roars shuts out every other sound, even drowning our voices."
Gradually the storm subsided. Keeper Burgess returned to find his family and his light safe.
Although her family left the island after her father was no longer keeper, Abbie stayed and married the new assistant keeper. She remained on Matinicus until 1875 when her husband was transferred to White Head Light, near Spruce Head, Maine. Abbie died in 1892, after spending 38 of her 52 years at a lighthouse. Shortly before her death, she wrote;
"Sometimes I think the time is not far distant when I shall climb these lighthouse stairs no more. It has always seemed to me that the light was part of myself. . .Many nights I have watched the lights my part of the night, and then could not sleep the rest of the night, thinking nervously what might happen should the lights fail.
"In all these years I always put the lamps in order in the morning and I lit them at night. These old lamps. . .on Matinicus Rock...I often dream of them. When I dream of them it always seems to me that I have been away a long while, and I am hurrying toward the Rock to light the lamps there before sunset. . .I feel a great deal more worried in my dreams than when I am awake.
"I wonder if the care of the lighthouse will follow my soul after it has left this worn out body! If I ever have a gravestone, I would like it in the form of a lighthouse or beacon."
Many years later, the author and lighthouse historian, Edward Rowe Snow, erected a small lighthouse over Abbie Burgess Grant’s grave.
Sea duty:
Danger and boredom mark life onboard floating lighthouses
The most dangerous duty in the Lighthouse Service was aboard lightships. These floating lighthouses anchored offshore where it was impossible to build a permanent tower. They remained on isolated stations for several weeks, through storms and fog. Because they marked the sea lanes, several lightships were struck by passing ships navigating through the dark and fog. One skipper described his duty as "weeks of boredom, interrupted by moments of sheer terror." One of the first lightships stationed off the shores of the United States was at Sandy Hook in 1823. In 1908, that station was replaced by the Ambrose Channel Lightship, and later a light atop a fixed tower.
Storms were a constant threat to the lightships. Five Fathom Banks Lightship off the entrance to Delaware Bay was struggling through a tempest August 23, 1893. Waves washed over the vessel and carried away the lifeboats. Finally, the lightship was struck broadside by a wave and capsized. The assistant engineer was trapped below decks, but somehow managed to reach the surface after the ship sank. He clung to the wreckage for 16 hours until rescuers arrived. The other four crewmen were lost with the ship.
Sometimes storms claimed both ship and crew. During a hurricane in 1944, Lightship #73 disappeared from Vineyard Station near Cuttyhunk Island, Mass. All 12 crewmen were lost, but only two bodies were ever recovered. During the winter of 1918, the Cross Rip Lightship, stationed off Cape Cod, was carried out to sea by an ice floe and never heard from again.
Collisions with freighters and passenger liners were a constant threat to the lightships . A skipper of the Nantucket Lightship said, "Some of the larger steamers passed very close aboard during a heavy fog. A few times almost grazing us." In fact, the Nantucket was finally rammed and sunk by the steamship RMS Olympic, the sister ship of Titanic, May 15, 1934. Seven crewmen were lost. One particularly unlucky lightship was struck twice in one year. The lightship stationed off Fire Island in 1896 was hit head-on by the steamer Eastern City in March and then rammed by the steamer Philadelphia in May.
Lightships are no longer used in this country. These dangerous stations were replaced by towers, like those at Ambrose, Buzzards Bay and Breton’s Reef or by large buoys, like those at Nantucket or Portland.
Smugglers, pirates and war
The American colonies were dependent upon England for more than manufactured goods and tea. When the French and Indians attacked settlers along the frontier, English troops came to the colonists’ defense. But the cost of protecting and supporting the colonies forced the English Parliament to heavily tax products sent to America.
The colonists rebelled. In many cases, they simply refused to pay the English taxes and instead smuggled goods from other countries. Such patriots as John Hancock joined the smuggling trade and his sloop, Liberty, was seized by the British. Soon smuggling had patriotic overtones and became an acceptable means of earning a living. Finally, war came and one of the rallying cries of the American Revolution was "no taxation without representation." America won its freedom but the eight-year war left the fledgling country nearly $80,000,000 in debt with no way to fund its new federal government. To resolve the nation’s financial problems, George Washington shrewdly appointed Alexander Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury.
Hamilton, a New York lawyer and aide to Washington during the Revolution, realized the need to collect taxes and enforce tariff laws. He also knew Americans resented the taxes Congress passed and smuggling flourished even after the war. He proposed a seagoing police force to stop smuggling and raise revenues.
