In 1700, the town of Truro, Massachusetts, nine miles east of Race Point and the tip of Cape Cod, began its history under a different nameone it easily earned: Dangerfield. Even in calm weather, fishermen could suddenly find upon approaching land such a swell breaking that they dared not attempt to come ashore.
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I found that it would not do to speak of shipwrecks in the area, for almost every family had lost someone at sea, Henry David Thoreau would later write about Truro in the December 1864 issue of Atlantic Monthly. Who lives in that house? I inquired. Three widows, was the reply. The stranger and the inhabitant view the shore with very different eyes. The former may have come to see and admire the ocean in a storm; but the latter looks on it as the scene where his nearest relatives were wrecked.
Blindingly dense summer fogs lasting till midday that turn (in Thoreaus words) ones beard into a wet napkin about the throat provide conditions that to this day challenge even the most experienced mariner.
The letter Reverend James Freemen wrote petitioning for a lighthouse near Truro stated that in 1794 more vessels were wrecked on the east shore of Truro than in all of Cape Cod.
None other than President George Washington signed the bill on May 17, 1796, approving $8,000 for the construction of Cape Cods first lighthouse, Highland Light. Only the seventh to be constructed by the U.S. Government, it was situated on ten acres on the Highlands of North Truro and was usually the first light seen when approaching the entrance of Massachusetts Bay from Europe. Although Highland Lighthouse is officially known as Cape Cod Lighthouse, it remains Highland to locals.
The lighthouse parcel was purchased from Isaac Small, who would become its first keeper, for $110: $100 for the land and $10 for the right of way, which still exists as Lighthouse Road. The lights forty-five-foot-tall, wooden, octagonal tower with a lantern six feet in diameter and eight-feet-tall was placed on a stone base, 500 feet back from precipitous bluffs. A twenty-five by twenty-seven foot, single-story keepers house stood near the tower, along with an oil vault, a well, and a small barn. Keeper Small received an annual salary of $150.
The nations first eclipser was installed in the lantern room to differentiate Highland Light from others on the way to Boston, but delays in receiving it pushed the inaugural illumination back to January 15, 1798. With a focal plane of 180 feet above the sea, the light, with its array of lamps and reflectors, had the potential to be seen up to twenty-four miles, but the haze that often hung over the cape reduced the lights visibility. Sperm whale oil was initially used in the light, but the fuel was later changed to lard.
As with many other lighthouses, there were severe structural issues with the tower, and, on top of that, the eclipser did not function properly. Smalls repeated complaints that the house and tower were disintegrating cost him his position in 1812. However, he won a victory of sorts in that plans were made to correct the problems that same year.
When inspector Lieutenant Edward W. Carpender showed up unexpectedly a few minutes before sundown on November 1, 1838, an alarmed keeper rushed to set things in order. Despite the keepers hasty rub-up, few of the lamps were trimmed, the chimneys were not cleaned properly, the reflectors were unburnished, and the glass of the lantern was smoked.
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Carpender described the lighthouse, which had been rebuilt in 1833, as a thirty-foot, brick tower with walls at the base 3 ½ feet thick; the interior diameter of the tower was fifteen feet at the base. Fifteen lamps and an equal number of fifteen-inch reflectors were arranged in two circular series in the lantern room, eight in the lower and seven in the upper. The towers wooden finishings (steps, doors, sills, etc.), even though only seven years old, showed signs of decay. Carpender recommended that the reflectors be removed, as the light was required to shine in all directions, and that one lamp facing the lantern rooms iron door be removed to the upper tier of lamps. Even though the keeper had been caught with the light in less than pristine condition, Carpender concluded his report with, Premises in good order.
When I.W.P. Lewis arrived in 1840 to refit the tower, for whose construction his uncle Winslow Lewis was responsible, he discovered an appalling tale of rotten wood and slipshod construction.
The window frames and staircase were pulled out by hand; and the removal of the latter brought down a portion of the inner face wall, when it was discovered that the interior of the walls was laid without mortar, the brick being loosely thrown in, and the interstices filled with sand. At the base, which rested on the surface of the ground, there was found in the interior of the wall a large number of stones, thrown in to fill up and save brick. On removing the lantern, the mortar of this superstructure was found to have so little cohesion, that the masons, to save time, shoveled off the bricks; and thirteen feet of the tower were taken down in this manner, before arriving at a part that presented sufficient surface and stability to justify a reconstruction.
I.W.P. Lewis had the tower rendered fireproof through the installation of cast-iron fittings, and Keeper Jesse Holbrook praised these and other improvements:
I was appointed keeper of this light in April, 1840, upon a salary of $350 per annum. When I took charge of this light, it was fitted with the common lantern, lamps, and reflectors, generally used in all American lights. One of the lamps faced exactly the copper door of the lantern, and the keeper whom I succeeded told me that had always been its position ever since the apparatus was set up. In the summer of 1840, the light-house was refitted with a new lantern of cast iron, glazed with large plate glass five feet by two feet square. The tower was also roofed with cast iron; the old staircase, window frames, and sashes, formerly of wood, were removed, and cast iron work substituted. Since these improvements were made, the light has been very effective, as generally allowed by all the navigation of the neighborhood. The masters of the Truro and Provincetown packets, plying to Boston, tell me they can see this light and Boston light when half-way on their passage up and down the coast. The tower never has leaked, nor any part of the light-house or lantern, since refitted; and I have much less trouble in keeping the apparatus clean than with that which was removed. This arises from the perfect ventilation of the lantern. The old one leaked very badly, as did the window frames, which, with the staircase, were all rotten, though only seven years erected.
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Thoreau left the following account of an overnight stay at the lighthouse:
The Highland Light-house, where we were staying, is a substantial-looking building of brick, painted white, and surmounted by an iron cap. Attached to it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story high, also of brick, and built by government. As we were going to spend the night in a light-house, we wished to make the most of so novel an experience, and therefore told our host that we would like to accompany him when he went to light up. At rather early candle-light he lighted a small Japan lamp, allowing it to smoke rather more than we like on ordinary occasions, and told us to follow him. He led the way first through his bedroom, which was placed nearest to the light-house, and then through a long, narrow, covered passage-way, between whitewashed walls like a prison entry, into the lower part of the light-house, where many great butts of oil were arranged around; thence we ascended by a winding and open iron stairway, with a steadily increasing scent of oil and lamp-smoke, to a trap-door in an iron floor, and through this into the lantern. It was a neat building, with everything in apple-pie order, and no danger of anything rusting there for want of oil. The light consisted of fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth concave reflectors twenty-one inches in diameter, and arranged in two horizontal circles one above the other, facing every way excepting directly down the Cape. These were surrounded, at a distance of two or three feet, by large plate-glass windows, which defied the storms, with iron sashes, on which rested the iron cap. All the iron work, except the floor, was painted white. And thus the light-house was completed. We walked slowly round in that narrow space as the keeper lighted each lamp in succession, conversing with him at the same moment that many a sailor on the deep witnessed the lighting of the Highland Light He spoke of the anxiety and sense of responsibility which he felt in cold and stormy nights in the winter; when he knew that many a poor fellow was depending on him, and his lamps burned dimly, the oil being chilled. Sometimes he was obliged to warm the oil in a kettle in his house at midnight, and fill his lamps over again, for he could not have a fire in the light-house, it produced such a sweat on the windows.
In 1854, $25,000 was budgeted to rebuild Cape Cod Lighthouse on a proper site and to fit it with the best approved illuminating apparatus to serve as substitution for three lights at Nauset Beach.
Construction did not begin until 1856 on a new sixty-six-foot tower and a dwelling for the head keeper and a double-dwelling for his two assistants. The lighthouse was completed in October 1857, for $17,000, which included a new first-order Fresnel lens that produced a fixed white light. Before the addition of the first-order lens, the station had employed just one keeper.
The sixty-nine winding steps leading to the lantern room could be quite tricky for man and beast, as the Barnstable Patriot newspaper reported in 1870. The assistant keeper owns a dog, and the other evening his little dogship feeling perhaps a little lonely, his master having gone on the tower, thought he would follow him, but, alas for the poor dog, when he had nearly reached the top a mis-step pitched him over the edge and head-long down until his descent was suddenly checked by coming in violent contact with the top of one of the large oil butts at the foot of the tower. Singular to relate, the animal only received a lame leg from the fall. The distant from top to bottom is nearly sixty feet. A warning to those who visit Lighthouse towers.
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In 1873, $5,000 was allocated for the station to receive a first-class Daboll trumpet fog horn that gave blasts of eight seconds, with intervals between them of thirty seconds. A frame engine-house, measuring twelve feet by twenty-four feet, was built for the fog signal along with a fuel shed.
