By Dan Burns
Boston Harbor Lighthouse 1700s
Boston’s Harbor is a deep and spacious harbor on the East Coast, making it America’s commercial center in colonial times. Large vessels entered the harbor between the Brewster Islands and Point Allerton in Hull until the North Channel was opened in 1910.
In 1713, John George, a prominent Boston merchant and selectman, proposed a lighthouse to the General Court, the main decision-making group at the time. He suggested building a lighthouse with a lantern on a headland at the harbor entrance to guide ships at night. Lieutenant Governor William Tailer led a committee that was formed to plan for the new lighthouse.
After visiting the harbor islands and talking to experienced captains, Tailer decided the best location was the southern tip of Little Brewster Island, also known as Beacon Island.
A tax on vessels entering and leaving the harbor financed the first lighthouse. Vessels paid a penny per ton, while smaller coastal vessels paid two shillings when they left. Fishing boats and small vessels carrying local lumber and building materials paid a yearly tax of five shillings. The tax was able to collect about £2,385 to finance a stone tower at least 50 feet tall.
In 1719, they placed a cannon on the island as America’s first fog signal. When ships passed by in foggy weather, they would fire their cannons, and the keeper would respond with a blast from the light station. The cannon, cast in 1700, may have come from Long Island in the inner harbor, and it served on Little Brewster Island for 132 years.
In the early 1960s, they moved the cannon to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
In 1993, they returned it to Little Brewster by helicopter, and now they have mounted it on a new carriage inside the lighthouse tower’s base.
American Revolution
In July 1775, the British Navy controlled Boston Harbor and the lighthouse. On July 20th, American troops led by Major Joseph Vose, a major in the Massachusetts Regiment, landed at the lighthouse and took some supplies, including lamps, oil, and gunpowder. They then burned the wooden parts of the tower. As they left the island, they had to outrun a British schooner and two Americans were wounded. An eyewitness described the scene as “the flames of the lighthouse ascending up to Heaven, like grateful incense, and the ships wasting their powder.”
On July 31st, three hundred American soldiers under Major Benjamin Tupper of Dorchester landed on the island. They overwhelmed the British guards and set fire to the lighthouse once more. As they tried to leave, they found that the tide had gone out, stranding their boats. This gave the British vessels time to catch up. The Americans managed to launch their boats just as the British started firing on them.
American troops at Fort Revere in Hull assisted by firing a cannon at the British boats, striking one directly. This helped the Americans turn the battle around and they escaped with only one soldier killed.
After the British military and Naval forces evacuated Boston on March 17th, 1776, some of their ships stopped at Peddocks Island to make repairs before the long trip to Nova Scotia. As they left the area on June 13th, 1776, they set off a timed charge on the lighthouse island, destroying the tower completely. The metal from the lantern was later used to make ladles for American cannons.
In June 1783, a committee from the Boston Marine Society decided to address the lack of a lighthouse. The authorities authorized Richard Devens, the commissary general of Massachusetts, to build a new lighthouse on the same site as the old one. The architects designed the new tower to be similar in size to the old one, standing 60 feet tall, or 75 feet to the top of the octagonal lantern. The builders made it of conical rubblestone. Some people claim that builders used parts of the old tower in the new one, and recent repairs have shown that the stonework at the bottom of the tower differs from the upper part, which would support this theory.
Upgrades
The Boston Marine Society ran a couple of quality tests to see the improvements of the new Light. An observer at Baker’s Island lighthouse, approximately 15 miles apart, could see the new light beam. At midnight the light was temporarily turned off, and new light was turned on, on a test ship approximately 7.5 miles away reported the new light was so bright that it created shadows on the deck. The Boston Marine Society urged that all American lighthouses use Lewis’s system, and they awarded him a contract for this purpose. The Lewis system remained in use until the 1850s, even though the more efficient Fresnel lens, invented in France in 1822, had been adopted by much of the world.
A 1,375-pound fog bell, operated by clockwork machinery, replaced the old cannon in 1851. An inspection that same year, criticized lighthouse keeper Long for not lighting the lamp at sunset or extinguishing it at sunrise.
By not lighting the lamp at the appropriate times, the lamp’s light isn’t able to fulfill its function as a critical aid to navigating Boston Harbor’s entrance. Along with a lighthouse keeper change, the tower needed whitewashing, and the copper lightning conductors were broken and neglected. Moses Barrett, a Gloucester native, saw many changes during his time as keeper from 1856 to 1862. At one point in 1857, a board had suggested rebuilding the tower for $71,000, but instead they opted to make improvements to the original tower.
In 1859, the tower was raised to its current height of 89 feet, and a new lantern was installed with a 12-sided, second-order Fresnel lens. This lens was about 11 feet tall and 15 feet in circumference with a single lamp inside. The old lens had multiple lamps with round “bull’s-eye” panels on the lens, producing a flash every time they passed in front of the light source. The new, single lens lamp began operating on December 20, 1859.
The United States Coast Guard took control of all lighthouses in the USA in 1939. In 1957 an underwater cable from Hull was installed for electrical power.
This new electrical power drove rotating Fresnel Lens, ending the chore of winding it by hand every four hours by the lighthouse keepers.
To prepare for the 2016 tricentennial of the oldest lighthouse in America, a $2 million upgrade was completed in 2015. This work included masonry and exterior repairs, as well as protection and securing the 1859 Fresnel lens to prevent damage while the tower was restored.
In 2023, the final official lighthouse keeper for Boston Harbor Lighthouse retired, serving as the last active keeper in the United States. Dr. Sally Snowman was the station’s first and only female keeper in the United States. Dr. Sally Snowman was the station’s first and only female keeper in its 307-year history. Boston Light still stands strong today, although visitors are no longer allowed to land on the island or tour the lighthouse. This lighthouse and its centuries of history remain an important landmark of Boston harbor.
References Used
http://www.newenglandlighthouses.net/boston-light-history.html
https://www.nps.gov/boha/learn/historyculture/boston-light.htm
https://www.bostonmarinesociety.org
https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/12/20/boston-light-sally-snowman-lighthouse-keeper