Kelley took over in 1849, and not long thereafter someone entered the tower during the night with “false keys” and turned the cocks in the oil butts, allowing the oil to run out on the brick floor. The tower’s first keeper was David Thompson who held the position for eleven years while earning $400 annually. The light commenced operation on June 26, 1838.
The lantern room atop the tower was filled with fifteen lamps and sixteen-inch reflectors generating a fixed light, which distinguished it from the older tower to the south that had a revolving light. Joseph Hastings of Boston was contracted to build Little Cumberland’s sixty-one-foot, brick tower and keeper’s dwelling. On August 24, 1837, John Floyd sold six acres on the northern end of Little Cumberland Island to the federal government for $500. John and Charles Floyd purchased Little Cumberland Island from the heirs of General Nathaniel Greene for the sum of $1,000 on May 25, 1808. On March 3, 1837, Congress appropriated $8,000 for a lighthouse on Little Cumberland Island, and in 1838, as one Cumberland lighthouse was shrinking at the southern end of the islands another lighthouse was rising at the northern end of the islands, just eighteen miles away. Andrew Lighthouse prior to the Civil War. In fact, the lighthouse was often called the St. Apparently the lighthouse was able to better mark the entrance to the river from the Florida side.īefore the relocation of Cumberland Lighthouse, the decision was made to build a lighthouse on the northern end of Little Cumberland Island, where it could mark the entrance to St. Mary’s River from the original lighthouse site. After eighteen years of service, the lighthouse was dismantled brick by brick and reassembled in 1838 on the northern end of Florida’s Amelia Island, which lies just across the mouth of St. However, it was eighteen years before the lighthouse, built by Winslow Lewis, became a reality. Government in 1802 by the State of Georgia for the construction of a lighthouse. Six acres at the southern tip of the island were ceded to the U.S. One has been relocated, and the other is now privately owned.Ĭumberland Island received its lighthouse first. Both Cumberland islands have been home to a lighthouse. Little Cumberland Island lies just north of Cumberland Island and is separated from the larger island by a marshy area formed by Christmas and Brockington Creeks. Cumberland Island is the southernmost of the islands and also the largest and longest. Coast Guard has automated the other 278 federally run lighthouses, finding this a more cost-effective way to manage navigational aids that have become less critical since the advent of global positioning systems that harness satellite technology.Georgia’s Atlantic Coast is protected by a string of barrier islands stretching from Florida to South Carolina. “It actually looks like the rays are going out to the curvature of the earth and it feels so protected, like nothing’s going to harm me. “When you’re out at night on the island, you can actually see the 12 rays,” said the ex-schoolteacher. Her charge, and specifically the 12-sided rotating lens that casts its beam 27 nautical miles out to sea, fills her with a great sense of security.
Sally Snowman, 56, is part historian, part tour guide and part maintenance worker who tends Boston Light, a beacon that rises 89 feet (27 meter) on its own island and had guided sailors for almost three centuries. Sally Snowman stands in front of Boston Light on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, Massachusetts May 15, 2008.
0 kommentar(er)
