At 133-feet-tall, the new Boon Island Lighthouse, built of granite quarried in Biddeford and lined with brick, was and is the tallest in New England. Writer, Editor, Skier. Joseph Wilson managed to reach Gull Rock, probably mistaking it for the mainland, where he apparently died of exhaustion and exposure. Hes says hes planning to open it up for occasional tours, and that the response has been really good. In the old days, a light keeper lit the lens and hand-cranked weights to rotate the light, each sending out an identification signal or patternGravess is two white flashes every twelve secondsto guide mariners to shore, back where we came from in East Boston. Although William C. Williams remained at Boon Island longer than any other keeper, his mind was not immune from the effects of the storms that often raked the island: The 1888 Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board described the structures at the station. In 1901, the Lighthouse Board requested $10,000 for a powerful fog signal to replace the bell used on Boon Island. Eight months pregnant with my father, my grandma pointed a skiff out into the teeth of a noreaster to tie down her boat, the Little Gull, under the flash of the light. Waller is recognized as an expert and has been an advocate for restoration, appearing in The Last Lightkeeper, an Amazon documentary released late last year. It hits deeper, because it draws back to when you could get lost in the ocean, when you needed a beacon to bring you home. Their goal? Though the government has the right to reject all bids if it believes a fair market price has not been achieved, the $78,000 bid was approved a few weeks after the auction closed, and the lighthouse was awarded to Arthur Girard a real estate developer from Portland, Maine. Sager is now fixing up two more lighthouses (Minots Ledge Light south of Boston and Maines Boon Island Light) he landed at auction when they were offloaded by the Coast Guard. The living quarters were also damaged, and boulders were swept onto the island. Lighthouses across the country are crumbling amid worsening storms and dwindling funds. Find your friends on Facebook. Ruth doesnt recall many stories from Gordons service on the island, but she does remember that the difficulty in accessing the island with the stations boat delayed his coming to visit her in Boston on more than one occasion! Until construction of the new dwelling was completed in 1905, animosity festered, as was noted in a letter by First Assistant Charles W. Torry, charging the Keeper of that station with neglect of duty, in not properly keeping an account of oil expended at the station, and a waste of the Government property in throwing surplus oil away in order to make his account of expenditures tally. Apparently, no disciplinary action was taken against Keeper Williams; but Torry soon found himself unemployed. Philanthropist and photographer Bobby Sager, founder of the Sager Family Traveling Foundation and Roadshow, met Moise in 2005. Lives in Montgomery, Texas. A few years ago, the mooring was ripped out of the ocean floor by a gale, and a breaker dragged Dave Wallers boat, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter he bought used, into the shoal below the lighthouse. If you look out into the Atlantic, past the Scituate, Massachusetts, harbor you can see Minots Ledge Light blinking 114 feet above the swell. You realize they had it all figured out long ago, says Waller, now a pro at finding the right tools and the right people. The island is now owned by philanthropist and lighthouse enthusiast Bobby Sager. A little while after thatsame storm, Hutch put the teapot on the stove to get the tea hot, and he got up to go to the bathroom andthe sea took bathroom and all and took it all out back on the high rocksI was glad to get off that place. Christopher Sager, Age 41. aka Chris Sager. Sign Up. His first renovation was his Malden home, a 10,000-square-foot Queen Anne style firehouse that had nearly burned to the ground when he and his wife, Lynn, bought it from the town for $32,500. They always say the best government is a benevolent king because his heart is in the right place, he says. Its Graves third bridgethe first one washed away in the Blizzard of 1978; the second was destroyed in the Perfect Storm (as titled in the book and movie) of 1991. It's not just the Minot's Ledge lighthouse that's changing hands. We walk the fresh pale planks, turn around, and I see it why Waller would throw down the most moneyjust shy of a million dollarsever spent privately on a lighthouse. Of course placement of the granite blocks was conducted only at low tide when the sea was calm; even so, many times construction workers were swept off the rocks by the waves. The ladder up from sea level, Graves Light, built in 1905. Seeing the keepers predicament, the assistants in the lighthouse sprang into action and used a rope to lower Assistant Keeper Whitman to the water where he was able to seize Reamy. No one in my family lives in the Scituate harbor anymore, and its morphed from a fishing town to a summer vacation spot for people from