Episode 26 – The featured interview is the award-winning maritime historian Eric Jay Dolin. Eric has written thirteen books and more than 60 articles on American history. The book that’s discussed at length in the Light Hearted interview is Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse, published in 2016. C. Douglas Kroll, Sea History Magazine, wrote of Brilliant Beacons: “A must-read for anyone interested in lighthouses or America’s maritime history.”
Episode 27 – Host Jeremy D’Entremont interviews Eric and Fran Chetwynd of the Swans Island Lighthouse Committee in Maine about the restoration of the 1872 Burnt Coat Harbor Lighthouse. Jeremy also interviews Kim Sanborn, director of the Kittery Historical and Naval Museum — a gem of a small museum packed with fascinating artifacts, including a number of items related to lighthouses. In a history segment, Jeremy and co-host Michelle Jewell Shaw relate the saga of longtime Rhode Island light keeper Horace Arnold. In 1875, Arnold was at the dwelling at Conimicut Lighthouse with his young son when drifting ice smashed into the structure.
Episode 28 – Host Jeremy D’Entremont interviews Jack San Filippo, program manager for the Point San Luis Lighthouse on the central California coast. The Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers, a dedicated group of preservationists established in 1995, have brought the building back to life as one of the prettiest lighthouses on California’s central coast. Jeremy also interviews Misty Anderson, General Manager and Events Coordinator for the Heceta Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast. Heceta Head, about halfway up the Oregon coast, is one of the iconic light stations of the Pacific Northwest.
Episode 29 – In 1989, the U.S. Coast Guard was planning for Boston Light on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor to be the last light station in the United States to be automated and destaffed. Instead, Congress mandated that the station be operated and staffed permanently by the Coast Guard. In 2003, the active duty Coast Guard personnel that had been assigned to the island were relocated to meet the needs of Homeland Security, and Sally Snowman was named the new keeper. In this episode of Light Hearted, we hear part one of a two-part interview with Sally Snowman.
Episode 30 –In part two of Jeremy D’Entremont’s two-part interview with Sally Snowman, keeper of Boston Light Station on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, Sally discusses Sammy the Boston Light Dog, subject of a children’s book that Sally wrote. Sally and Jeremy then share some of the ghost stories of America’s oldest light station. Jeremy and co-host Cindy Johnson also review the history of fog signals on Little Brewster Island, beginning with the 1719 fog cannon — the first fog signal on the North American continent.
Back to Light Hearted Index front page
Jeremy D’Entremont is the author of more than 20 books and hundreds of articles on lighthouses and maritime history. He is the president and historian for the American Lighthouse Foundation and founder of Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses, and he has lectured and narrated cruises throughout the Northeast and in other regions. He is also the producer and host of the U.S. Lighthouse Society podcast, “Light Hearted.” He can be emailed at Jeremy@uslhs.org