On August 4, 1790, Congress authorized the construction of 10 ships to patrol the Atlantic coast. Hamilton instructed his customs agents to supervise their construction; a demanding job. The cutters had to be fast to overtake ships at sea; sturdy enough to sail off the coast and endure foul weather; yet shallow so they could pursue ships up rivers and still cost only $1,000 apiece.
The first Revenue Marine cutter, the Massachusetts, was built in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and sailed in 1791. It was built too large and exceeded costs so it was quickly replaced. The Scammel was built in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; the Argus in Connecticut and the Vigilant in New York.
Hamilton was especially concerned about the conduct of the Revenue Marine officers. He knew that there was some resentment among merchants toward the Customs tariffs and agents. Hamilton’s instructions to his officer’s were clear: "They will always keep in mind that their countrymen are freemen, and, as such, are impatient of everything that bears the least mark of domineering spirit. They will, therefore refrain, with the most guarded circumspection, from whatever has the semblance of haughtiness, rudeness, or insult."
The early captains and officers were experienced seamen, all were veterans of the Revolution and some may have even smuggled some themselves. On March 21, 1791, Hopley Yeaton, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was appointed the first skipper of the Scammel and the first naval officer commissioned by President Washington.
While 10 cutters could not stop all smuggling along the coast, Hamilton and his customs agents were pleased with the results: Revenues increased. Joseph Whipple, Customs officer in New Hampshire, wrote to Hamilton about the Scammel;
"The services performed by the Cutter I conceive to have been very important to the safety and preservation of the Revenue. The Coast which is assigned to her, that of New Hampshire and the District of Maine, extending nearly 300 miles, many of which afford convenient places for fraudulent practices which have been checked by the attention and vigilance of the officers of the Scammel. The services for the past year consisted in cruising the aformentioned Coast, in entering and examining the Vessel’s papers, instructing the ignorant coasters, and in bringing to justice those who break or evade the law."
The cutters were quickly called upon to do more than law enforcement. The Continental Navy had been disbanded after the Revolution and the United States found itself without naval defense against England and France. American sailors were often impressed into service aboard foreign ships. Countries that refused to recognize the United States as a sovereign nation simply seized American vessels.
Relations with France deteriorated over America’s neutrality in France’s war against Britain. As hostilities increased, Congress assigned the Revenue Cutters the additional job of defending American ships. "An Act providing Naval Armament" passed June 14. 1797, directed the service "to defend the Sea Coast of the United States and to repel any hostility to the Commerce of the United States..."
Congress instructed the Revenue Cutters to increase the size of their crew and armament. After a Naval Department was established, Congress authorized the President to transfer the Revenue Cutters to the Navy as needed. That policy remains in effect today: In times of war, the Coast Guard serves under the Secretary of the Navy. Eight new cutters served with the Navy during the Quasi-War with France in 1798, including the Pickering, built in Newburyport. The Revenue Cutters seized 16 of the 20 French ships captured by the American Navy and assisted in capturing two more.
Only five of the eight were returned to the Revenue Marine at the end of the war. The cutter Pickering remained on naval duty and sank with all hands in September 1800, the first Revenue Cutter lost at sea. Revenue Cutters saw combat duty again during the War of 1812. In October 1814, the cutter Eagle sailed from New Haven, Connecticut, to rescue the American merchant ship, Susan, that was captured by a British sloop and the 18-gun brig, Dispatch.
Captain Frederick Lee on board Eagle realized small cannons were no match for the two British ships. He ran Eagle aground on Negros Head, Long Island. There his crew and 40 volunteers hauled the cannons up a steep bluff. When the cannons were in place, the cuttermen opened fire against the British ships. The gunfire echoed along the beach for five hours. Dispatch alone fired 300 rounds. Twice the cutter’s flag was shot away but, according to witnesses, it was replaced each time by a sailor "amid the cheers of his undaunted comrades and a whole broadside from the enemy. The stubborn resistance of Eagle’s crew finally drove off the British. The crippled cutter was re-floated and sailed for New Haven. Along the way, the British finally captured it.
The speed of the Revenue Cutters proved an advantage against the heavier British warships. The British privateer Dart had seized almost 30 American ships in Long Island Sound before she sailed past Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, October 4, 1813. Captain John Cahoone aboard the cutter Vigilant took 20 volunteers and sailed out after Dart. Catching the sloop, Cahoone fired a broadside then boarded it. After a brief fight, the cutter Vigilant captured the privateer.
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