See Us at the Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival!

Mackinac Point Light, ©Gerald C. Hill.

Next week Our Publisher will travel to deepest Michigan for the Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival at the APLEX Event Center in scenic Alpena, by Lake Huron. This year's featured lighthouse is St. Helena, which inspired watercolorist Gerald C. Hill to make a large painting that he will unveil in our booth at 12:00pm on Saturday, October 12. Jerry's newest work has literally been under wraps. We can't wait to see it!

As an avid sailor and classic boat restorer, Jerry Hill has a special affinity for maritime subjects. He did many of the illustrations for our UnitedStates Lighthouses Illustrated Map & Guide, and all of the paintings for the Southeast, Florida, Northwest and California & Hawaii lighthouses maps. Those publications will be for sale at our festival booth, along with matted prints of nine Great Lakes lighthouses featured on the U.S. map., including Mackinac Point, Mich. (above) and Toledo, Ohio (below).

Toledo Light, ©Gerald C. Hill.

Creating a Spectacle in the 1870s

Spectacle Reef Light, in northeastern Lake Huron near the Straits of Mackinac, was begun in 1870 and first lit in June 1874. The masonry tower is still considered a feat of engineering. How'd they do it?

Funny you should ask...

From “The Light Houses of the United States” by Charles Nordhoff* in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, March 1874.

The light-house on Spectacle Reef [illustration above], on the coast of Lake Huron, cost $300,000.... The following account of the difficulties encountered in preparing for its construction will give an idea of what natural obstacles have often to be overcome in this kind of building. The account is taken from the official report:

The site of the tower being determined, and the proper soundings and surveys made, a crib ninety-two feet square was built, having a central opening forty-eight feet square to receive the coffer-dam which was to form the pier of protection, as well as the landing-place for materials. This huge crib was floated to its place.

In order to get accurate soundings to guide in shaping the bottom of the crib, and to fix with a degree of certainty the position of these soundings and that to be occupied by the crib, four temporary cribs, each fifteen feet by twenty-five feet, of round timber, were placed in from eight to ten feet of water, in a line corresponding with the proposed eastern face of the pier of protection, and filled to the level of the water with ballast stone. These four cribs were then decked over and connected together. Upon the pier thus formed about seventy cords of ballast stone were placed, ready at the proper time to be thrown into the crib forming the pier of protection.

The lower two complete courses of the pier of protection having been fastened together by screw-bolts, forming a raft, constituting a ground-plan of the pier of protection, were then towed from the harbor where framed to the reef, and moored directly over the position to be occupied by the finished pier. Its position was marked upon the temporary pier referred to above, and soundings taken at intervals of two feet along each timber in the raft, thus obtaining accurate contours of the surface of the reef within the limits of these timbers. The raft was then towed back to the harbor, hauled out upon ways, and by means of wedges of timber the bottom was made to conform to the surface of the reef. The raft, now become the bottom of the pier of protection, was then launched, and additional courses of timber built upon it, until its draught of water was just sufficient to permit its being floated into position on the reef, at which time it was estimated that the top of the pier would be one foot out of water.

The depth of water on the reef at the points to be occupied by the four corners of the pier of protection was found to be as follows: At northeast corner, ten feet six inches; at northwest corner, thirteen feet; at southwest corner, fourteen feet six inches; and at southeast corner, nine feet six inches—the position to he occupied by the pier of protection having been so chosen that the sides would correspond to the cardinal points of the compass. Meanwhile five barges at the harbor had been loaded with ballast stone, making, together with those on the temporary pier at the reef, 290 cords (about 1800 tons) at command, with which to load the pier of protection and secure it to the reef as soon as it should be placed in position.

