Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1892 — A Lighthouse with a Romantic History. [ARTICLE]

A Lighthouse with a Romantic History.

One of the most wonderful lighthouses in the world is that at Minot's Ledgo, near Boston. Its history hud been ono of romauco. The greater part of its foundation is under water at low tide.

In 1847 a skeleton lighthouse of iron was erected there on iron piles placed in holes drilled into the rock. A furious hurricane burst upon the coast in April, 1851, and anxious watchers from tho Cohasset shore thought that tho structure had been carried awuy., But, us the sun sank, out shoue the light across the stormed-tossed waters. At teu p.m. the light was seen for tho last time. At one hour after midnight the fog-bell was heard above the roaring of the breakers. At daybreak the ocean was a blank; the lighthouse was gone. Knowing that no help could roach them, the keepers had lighted their lamp as a warningto others, and their lives had gono out with it. Now a granite tower occupies the spot. So difficult, was it to lay the foundation in the surf that only thirty hours’ work could be done tho first year, but the tower stands to-day as enduring as' the ledgo itself —an isolated pile of stone amid the waves, by the forco of which it is swayed like a tree in the wind. During the long Winter months all communication with the land is shut off. In Summer the occasional visitor is hoisted into the light-house from his boat by means of a chair, and from time to time a skiff is lowered by pulleys to convey one or another o£ the five keepers to the shore. The life tells on them frightfully. Several of them have been removed because they have gone insane, and more than one of them has attempted suicide.

There are half-a-dozen such isolated light-houses on the lonely Florida reefs. The existence led by the keepers of these solitary posts has an extraordinary effect upon them. Before long they talk each other out, become morose, and usually quit speaking to each other except for business. A light-house similarly situated is on a rock in Lake Huron, marking the fatal Spectacle Reef. It stands in eleven feet of water, and is exposed in Winter to the almost irresistible force exerted by great ice-fields moved to and fro by the currents. Sometimes the ice is piled up against it ns high as thirty feet. It is not lighted, ho*ever, during the season when navigation is closed. Une of the most desolate spots for a lighthouse is on one of the Farallone Islands in the Pacific, twenty-three miles out from the Golden Gate. On the highest point, 360 feet above the sea, is a small brick tower containing one of the most important and powerful lights on the West Coast. It is supplemrtited by a fog whistle whioh may fairly be considered one of the wonders of the world—a huge t.umpet blown by the rush of air t.iroagh a cave which forms a passage opening into the ocean. One of the many caves worn by the surf on the shore of the island chanced to have a hole in its top, through which the incoming breakers violently expelled the air carried before them. Such “spout holes” are not uncommon on rocky coasts.