Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. Building lighthouses on shifting sandy shores presented special problems. In 1852 the new Light-House Board decided to discontinue the Gulf’s first coastal lighthouse at Frank’s Island, because the Northeast Pass of the Mississippi Delta was shoaling badly, in favor of a tower at the mouth of… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #40
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. Lighthouse Inspector Snow told me about the resignation of W.H. Rugg, keeper of the Farallon Island Light Station in 1887. The Board replied that the resignation should not be accepted, but that Mr. Rugg should be removed, to take effect from 11 August 1887. As one… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #39
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. “Spirits,” as they were called in the 19th century, caused problems at lighthouses. The second keeper at East Rigolets Lighthouse in Louisiana, built in 1833, was fired for drunkenness. The 1857 Instructions to Keepers VIII states that inspectors and superintendents are authorized and required to discharge… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #38
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. When the lighthouse tender stopped at Robbins Reef with coal and oil, Inspector Snow often had interesting stories to relate. In 1907 he mentioned that Congress had appropriated $100,000 for the construction of a light-house and fog-signal station of the second order to be located at… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #36
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. I know I’m isolated here, but I have all the activity of New York Harbor around me to keep me from being bored. I can’t help but wonder how keepers at really isolated stations kept their sanity. Standing on an isolated ledge near the entrance to… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #35
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. Offshore lights, with keepers working in shifts, required an adequate number of keepers to man the light and fog signal as well as to go ashore for supplies or emergencies. On October 23, 1908, the USLHB authorized the following complement for the Rock of Ages Light… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #34
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. I want to pay tribute to two women keepers who served longer than any other light keeper—male or female—as principal keeper at a single light station: Maria Younghans, who served at Biloxi Light Station in Mississippi from 1867 until 1918, and Catherine Murdock, who kept the… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #33
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. Light keepers do much more than keep the light. The water around Robbins Reef is treacherous. Over the years I rescued 50 people. One such newsworthy incident was the wreck of a three masted schooner that struck the reef and rolled onto its side. I launched… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #32
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. Did you know that the Lighthouse Service built a lighthouse on Navassa Island? Bet you don’t even know where Navassa Island is. I didn’t until I read about it in the newspaper. It was built in 1917, while I was still keeping the light on Robbins… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #31
Kate Walker here, keeping the light on Robbins Reef. Inspector Snow, when he last visited Robbins Reef, told me about the damage done to the tall masonry tower on Point Arena headland north of San Francisco in the 1906 earthquake. He said that a rare earthquake had struck Pensacola, Florida, in 1885, but earthquakes were… Continue reading Kate’s Corner #30