Like Thoreau before him, Isaac M. Small, grandson of Highland Lights first keeper, wrote about the life of Highlands keepers. In 1891, he published Highland Light: This Book Tells You All About It, which includes the following:
The routine of their duties is regular and systematic. Promptly, one half hour before sunset the keeper whose watch it may be at the time repairs to the tower and makes preparations for the lighting of the lamps. At the moment the sun drops below the western horizon the light flashes out over the sea; the little cog wheels begin their revolutions; the tiny pumps force the oil up to the wicks and the night watch has begun. At 8 oclock the man who has lighted the lamp is relieved by No. 2, who in turn is also relieved at midnight by No. 3, No. 1 again returning to duty at 4 a.m. As the sun shows its first gleam above the edge of the eastern sea the machinery is stopped and the light is allowed to gradually consume the oil remaining in the wicks and go out. This occurs in about fifteen minutes. As night comes on again No. 2 is the man to light the lamp, the watches are changed at 8, 12 and 4, and so go on as before night after night.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, duplicate four-horsepower oil engines with compressors replaced the old caloric engines, reducing the time needed to produce the first blast of the fog signal from forty-five to ten minutes. In 1929, an electrically operated air oscillator fog signal was installed at the station as mariners complained that the old reed horns could hardly be heard above the heavy surf crashing on the beach below the station. Power for operating the new signal was furnished by a direct-current generator, driven by a four-cycle, internal-combustion engine that ran on kerosene.
On June 6, 1900, Congress appropriated $15,000 for changing the lights characteristic from fixed to flashing. The new had four panels of 0.92 meter focal distance, revolved in mercury, and gave, every five seconds, flashes of about 192,000 candlepower nearly one-half second in duration. While the new lens was being installed, the light from a third-order lens was exhibited atop a temporary tower erected near the lighthouse. After the new light was exhibited on October 10, 1901, the temporary tower was sold at auction.
In 1946, the Fresnel lens was replaced with a Crouse-Hinds, double-drum, rotating DCB-36 aerobeacon, which was in turn replaced during the automation process in 1987 with a Crouse-Hinds DCB-224 rotating beacon. The Fresnel lens was mostly destroyed during its removal, but a piece is on display at the lighthouse.
By the 1960s, the assistant keepers double-dwelling and fog horn building had been removed, and Keeper Isaac Smalls original ten acres had shrunk to little more than two. In the early 1990s, erosion seriously threatened the light. While in 1806, the tower had stood 510 feet from the cliff, by 1989, that distance had shrunk to just 128 feet.
In 1996, after $1.5 million had been raised to reposition the lighthouse a safer 453 feet from the cliffs edge, the 430-ton structure was successfully moved intact on I-beams greased with Ivory soap. International Chimney Corp. of Buffalo, with Expert House Moving of Maryland as a subcontractor, was responsible for the move.
Highland Lighthouse attracted visitors even when it was staffed by resident keepers. In 1922, 7,300 people registered at the lighthouse, while in 1929, the total was 9,517. Highland Museum and Lighthouse, Inc. was formed in 1998 as a non-profit to partner with the National Park Service in running a gift shop in the keepers dwelling and in offering tours of the lighthouse. After fifteen years in this role, the non-profit lost its contract due to operational issues, and on January 1, 2014, Eastern National was awarded the contract for operating the lighthouse.
Formerly a location associated with notable danger, the lighthouse, surrounded by an oceanfront golf course, is now associated with notable leisure.
Keepers:
- Head: Isaac Small (1797 1812), Constant Hopkins (1812 1817), John Grozer (Groser) (1817 1840), Jesse Holbrook (1840 1843), James Small (1843 1849), Warren Newcomb (1849 1850), Enoch S. Hamilton (1850 1853), James Small (1853 1856), Horace A. Hughes (1856 1859), John Kenney (1859 1861), Thomas K. Small (1861 1866), Hezekiah P. Hughes (1866 1870), Thomas Lowe (1870 1872), William W. Goss (1872 1873), David F. Loring (1873 1887), Amasa S. Dyer (1887 1891), Stephen D. Rich (1891 1912), George A. Faulkner (1912 1915), William A. Day (1915 1916), Fred W. Tibbetts (1916 1935), William A. Joseph (1935 1947), Alfred Vieira (1951 1953), Donald J. Ormsby (1953 1956), William E. Joseph (1957 1959), Elias J. Martinez (1959 1965), William J. McEachern (1965 1966), George H. Bassett, Jr. (1966 1968), Robert E. Holbert (1968 at least 1970), Charles Johnson (1976 ), A.G. Sandy Lyle (1978 1982), Lenny Sendzia (1982 1984), Jeffrey A. Kahler (1984 1986).