Boston. The catch? Includes Age, Location, Address History for Shad Gary Sager . The money was well spent, though; although many waves have crashed over the ninety-seven-foot tower and even broken windows, the lighthouse has sustained no significant structural damage. It was above being a captain of a ship, because you were the guardian of all the ships, he adds. The first light of dawn revealed only the bent remains of a few pilings. The identity of the new owner was soon revealed to be Bobby Sager, a Boston philanthropist and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Polaroid. You have to be pretty creative to live in an offshore lighthouse in the first place. The Coast Guard, once mandated by Congress to staff and operate Boston Light permanently, has greenlit a search for a new owner through the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. In May 2000, Boon Island Lighthouse, from which a flashing white light, visible for nineteen nautical miles, is emitted every five seconds, was leased to the American Lighthouse Foundation. or. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for INVISIBLE SUN BOBBY SAGER RIZZOLI NEW YORK SIGNED BOOK RARE at the best online prices at eBay! Exactly 40 feet overhead, like something from a dizzying Escher painting, is the maroon door to his second home, Graves Light Station. The auction attracted seven bidders, who submitted a total of seventy bids, and ended on October 13, 2014, with a high bid of $222,000. The 300-year-old Boston Light, the countrys first lighthouse, is located on Little Brewster Island in the Boston Harbor. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Graves Light sits on a rocky ledge in the middle of Boston Harbor, surrounded by water. Minots light has been giving people feelings since it was built in 1860. Since the act passed, theyve transferred ownership of 68 lighthouses to non-profits and historical commissions for free, and sold 39. Brides (1940 at least 1942) . Lives in Kenbridge, Virginia. Some of the people purchasing auctioned lighthouses feel the same as me, and theyre buying them to save them. But, ultimately hes turning it into a vacation house. See Photos. After a year on the island, Keeper Hanna wrote the following threat: unless the Government provides for me and my family as agreed, I shall on the first day of April leave this place. Hannas request was forwarded to Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin with the following notation, it has been difficult to get anyone who would consent to accept the appointment as keeper for the compensation allowed. About 100 years ago there were more than 1,000, according to the U.S. Lighthouse Society, and now 850 are still standing. As the iron supports began to snap one by one, the bell was silenced, the beacon was extinguished, and the men were cast into the raging sea. A Coast Guard motorboat from Allerton finally reached the scene and picked up all of the men, who were three miles past the lighthouse at this point and unable to return to the mainland due to the wind. Great Lakes Lighthouses, Seacoasts, Islands, Sounds. First, a little background: Sager grew up in Malden, where he met and married his high school sweetheart. What kind of a guy, Fine. The film, also starring the lighthouse historian Jeremy DEntremont and Ford Reiche, who took on a similar extensive restoration of the Halfway Rock Light Station, in Casco Bay, Maine, is directed by Rob Apse, with a portion of the proceeds preserving Whaleback Lighthouse, at the mouth of the Piscatequa River in Kittery, Maine. Meanwhile the numbers of lighthouses are declining. 1st William C. Williams signed on as second assistant on August 5, 1885, earning $450 annually. Oil Consumption Per Hour (oz.) It is two miles from Graves and allows tours. Im not nearly so optimistic about the ones that are remote and inaccessible to the public, many of which will eventually face demolition by neglect., Many land-based lighthouses and the soil around them are contaminated with lead paint that must be remediated before someone saves them. Boone Island Lighthouse 17.5 William H. Swift, the builder of the lighthouse, felt compelled to respond to the published reports with a letter to the editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser. Among the federal detritus, lighthouses are a special case. Constant maintenance was their calling. Brazil. Go help someone.. First Assistant: Christopher C. Littlefield (1854), George G. Bowden (1854 1855), Charles H. Tobey (1855 1859), William Baker (1859), Josiah Tobey, Jr. (1859 1861), Calvin Gray (1861 1866), George H. Yeaton (1866 1867), John W. Card (1867 1873), Leander White (1874 1878), David R. Grogan (1878 1880), George O. Leavitt (1880 1881), Paschal Fernald (1881 1885), Orrin M. Lamprey (1885 1886), William C. Williams (1886 1888), James Burke (1888 1890), Charles W. Torry (1890 1893), William M. Brooks (1893 1897), Charles S. Williams (1897 1905), William T. Stevens (1905), Mitchell Blackwood (1905 1911), Charles W. Allen (1911 1913), Fuller E. Larrabee (1913), Roger P. Philbrick (1913 1917), Roscoe M. Chandler (1917 1919), Harry M. Kelley (1919 at least 1921), Eugene L. Coleman (1924 1930), Fred C. Batty (1930 1932), Benjamin Stockbridge (at least 1935), Hoyt P. Smith (1936 1937), Harry H. McClure (1937 1940), George A. McKenney (1940 1942), Jack McCoe (1944 1945), Thomas J. Guice (at least 1945), Robert Adams (at least 1947), Gordon B. Kenny (1951 1952), Charles Eaton (1962 1965), August Pfister (1967 1968). Eva recalls, Sometimes I played alone on the rocks, and when there were a lot of seals, Id make believe that was my army. Keeper Williams and his assistants saved the six crewmembers, though afterward, the keepers and the crew were almost equally incapacitated by exposure. In 1919, Keeper Harry Smith and his two assistants rescued seven men aboard the schooner Hazel E. Ritcey, after it struck a rock and sank near the island. On October 13th, Bobby Sager, Polaroid's chairman, won the auction and bought the lighthouse for $222,000. The lighthouse is privately owned. She spent a summer visiting lights along the eastern seaboard. There were two Coast Guard keepers on the island when the storm hit, tossing boulders across the island. The act sets a high bar for ongoing and pricey preservation and education. From the top deck of Graves tower, Waller points two miles south to Little Brewster Island, home only to Boston Light, the first lighthouse in the United States, built in 1716. Order 3.15 Phone Number: (661) 296-MJKV. 26.25 Vandals subsequently entered the lighthouse and smashed sections of the second-order lens. Some time around 1a.m. Sometime after this, the light was dubbed the I-LOVE-YOU light do to its unique 1-4-3 flash pattern. During a brief lull at the outset of the storm, Keeper Bennett had rowed to the mainland to see about purchasing a new boat for the station, but his two assistant keepers, Joseph Wilson and Joseph Antoine, were in the tower fearing for their lives. She started in Hatteras, North Carolina, near where she grew up and moved north, toward Hull, Mass., toward my dad. The dory was leaking so badly, that one man had to bale while the other manned the oars. Largest Seacoast Lights. Past Addresses: See available information. Morris, his wife, their two-year-old son, and two coastguardsmen sought refuge in a small, sturdy structure, and a helicopter was dispatched to drop food to them after the waves subsided. It offers stair-climbing tours in summer, and other months as staffing and conditions allow. The fires inside the dwelling went out after the chimneys became capped with ice. Philanthropist Bobby Sager was in Kabul, Afghanistan, when a group of men- enraged by his attempts to train female doctors- threatened to hold him for ransom. Snowman is the only female in history among the 69 others to keep Boston Light. After the events of 9/11 over a decade ago, without a primary need, government lighthouse maintenance funds were absorbed during the incorporation of the Coast Guard into homeland security, leaving enough only to maintain the automated lights and foghorns. As early as 1695, a schooner crashed on those treacherous rocks and sank, leaving no survivors. The Blizzard of 1978 helped write the last chapter in Boon Islands history as a manned light. She did chores, roller skated on the islands boardwalk, searched tide-pools, worshipped with the family every evening, and picnicked on Sundays. Lighthouse is best seen by boat, but a distant view is possible from Cape Neddick The US General Services Administration put the lighthouse up for auction in 2014. Head: Isaac Dunham (1849 1850), John W. Bennett (1850 1851), Joshua Wilder, Jr. (1860 1861), James J. . Indeed life inside the lighthouse did prove precarious. Two years into the construction, a ship named The New Empire wrecked on the rocks and destroyed the iron scaffolding erected on the ledge and injured the rock itself. Shad Sager Overview Shad Gary Sager has been associated with one company, according to public records. Several keepers were convinced that the ghosts of the two doomed assistant keepers still resided in the lighthouse, sending signals to each other, cleaning the lens, and warning others of the dangers presented by Minots Ledge. She is shaking a good three feet each way as I write. Since purchasing the lighthouse at a government auction seven years ago, Dave. At first, Boon Island was barely able to attract and retain a keeper. Rwanda. Part way to the tower, the dory sprang a leak. In March 1812, Thomas Hanna, grandfather of Marcus Hanna who would receive notoriety as keeper at Cape Elizabeth, agreed to man the light for $300 per year, plus a $100 advance for provisions. Breathing the salty clean winter air, out in the middle of the harbor, we stand in front of his time machine. In this design, interlocking granite blocks were placed on foundation stones weighing two tons each. Minots blinks 143, so people call it the I Love You Light, and before Ray J made it a bad R&B song, my parents would sign letters and then send texts 143. Eva Philbricks father was an assistant keeper on Boon Island from 1913 to 1917. It takes an extra level of patience to piece together 594 handmade