Captain Joshua K. Card here, minding the light and fog bell up in New Castle, New Hampshire. I started my career at Boon Island off the southern Maine coast. It was a brutal place to live, and even dangerous in storms when the low lying island is sometimes awash in the waves. The keepers there,… Continue reading Kaptain’s Kolumn #31

Captain Joshua K. Card here, tending the light and fog bell at Portsmouth Harbor Light Station here in my hometown of New Castle, New Hampshire. I apologize for not writing any of these columns lately. I’ve been with visits from family members and the usual summer tourists looking for an interesting excursion from Portsmouth, and… Continue reading Kaptain’s Kolumn #30

Captain Joshua Kenney Card here, down at Portsmouth Harbor Light in New Castle, New Hampshire. Saw a crocus pushing up by the keeper’s house today. Spring is just around the corner. Today I want to tell you about a keeper down at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, whose career closely overlapped with my own. Captain Josiah Hardy… Continue reading Kaptain’s Kolumn #29

Captain Joshua K. Card here, keeping the station down at Portsmouth Harbor, New Hampshire. Today I want to tell you about an interesting keeper down the coast in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. The man was a lighthouse keeper for a quarter of a century, and you might be interested to know that he had one leg.… Continue reading Kaptain’s Kolumn #28

Captain Joshua Kenney Card here at Portsmouth Harbor Light, over at the New Hampshire Seacoast. As the Christmas holiday is coming up next week I thought I’d tell you a true story about a lighthouse down in Connecticut, with a tie-in to Christmas. I hope you enjoy it. Stamford Harbor Lighthouse is a caisson light… Continue reading Kaptain’s Kolumn #27

Captain Joshua Card here at Portsmouth Harbor Light Station, New Hampshire. Sometimes a lighthouse doesn’t look like a lighthouse, but it can still serve an important purpose. The Elm Tree Light in New York is one such structure. The abandoned, nondescript concrete tower that now stands near an old airplane hangar at Miller Field on… Continue reading Kaptain’s Kolumn #26

Captain Joshua K. Card here, at Portsmouth Harbor Light, New Hampshire. I’m thankful to have had a long career at a mainland light station in a beautiful little town — my home town of New Castle. I never served at an offshore caisson light, and I don’t envy those who did. I think the round… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #25

Captain Joshua K. Card here, at Portsmouth Harbor Light near the mouth of the Piscataqua River in my home town of New Castle, New Hampshire. Today I want to tell you about Flora McNeil, a fascinating woman who had a career as a light keeper, businesswoman, and artist down in Connecticut. Bridgeport, the most populous… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #24

Captain Joshua Card here at Portsmouth Harbor Light Station, New Hampshire. Today I’d like to tell you about another contemporary of mine, Keeper Jacob Ackerman over at the Tarrytown Light on the Hudson River in New York. Tarrytown is about 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan. In 1881, George Brown, inspector the Third Lighthouse District,… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #23

Captain Joshua K. Card reporting from Portsmouth Harbor Light in New Hampshire. Unseasonably warm here lately for early fall, but I’m not complaining. My station, by and large, is rather peaceful and quiet, being in sheltered waters a mile inside the mouth of the Piscataqua River. I spent my first few years in the Lighthouse… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #21