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

Captain Joshua K. Card here at Portsmouth Harbor Light, near the mouth of the mighty Piscataqua River. The local summer people have all left, but the weather has been beautiful lately. Today I want to tell you about a woman lighthouse keeper on the west coast who was a contemporary of mine. I never met… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #20

Captain Joshua K. Card here, over at the Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse in New Castle, New Hampshire. Summer’s nearly over and many of the local summer residents will be leaving with the Labor Day holiday this weekend. Some will stop by for a visit to the lighthouse before they go. I’ll put on my Lighthouse Service… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #19

Captain Joshua Kenney Card reporting from Light Station Portsmouth Harbor here on the New Hampshire Seacoast, shortest seacoast of any state that has a seacoast. But as seacoasts go, it’s choice. Today I’m going to tell you about some of the keepers down at Long Island Head Light in Boston Harbor. It’s not as well… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #18

Captain Joshua Card here, up at Station Portsmouth Harbor in New Hampshire. Full blown summer has arrived, hot and humid and thick a fog some days. I’ve had to wind the striker for the fog bell quite a few times lately. I want to tell you about a keeper down on Long Island Sound, Captain… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #17

Captain Joshua Card here, at Portsmouth Harbor Light Station, New Hampshire. I want to tell you about a sad but fascinating story from down Connecticut way. It’s really a two-part story. Greens Ledge is one of several treacherous formations near Norwalk Harbor in western Long Island Sound. A lighthouse was constructed in 1902 to help… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #16

Captain Joshua Card here, keeping the light at Portsmouth Harbor Light here on the New Hampshire coast. Today’s entry will be brief. I want to tell you about Asa L. Jones and his son down at Monomoy Point Light Station off Chatham on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Jones was a contemporary of mine. Asa Jones, a… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #15

Captain Joshua Card here at Station Portsmouth Harbor. Today I want to tell you about Keeper James Burke, a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. James Burke began his career as a keeper, as I did some years earlier, at remote Boon Island, a jumbled pile of rocks some nine miles off the southern Maine coast.… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #14

Captain Joshua Kenney Card here, up at Portsmouth Harbor Light Station in my home town of New Castle, New Hampshire. The cherry trees in Portsmouth are blooming and spring is really here at last. Soon the summer people will be stopping by and I’ll be taking them up in the tower. The lonely months of… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #13

Captain Joshua Card here, at Fort Point on the New Hampshire Seacoast. The days are getting longer and the weather’s been mostly clear. I haven’t had to wind the fog bell mechanism in more than a month. That will change come summer. Thought I’d tell you about Benjamin Ellsworth today, another contemporary of mine who… Continue reading The Kaptain’s Kolumn #12