Wish for a Lighthouse

Aren’t most of us fascinated by lighthouses?

Michigan has 129 to choose from, the most remote being Stannard Rock Lighthouse (Lake Superior), 24 miles from Keweenaw Point and 44 miles from Marquette.

I enjoyed visiting the cozier Grand Traverse Lighthouse, (inside the Leelanau State Park), built in 1858 and remodeled in 1901 to accommodate two families.

Dave and I camped in the Bay area one summer, ate fresh cherries, and toured the lighthouse. At that time, a gentle, elderly woman stood near the back door of the house with a booklet she’d written about her life there as daughter of an assistant keeper, and would compose a few verses inside the back cover, if you had time.

We had time. She described bath times, winter, school, wash days, and the hard work the two men did to keep the light shining. But no more difficult work than that of the wives and mothers.

By 1910, there were 1,500 lighthouses constructed in the U.S. and 850 in operation, 267 of those on the shores of the Great Lakes. Michigan had 140, with Maine second in number at 80.

Michigan’s oldest lighthouse—Fort Gratiot—was built in 1814 to guard the St. Clair River and Lake Huron. Named for the construction engineer, Charles Gratiot, the fort would be occupied by the U.S. Army until 1879.

Early Egyptian lighthouses were built to identify harbors. The Pharos of Alexandria (280 BC) kept an open fire burning at the summit to welcome ships. Most of Scotland’s lighthouses, however, were designed by four generations of Robert Louis Stevenson’s family, on rocky islands, to create warning lights for sailors during storms.

Fires on hillsides gave way to coal or oil lamps backed by mirrors at the top of a lighthouse. But on dark, stormy nights, ships were unable to avoid crashing into coastlines until the early 1820’s, when Augustin Fresnel, a French physicist, invented a new lens—crystalline prisms arranged in a faceted dome to reflect refracted light. One lamp could be seen for many nautical miles. (One nautical mile is over 6,000 feet.)

During another magical summer, Dave and I toured the Upper Peninsula, from Whitefish Point to the Pictured Rocks shoreline. Of course, we saw Tahquamenon Falls and Marquette, and hiked through a cool forest (we won’t discuss the demonic black flies) to see the Au Sable Light Station.

I fell in love and never recovered. The entire time we walked around the brick house, oil and fog signal buildings, and the lighthouse, I imagined living there one year, summer to summer—with regular supplies, naturally—to write an amazing novel. Ghost story? Mystery? That didn’t matter as much as being so close to the crash and thrill of Lake Superior against the cliffs.

Built in 1873, the 86-foot tower extends 23 feet underground, anchored by bedrock. By 1909, an assistant keeper was hired, and two families lived in the house, one upstairs and one down. The Fresnel lens at the top of the tower was fueled by lard oil, and later, kerosene, and shone 17 miles.

It was a much-needed lighthouse since the sandstone reef at Au Sable Point was only a few feet below the surface in spots, and thick fog was common due to cool lake air and warm currents from the sand dunes. “In all navigation of Lake Superior,” reported the Marquette Mining Journal, July 29, 1871, “there is none more dreaded by the mariner than that from Whitefish Point to Grand Island.”

That would have made many exciting nights, safely tucked away in the brick house while waves crashed, the light flashing overhead, the Great American Novel underway.

Since keepers were required to keep light station journals, most of the entries concerned weather. From the Au Sable Light Station Journal, December 8, 1876:

“A.M. South light brees, cloudy, Snowing and freezing.
P.M. 5 oclock almost a hurricane frightfull Storm it blew down fifty trees or more close by the light house and tower would blow down as they shouk like a leafe the wind was N.W. by West Snowing and freesing it was the worst Storm I ever Saw on lake Superior” N. Beedon Keeper

The only other lighthouse I visited, and climbed, was in St. Augustine, a whooping 165 feet tall with 219 knee-knocking steps. Grand Traverse, home to the lovely poet lighthouse daughter, is 41 feet tall, but with a narrow winding staircase. No husky keepers need apply.

The last civilian lighthouse keeper in the U.S., Frank Schubert, died in 2003. The last lighthouse maintained by Coast Guard personnel was made automatic after 1998. Maybe the State Historic Preservation won't object to my living in the Au Sable lighthouse for one memorable year, after all.

I’m game!