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The strait between Bristol and
Portsmouth was increasingly busy in the early 1800s, with all
manner of vessels passing between Narragansett Bay to the west
and Mount Hope Bay to the east, including traffic to and from
the textile mills of Fall River, Massachusetts. The Bay State
Steamboat Company, in 1846, established a small, lighted beacon
at Ferry Point in Bristol. Around that time, the company's Fall
River Line starting running steamships from Fall River to New
York City.
The unreliability of the early beacon led Benjamin Brayton,
master of the steamer Empire State, to request a more
substantial structure in November 1853. William Brown, master
of the 320-foot steamer Bay State, chimed in with his
own forceful letter. "Those of us who have to pass through
this strait on dark and stormy nights," Brown wrote, "or
else are brought to a stand in the attempt to grope our way through,
realize that, as it is now, we are subjected frequently to a
responsibility more weighty than ought to be placed on any one."
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- Circa 1870s, U.S. Coast Guard photo
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The Lighthouse Board heeded the pleas, and Congress appropriated
$1,500 on August 3, 1854, for a combined lighthouse and dwelling.
Suitable land for the station was soon bought for $100 from George
Pearse. A modest one-and-one-half-story brick dwelling was constructed,
with a square 28-foot lighthouse tower attached to its southern
end. The wooden lantern held a sixth-order Fresnel lens showing
a fixed white light, first exhibited on October 4, 1855.
- U.S. Coast Guard photo
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George Pearse briefly served as the lighthouse's first keeper
until the appointment of Henry Diman of Bristol in December 1855.
Diman died only eight months later and was replaced by his widow,
Elizabeth Diman. She, too, died the following February and was
succeeded by Daniel W. Coggeshall, another Bristol native, who
remained for four years. Turnover of keepers was frequent, somewhat
surprising for a relatively cozy lighthouse on the mainland.
It may have had something to do with the cramped and damp quarters.
After Coggeshall came Charles Sanford of Bristol, who stayed
for almost a decade. Sanford was at the lighthouse with his family
when a hurricane struck the area on September 8, 1869. The dwelling
was flooded at the height of the storm, and the Sanford family
was forced to leave the lighthouse until the storm passed.
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Some nineteenth-century keepers' logs from this lighthouse
are in the collection of the Bristol Historical Society. Here
are some sample entries:
June 8, 1885 (Keeper Edward P. Hoxsie): Steamer passed
by towing a whale 60 ft long.
March 19, 1887 (Keeper Edward Sherman): Schooner Fairdeal
got ashore on the point in front of the lthouse remained 2 1/2
hours.
April 22, 1891 (Sherman): Schooner Hattie Williams carried
away-her topmast in front of the lighthouse.
October 1, 1902 (Sherman): The body of unknown man found
near Dumpling Rock. 2 days after the man was identified as Charles
DeWitt Cleveland of Barrington.
August 2, 1903 (Sherman): Rescued two men from overturned
boat 4:30 p.m.
August 14, 1911 (Sherman): Went to the rescue of two men
in an overturned canoe at four p.m.
June 28, 1915 (Keeper Baldwin noting the visit of an inspector):
Good conditions as to care and cleanliness, more old clothes
and worthless [illegible] about the house than needed-better
get them weeded out.
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Edward Sherman had the longest stay as keeper, from 1886 to
1914. There was a dampness problem in the tower when Sherman
arrived that sometimes caused the oil lamp's glass globe to crack.
Sherman devised a metal plate above the lamp, putting a stop
to the problem.
In 1902, Bristol Ferry Light was upgraded and received a fifth
order lens.The original wooden lantern room was replaced by an
iron one (from the Rondout Lighthouse on the Hudson River in
New York) in 1916, and the tower was raised by six feet.
The Mount Hope
Bridge between Bristol and Portsmouth, more than a mile
long, was completed in 1929 at a cost of $5 million. The bridge
was built practically over the lighthouse and rendered it irrelevant
as an aid to navigation. The lantern was removed from the tower
in 1928. An automatic navigational light on a nearby skeletal
tower remained in operation until 1934.
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The property passed through various hands and was eventually
rented for some years to students from Roger Williams University,
located a short distance away. The building deteriorated and
was in deplorable shape when it was sold to Carol and Bob Lundin
in 1991. Thanks to the Lundins, the lighthouse was reborn.
The Lundins' daughter and her friend, architect Kevin Prest,
set about the task of renovating the property in a way that would
honor its history while still providing a modern, comfortable
living space.
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The interior was gutted, and new electrical and plumbing systems
were installed. An upstairs bathroom that had been added previously
was converted to a bedroom, and a small deck was added outside
the master bedroom across the hall. The first floor of the tower
was converted into a bathroom with ceramic tile and a glassed-in
shower, a development that might have shocked the early keepers
who relied on an outdoor privy.
Bob and Carol Lundin moved into the lighthouse after Bob's
retirement in 1996. "We always thought it would be so romantic
to live in a lighthouse," says Carol. "And it was!"
To top off the renovations, a new lantern was fabricated and
installed, and the lighthouse once again looked like a lighthouse.
A light was added for show, coming on for two hours each evening
on a timer.
Despite their love for the lighthouse, the Lundins decided
to downscale their lifestyle; they sold the property in early
2000.
You can read much more about this lighthouse in the book The Lighthouses
of Rhode Island by Jeremy D'Entremont.
Keepers: George Pearse (1855); Henry Diman (1855-1856);
Elizabeth Diman (1856); D. W. Coggleshall (1857-1861); C. Sanford
(1861-1870); George T. Gladding (1870-1871); James W. Waldron
(1871-1875); William Dunwell (1875-1882); Edward P. Hoxsie (1882-1886);
Edward Sherman (1886-1914); ? Baldwin (?)
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