On the evening of the 18th of July, 1871, every thing being in readiness, and the wind, which had been blowing freshly from the northwest for three days previously, having somewhat moderated, at 8 P.m. the tugs Champion (screw-propeller) and Magnet (side-wheel) took hold of the immense crib and started to tow it to the reef, fifteen miles distant, followed by the Warrington (screw-propeller), having in tow the schooner Belle, the two having on board a working force of 140 men, the tug Stranger (screw-propeller), with barges Ritchie and Emerald, and the tug Hand, with two scows of the Light-house Establishment. The barge Table Rock, with fifty cords of stone on board, was left in reserve at the harbor. The construction scow, with tools, etc., on board, was towed with the crib. At 2 A.M. next morning, six hours after starting, the fleet hove to off the reef, awaiting daylight and the abatement of the wind, which had again freshened up. At 6½ A.M., it having moderated, the pier, with considerable difficulty, was placed in position, and after being secured to the temporary pier and the moorings previously set for the purpose, all hands went to work throwing the ballast stone into the compartments, and by 4 P.M. succeeded in getting into it about 200 cords, or 1200 tons. By this time the wind was blowing freshly, and the sea running so high as to make it necessary to stop work for the time, but early next morning all the reserve stone was put into the compartments.

After the pier was in position the schooner Belle was moored on the reef to serve as quarters for the working force, which proceeded to build up the pier to the required height above water (twelve feet). On the 12th of September the pier had been built up to its full height, and by the 20th of September quarters for the workmen had been completed upon it, which were at once occupied, and the Belle returned to the harbor.

By means of a submarine diver the bedrock within the opening of the pier was then cleared off, and the work of constructing the coffer-dam was taken in hand. The coffer-dam itself consisted of a hollow cylinder, forty-one feet in diameter, composed of wooden staves, each four inches by six, and fifteen feet long. The cylinder was braced and trussed internally, and hooped with iron externally, so as to give it the requisite strength. It was put together at the surface of the water, and when complete was lowered into position on the bed-rock by means of iron screws.
As soon as it rested on the rock (which was quite irregular in contour), each stave was driven down so as to fit as closely as it would admit, and a diver filled all openings between its lower end and the rock with Portland cement. A loosely twisted rope of oakum was then pressed close down into the exterior angle between the coffer-dam and rock, and outside of this a larger rope made of hay. The pumping machinery having meanwhile been placed in readiness, the coffer-dam was pumped dry, and on the same day (14th October) a force of stone-cutters descended to the bottom and commenced the work of leveling off the bed-rock, and preparing it to receive the first course of masonry.

The bed-rock was found to consist of dolomitic limestone, confirming the previous examinations, highest on the western side, toward the deepest water, and sloping gradually toward the eastern. In order to make a level bed for the first course of masonry it was necessary to cut down about two feet on the highest side, involving a large amount of hard labor, rendered more difficult by the water forcing its way up through seams in the rock. But the work was finally accomplished, the bed being as carefully cut and leveled as any of the courses of masonry.

The first course of masonry was then set, completing it on the 27th of October. While setting this course much trouble was caused by the water, already referred to as forcing its way up through seams in the rock, which attacked the mortar-bed. For this reason water was let into the dam every evening, and pumped out next morning, to give the mortar time to harden during the night. This mortar was composed of equal parts of Portland cement and screened siliceous sand. Specimens of it obtained the following spring, after being in place under water for seven months, were quite as hard or harder than either the bed-rock or the stone used in building the tower.
The weather having now become very boisterous, with frequent snow-squalls, often interrupting the work, and the setting of any additional stone requiring the removal of a portion of the most important of the interior braces of the coffer-dam, it was deemed prudent to close the work for the season. This, too, would give ample time for the hardening of the mortar used in bedding the stone, and the concrete used for filling cavities in the bed-rock, as well as the space between the outside of the first course and the coffer-dam, which was solidly filled with concrete to the top of the first course. Therefore the coffer-dam was allowed to fill with water, the process being hastened by boring holes through it to admit the water, and it was secured to prevent its being lifted by the ice during the winter.

The machinery was laid up, and on the last of October all the working force, except two men, was removed. These two men were left to attend to the fourth-order light which had been established on the top of the men's quarters, and the fog-signal, consisting of a whistle attached to one of the steam-boilers. At the close of navigation they were taken off the pier by the lighthouse tender Haze.