glass prisms from Chicago and Australia, dating back 100 years, to form a two-ton incandescent oil-vapor Fresnel lens almost identical to the original now sitting in the Smithsonian, and once one of the brightest in history at 375,000 candlepower. Fun? Bobby Sager says, repeating my question. Grounds/tower closed. At the cost of your own life, you would keep that light lit, says Waller. The museum has the following table of lens sizes posted. But who owns the thing? Sometimes nothing makes them happy. Following two shipwrecks in 1810, a twenty-five-foot tall tower topped by an octagonal lantern was constructed at a cost of $2,377 along with a stone keepers house for $150. Although the area is no longer populated by Indians who believe in the evil spirit of Hobomock, for years tales have abounded of strange moaning, tapping, and even mysterious polishing of the lens by ghostly hands. The Dalai Lama, Sting, and Bobby Sager at Sagers home in Boston in 2012. I was thinking of that recently as I sat on a South Shore beach, listening to excitement rise in Joe Castigliones radio voice as a home-team fly ball cleared the bullpen wall at Fenway. Log In. 2 He says he didnt have any solid reason for buying it, just that same deep-seated nostalgia and a long-standing but loose family tie. Perhaps its best that the lighthouse has been left for the ghosts to inhabit in solitude. During the early 1930s, Fred Batty was an assistant keeper at Boon Island. Its finding ways to reverse 40 years of dark and dirty neglect1970s linoleum curling up over rotted wood, rusted metal walls, wilting sheets of paint. I kind of feel guilty buying it, taking it, and making it mine, because it was built with public money, but it was put up for free to non-profits first and there were no takers.. Sign up today. At our return to the house found all our water gone and all my turnips and cabage washt away and my walls all Down. To ease the burden, two assistant keepers, the stations first, were assigned to Boon Island in 1855. At 9 PM all my family was forst to go to the Lighthouse and Stay until 5 next morning. It was kind of redundant.. Approximate Weight of Assembled Lens (lbs.) Sitting at a table just steps away from where Hillary Clinton recently appeared at a fundraiser, Sager said hes driven by a counterintuitive impulse: a kind of altruistic selfishness. (Photo: Shane Sager). which houses part of a third-order Fresnel lens used in the lighthouse can be seen at Government Island in Cohasset. Sager has agreed to share financial resources and Dave has agreed to share the lighthouse. On December 21, 1917, Head Keeper Octavius Reamy was approaching the lighthouse in a motorboat loaded with provisions and fuel obtained on the mainland, when a large wave overturned his vessel. Yeaton (1864 1867), Joshua K. Card (1867 1874), Alfred J. Leavitt (1874 1886), Orrin M. Lamprey (1886 1888), William C. Williams (1888 1911), Mitchell Blackwood (1911 1916), Harry Smith (1916 1920), Albert Staples (1920 1923), Harold I. Hutchins (1924 1933), Charles E. Tracy (1933 1937), Hoyt P. Smith (1937 1942), William Parmenter (1944 1945), John Morris (at least 1945), Archie McLaughlin (at least 1947), Jerry Russell (at least 1954), Robert Edwards (1970 1973). In 2016, Sager also purchased Michigans Grays Reef Lighthouse at auction. The Dalai Lama, Sting, and Bobby Sager at Sager's home in Boston in 2012. Minots has a good story, but its not the only one thats been celebrated. Im not sure if its the romance, or the ghosts, but its always drummed up a kind of fascination. It says a lot about Dave Waller that he and Bobby Sager have worked out an agreement, making Sager a partner in the Graves Light project. In February 1936, Tornberg and a Cohasset boatman set off in a small dory for the lighthouse, as Cohasset Harbor was frozen in preventing the use of a power launch. Early view of lighthouse and stone dwelling, Boon Island from sea note bell atop oil house, Aerial view showing two dwellings and boathouse, Boon Island Lighthouse and dwellings in 1944. Use Minots was constructed to replace an earlier light, which was swept away in a storm. They try to put them in the hands of groups that will keep them open to the public, but sometimes, like in Minots case, no public entity wants the responsibility. until it becomes Main Street. I sincerely hope Sally will play a role in its next chapter, says Waller of his longtime neighbor. Salted cod, sea fowl, and lobsters ranked high in the keepers diets, though lobster was far from being a delicacy. . For the Graves lighthouse, Waller dove in again, pinching pennies. Think not that I will ever flinch from my post, though the waves should gain the mastery for which they are so incessantly striving. The towers powerful second-order Fresnel lens, produced in France by Sautter et Compagnie, went into service on January 1, 1855. Not wanting to see the lens returned to the Coast Guard, the Greater York Region Chamber of Commerce held a raffle that generated $2,000, enough to pay the premium for two years. After crossing the bridge, take Vessels mostly use satellite, GPS, and radar to