- First Assistant: James Small (1857 1859), T. Small (1859), Hugh Hopkins (1859 1861), Samuel Knowles (1861 1862), Henry S. Hutchings (1862 1865), Nathaniel P. Atwood (1865 1868), Thomas Lowe (1868 1870), Peter Higgins (1870 1871), Samuel T. Eastman (1871 1873), David F. Loring (1873), Thomas K. Small (1873 1874), John Francis (1874 1875), Stephen S. Lewis (1875 1883), George E. Dolby (1883 1885), Philip R. Smith (1885 1886), Amasa S. Dyer (1886 1887), Frank Chapman (1887 1890), Thomas Ellis (1890 1891), Michael J. Curran (1891), Stephen D. Rich (1891), Edwin F. King, Jr. (1891 1892), John B. Carter (1892 1894), Albert M. Horte (1894 1900), Russell B. Eastman (1900 1906), John R. Forrest (1906 1907), George A. Faulkner (1908 1912), Joseph L. Cabral (1912), Fred W. Tibbetts (1912 1915), Oren A. Cobb, Jr. (1916 1923), George C. Smith (1923 1925), Robert M. McAfee (1925 at least 1930), William A. Joseph (1932 1935), William J. Howard (1935 1937), Charles F. Ellis (1938 1946).
- Second Assistant: Thomas H. Kenney (1857 1861), E.S. Harding (1861 1864), John C. Doane (1864 1865), John P. Grozier (1865 1869), Jeremiah T. Stevens (1871 1872), George Allen (1872 1873), David F. Loring (1873), Thomas K. Small (1873), John Francis (1873 1874), Stephen S. Lewis (1874 1875), W.E. Mays (1875), Thomas E. Marchant (1876 1880), Cullen A. Hughes (1880 1882), George W. Crosby (1882), George E. Dolby (1882 1883), Philip R. Smith (1883 1885), Amasa S. Dyer (1885 1886), John R. Smith (1886 1887), Thomas Ellis (1887 1890), Stephen D. Rich (1890 1891), William F. Marchant (1891), Edwin F. King, Jr. (1891), John B. Carter (1891 1892), James Kingsley (1892 1893), John D. Snow (1893 1896), Russell B. Eastman (1896 1900), Frank E. Lowe (1900 1902), Oscar C.G. Bohm (1902 1903), Ernest H. Small (1903 1905), John Robert Forrest (1905 1906), George A. Faulkner (1906 1908), William Thomson (1908 1910), Joseph L. Cabral (1910 1912), John Hanson (1912), F.W. Tibbett (1912), William E. Wheeler (1912 1913), Horace I. Hamilton (1913 1914), Oren A. Cobb, Jr. (1914 1916), James Yates (1916 1917), Charles L. Cochrane (1917 1920), George C. Smith (1920 1923), William A. Joseph (1923 1932), Carl D. Hill (1932 1934), Charles F. Ellis (1934 ), Anthony K. Souza ( 1939), William C. Dawe, Jr. (1939 1942), Harvey C. Harris (1942), John Botello (1942 1944).
- USCG: Bernie Webber (1946 1947), Roland F. Lemay (at least 1959 1961), Walter Amryan (at least 1959 1960), Frank H. Sheely (at least 1959 1960), Raymond Lachapelle (1960 1961), William G. Amstutz (1961 1962), Laurent R. Boucher (1961 1963), Thomas D. Duce (1961 1965), Theodore L. Hanes (1963 1965), Donald Engel (1965 1966), Clare D. Betham (1965 1966), William M. Kucharski (1966 1967), Stanley M. Alexander (1966 1967), Stanley R. Lund (1967 1969), Edward J. O'Leary III (1967 1970), Thomas C. Reynolds (1969 at least 1971), Kenneth R. Kelley (1970 at least 1971), Walter Dean (1976 ), Patrick Prunty ( 1986).
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References
- Annual Report of the Light House Board, various years.
- The Lighthouses of New England, Edward Rowe Snow, 2005.
- The Lighthouses of Massachusetts, Jeremy D'Entremont, 2007.
- Lighthouses of Cape Cod Marthas Vineyard Nantucket, Their History and Lore, Admont G. Clark, Captain USCGR, Retired, 1992.
- The Highland Light, Henry David Thoreau, The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XIV - December, 1864 - No. LXXXVI.
- Letter from Highland Light, Barnstable Patriot, April 26, 1870.
- Highland Museum & Lighthouse, Inc. website.
- 1798: Highland lighthouse is illuminated, Cape Cod Today, January 15, 2009.