The degree of success of this novel coffer-dam may be inferred from the fact that although prepared with pumps of an aggregate capacity of five thousand gallons per minute, not more than a capacity of seven hundred gallons was used, except when emptying the coffer-dam, and then only to expedite the work. Once emptied, a small proportion of this capacity was ample to keep the coffer-dam free from water; and this at a depth of twelve feet of water, on rock, at a distance of nearly eleven miles from the nearest land. Every person connected with the work may well feel a just pride in its success. All the stone which had been delivered at the harbor, consisting of the first five courses (each course two feet thick), having been cut by this time, the work there was also closed.

The season opened a month later in 1872 than in 1871, consequently work was not resumed at the harbor until the 3d of May, and upon the reef until the 20th of the same month. On the 13th of May the ice in the coffer-dam was still a compact mass, of some feet in thickness. Masses of ice still lay on top of the pier itself. As soon as any thing could be done, the ice still remaining was cleared out of the coffer-dam, the machinery put in order, the braces removed from the interior of the coffer-dam, and then the work of setting additional courses began.

The work upon the tower was carried on at such a rate that one entire course of masonry was set, drilled, and bolted complete every three days.

The Spectacle Reef tower was founded upon a rock the highest part of which was ten feet under water.

Photo of Spectacle Reef Light from LighthouseFriends.com.

*German-born American journalist. Per Wikipedia: Ojai, CA was named after him until WWI anti-German sentiment caused it to be changed.

Lighthouse Traveling Libraries

From the February 1885 issue of The Library Journal (still in print, minus The):

LIGHTHOUSE LIBRARIES.

BY ARNOLD B. JOHNSON.
From the Christian Union.

Out of our seven hundred and fifty-five lighthouses and twenty-two lightships, fully one-third have each a library of about fifty volumes. The case for the books is so arranged that it "has a double debt to pay." Let it be shut, locked, and laid on its back, and it is a brassbound packing-case, with hinged handles by which it may be lifted ; stand it on a table and open its doors, and it becomes a neat little bookcase, two shelves high, each twenty-one inches long, one adapted to hold ten octavos of the size of a bound volume of the "Century," and the other the right height for holding good-sized twelvemos. As a matter of fact many of these cases contain on the lower shelf ten volumes of bound magazines, and on the upper a judicious selection of biography, history, popular science, and good novels—from twenty-five to thirty volumes, according to thickness. A little space above the second shelf, about an inch and a half high, is utilized on one side by a copy of the New Testament, with Psalms, the octavo pica edition of the Bible Society, and on the other by the octavo edition of the Prayer Book, with hymnal attached, published by the Protestant Episcopal Publishing Society, but now out of print, as the Lighthouse Establishment took up the remainder of the edition.

Each book-case has two doors, opening outward. On the inside of the left-hand door is a manuscript catalogue of the name and number of each book. On the right-hand door is tacked a blank form, properly headed, on which is entered the name of each lighthouse to which the library was sent, together with the date of its arrival and its departure. Among the smaller books is a little blankbook. In this, when a library reaches a station, the name of each reader is entered at the top of a page, and under his name is entered the title of each book he takes out, and the date it is taken and returned. The case is examined by the Lighthouse Inspector on his quarterly round, and its condition is reported. Any reader who loses or injures a book is required to replace it, if possible, in kind, and it is one of the rules that the books shall not be lent from the stations, so that none but actual residents of lighthouses and lightships, the keepers and their families, shall have the use of them.

It is the policy of the Lighthouse Establishment to put a library into every lightship, lighthouse tender, and isolated lighthouse, and to supply the latter in the order of their respective phases of isolation, the work going on simultaneously in each of the fifteen Lighthouse Districts. There are now about 380 such libraries in use, and as each lighthouse has an average of five readers, it can be readily seen how many people are affected.

The coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, and the Great Rivers are divided, as before said, into fifteen Lighthouse Districts. Over each district an inspector is placed, who is an experienced officer of the navy. As such, he is responsible for the maintenance of all those aids to navigation in it, and for the discipline of its personnel, including the light-keepers. He visits every light-station quarterly, makes a formal inspection and report as to its condition, and pays each keeper. To care for the buoys and inspect the lighthouses he has a steam tender of some 300 tons. When he visits a lighthouse that has a library he takes it away and replaces it with the one on the tender. Thus each library changes its station quarterly, and four libraries find their way to each station in the course of a year. Among the more than 150 light-stations in one district, about one-third are entitled to the use of libraries, and about fifty book-cases are working their way around among them, and will, in the course of twelve years or so, visit each of these stations. When a library has spent three months at each station in a district it is transferred to the next district. So, under this plan, it is possible that a library may start from the light-station at Eastport, Me., and work its way clear round the coast, stopping at every large lighthouse in every Atlantic and Gulf State to the Mexican frontier; then, after visiting every large lighthouse on the Lakes, finally makes a tour of the lights on the Pacific coast. So the problem is presented, How long will it take for 380 libraries to spend three months each at 4oo different lighthouses?