dodge rocks, avoid the bottom of the ocean or bay, and dock safely in a harbor, even if someespecially small boatsstill rely on lighthouses as visual aids, like buoys. No one bit on the original bid, and this June, they put it up again for $10,000. They were relied upon and honored. One exception is the countrys actual last official lightkeeper still working for the Coast Guard: Her name is Sally Snowman, and her job and second home, Boston Light, are in jeopardy. Every year storms seem to do more damage. The glacier land (called drumlins) under both the tower and the keepers house, where Snowman, 71, lived half the year for almost 20 years maintaining the place and giving tours, is shrinking. Some sit submerged under the waters of the Chesapeake Bay or are about to topple over in the Great Lakes. Fort Point Lighthouse was completed in 1853, shortly after its twin lighthouse at Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, California. He amassed 13 units in a luxury Boston high-rise to create for himself a spacious, highly individualized home occupying three floors. As a whole, theyre basically obsolete theyre only designed to do one thing but theyre also historically significant, so the feds dont just want to flatten them. For Waller, who owns a special effects company in Boston, restoring the lighthouse and its artifacts is a continuum of problem-solving. Pier or Breakwater Lights in Harbors. Breakwaters, River Lights, Channel, Small Islands in Sounds. It is 25 feet in diameter at its base and 12 feet in diameter at the top. But he is. Boon Island Light sold for second time, Paul Briand. Were all here for such a short time. In spite of Boston Lights historic importance, it will be a huge challenge for the next steward to preserve the station, says Jeremy DEntremont, when I later reach him inside New Hampshires Portsmouth Harbor Light, home of the American Lighthouse Foundations local chapter. Along the way, hes fostered micro-lending in Third World countries, befriended the Dalai Lama (A great sense of humor), sat with Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa, and replaced the ragtag soccer balls used by African children with brand-new indestructible yellow ones. From there it would run into a cistern in the cellar. At $300,000, Minots Ledge Lighthouse was one of the most expensive lighthouses in American history. Fine. By 1818, an increase in salary prompted unscrupulous competition for the job at Boon Island. In 2000, the GSA, the Coast Guard and the Department of the Interior passed The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, an amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. residents on the mainland could hear the keepers furiously ringing the fog bell. In winter, ice covered the stone buildings, even capping the chimney of the dwelling on one occasion. The island in the morning was one of the grandest sights I ever witnessed. These were good precautions, but unfortunately they couldnt avert all danger. But he acknowledges his new role, and its uncertainty. Its 36 degrees out, and the sweeping waves splashing up make the scene even more surreal. That cistern had green scum an inch thick on top of it., Despite the storms and hardships, several children and grandchildren loved their time on Boon Island. He asserted that the area was annually the scene of the most heart-rending disasters. Lewis concluded his report on Minots Ledge with the following: A light-house on this reef is more required than on any part of the seaboard of New England. Grover was cleared in court, but the accusations, and other difficulties, would continue. He and his wife pulled their two children out of school and traveled the world. Turn left on Instead, Swift proposed a radical new design consisting of nine, sixty-foot-long iron pilings cemented five feet into the submerged rock, atop which would perch the lantern and keepers dwelling. Actress Neve Campbell and philanthropist and photographer Bobby Sager arrive for the 'Power Of The Invisible Sun' photocall at the Saatchi Gallery on. His own piece of the Big Bang sits near the Harley-Davidson motorcycle that music legend Sting gave him as a gift, not far from a bathroom ripped from a Boeing 747 and reconstructed high above Tremont Street. The entries range from the weather 40 degrees, light rain in the morning to more compelling matters: Captured a rowboat full of German sailors in the fog, held them until Navy picked them up three days later. When he ran out of money a year into the renovation, he teamed up with another original bidder who matched his million, a local businessman named Bobby Sager, who has hosted celebrities like Sting and Tom Hanks at Graves. Icy Minot Ledge Lighthouse. To prevent further casualties, the aptly named Captain Michael Neptune Brennock was hired as a lifeguard, and only workers who could swim were employed. 5th Stories about the lighthouse dovetailed with our familys history. 4 And, unless a lighthouse is decommissioned, the Coast Guard must be granted access to keep all the automated lights shining for those few mariners still looking for a guiding light.