This system of peripatetic libraries is a growth rather than a creation. One of the lighthouse officers, seeing the avidity with which light-keepers seized on any reading matter that came in their way, sent to individual keepers such spare books and odd magazines as he himself had, and then he pillaged the shelves of his friends for the same purpose. Finally the Lighthouse Board, which had no funds under its control from which it could buy books, found that book-cases could be properly paid for as furniture, and twenty-five of the pattern now used were supplied, it being understood that the books to fill them were to be provided by private funds. Then a systematic raid was made through the press, on everyone within reach, for books, odd numbers of magazines, and paper-covered novels, it having been found that they could be bound at the Government bindery. The friends of seamen responded readily, especially as the Lighthouse Establishment paid the expressage on packages of reading matter received. All was fish which came into the net, and the first twenty-five cases were filled with a mixture of theology, science, mathematics, novels, and odd magazines, and each case was sent to a lighthouse as soon as it was filled.

After awhile the aid of Congress was invoked, as it was found that light-keepers were made more contented and better satisfied with their lot by having reading matter supplied them ; and so it has come to pass that now, each year, the words, "books for light-keepers' reading " find their place among the "oil, wicks, chimneys," and other lighthouse supplies in the Sundry Civil Appropriation Act, which provides for the purpose some $300,000 en bloc, and though no amount is specifically named for books, it is understood that not more than $1000 per year is to be spent for them from this appropriation, and not that much unless it can be spared after every other requisite has been supplied.

Of course no such sum as this would have bought the 19,000 volumes and more now distributed among the lighthouses of the country, if retail prices had been paid for them. The fact is, the officer having charge of the matter made the money go so far that it almost seems as if he had plundered the trade, as he previously had the dear public. Joking aside, he not only was permitted to buy at the lowest rates given the trade itself, but he received large donations of rubbed and unsalable copies of good books in strong, though defaced, binding. These blemishes were hidden by the stout brown paper covers with which all the books were invested.

The earlier filled cases, which contained a mixture of matter, much of which was naturally unattractive to the average light-keeper, have since been somewhat winnowed. Fresh books have been sent the inspectors, with orders to put them into certain cases, in place of books specified by name and number, and to present the books taken out to certain light-keepers. Then, too, when a book is disabled for active use by frequent reading, the inspector may condemn it, and put in its place a volume from the reserve stock sent him for that purpose.

The Lighthouse Board, which has its headquarters at Washington, keeps a watchful eye on these libraries. It has a list of the books in every case, and it keeps up with the changes in their catalogues. It knows at what lighthouse each library is placed, how long it stays, when it got there, when it left, and the condition of its contents when it was taken away. The Board also knows how many times each book is taken out, where, when, and by whom, and how long it was kept out.

The average light keeper is on a plane, as to taste, education, and culture, with the average mechanic. The books provided for him are not always the best for the purpose, but they are the best that could be had under the circumstances, and the Lighthouse Board is to be congratulated on the success it has attained, not only in obtaining books, but in getting light-keepers who will read them.

For more information, including lists of some of the titles in the traveling libraries, see Michigan Lighthouse Conservancy, Milwaukee County Historical Society (photo above right) and Wisconsin Library Heritage Center.

Lighthouse Establishment bookplate (left: Carysfort Reef FL; right: Minot's Ledge MA).

Iced!

Cleveland Harbor Ledge Lighthouse, looking "like a giant sand castle," by R. Bodnar.

An arctic blast whipped up the winds on Lake Erie, encasing Cleveland Harbor Ledge Light in ice. Here's an AP video--sit through the ad; it's worth it.