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Austere and weather-beaten,
Graves Light might appear to the uninformed observer to be a
more ancient structure than Boston Light, its neighbor in Boston's
outer harbor. Surprisingly, it's actually one of Massachusetts'
youngest lighthouses.
In 1843, the engineer I.W.P. Lewis expressed surprise that
there was no beacon on the ledges known as the Graves. The ledges
were named for Rear Adm. Thomas Graves, who came to America from
London in 1628 and was an early settler of Charlestown, Massachusetts.
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- From the collection of Edward Rowe
Snow, courtesy of Dorothy Bicknell
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- U.S. Coast Guard
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An iron bell buoy was placed near the ledges in 1854. It was
later replaced by a whistling buoy beyond the northeast end of
the ledges. A new major shipping channel into Boston Harbor,
the Broad Sound Channel, opened in the early 1900s, necessitating
a lighthouse at the Graves.
In 1902, Congress appropriated $75,000 for a lighthouse and
fog signal, and Governor Crane of Massachusetts signed a deed
conveying 435,400 square feet at the ledges to the federal government.
The project ultimately cost $188,000, meaning a second appropriation
of $113,000 was required in April 1904.
Construction took place from 1903 to 1905, and Royal Luther
of Malden, Massachusetts, was in charge. The style of Graves
Light is very similar to Maine's Ram Island Ledge Light, built
at about the same time.
The granite for the tower was cut at Rockport on Cape Ann.
Rock on the ledges was blasted, and the foundation was laid just
four feet above the low tide mark. The first 42 feet were completed
in the summer of 1903.
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- Note the inscription over the entryway:
"A.D. 1903."
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- Scenes from the construction of Graves
Light
- From the collection of Edward Rowe
Snow, courtesy of Dorothy Bicknell
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A schooner transported materials from Lovell's Island, 3 1/2
miles away, to the Graves, and a 75-foot steamer transported
workers to the site. A shanty was constructed on the highest
ledge of the Graves, connected to the wharf by a 90-foot elevated
walkway. The shanty had living quarters, a storeroom, a blacksmith
shop, and a kitchen, and up to 30 men lived there in the summers
of 1903 and 1904.
While the granite was being put in place, the ironwork was
being manufactured in Boston and a huge first-order Fresnel lens
was being created in Paris.
The summer of 1904 saw the lighthouse reach a height of 88
feet. Construction was completed during the following year. A
granite oil house was built 90 feet south of the tower, reachable
by a footbridge.
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On the night of September 1, 1905, Graves Light's first keeper,
Elliot C. Hadley, lighted the most powerful light in Massachusetts
history for the first time. The gigantic lens floated on 400
pounds of mercury. After the completion of Graves Light, a Lighthouse
Establishment report stated:
At so exposed a site the height necessary for the lantern
above the heavier masses of spray, the consequent geographic
range, its location so far seaward, the service of the light
to the large commerce of Boston and modern ships of deep draft,
make it perhaps the most important light north of Cape Cod.
A poem by Henry J. Clark called "To 'The Graves'"
was published in the Boston Globe the day the lighthouse
went into service. It read, in part:
Now thou art conquered, thy terrors are gone;
Grim death is displaced, and life sits on thy throne:
Secure on thy rock the light shines that saves
And guides to the haven, Thou welcoming Graves.
When it went into service, Graves Light was measured at 380,000
candlepower. The light was later upgraded to 3.2 million candlepower,
and for many years it was the most powerful light in New England.
The station was also equipped with a powerful Daboll fog trumpet.
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The tower is just over 30 feet in diameter at the base, and
the lower stones -- held to each other with strong bolts -- are
7 feet thick. The lower 42-foot section of the tower was filled
with concrete, with a space left for a cistern. The entrance
door to the tower was at the top of a 30-foot ladder, which made
entry difficult in rough weather.
The first story was the landing and storage space, the second
was the engine room containing the fog-signal equipment, and
the third floor was the kitchen. The fourth and fifth levels
contained the keepers' beds and a library. Handgrips were built
into the outside of the lantern, which made the treacherous job
of cleaning the outside of the glass a little easier.
Two of the floors and all the walls were finished with enameled
bricks. The handrails on the stairways were mahogany, and the
rest of the woodwork was oak. A newspaper article described the
rooms in the lighthouse as "reminiscent of cheery, compact
little cabins on a smart steamer."
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- The tiled wall can be seen behind
the stairs to the lantern room
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The cistern in the bottom of the lighthouse was filled with
water twice yearly by a lighthouse tender, and food was delivered
regularly to the lighthouse. The keepers augmented their diet
with lobsters caught in their own traps around the ledges.
- This photo showing the rocks at the
Graves covered with ice was published in the Boston Post in
February 1934. From the collection of
Edward Rowe Snow, courtesy of Dorothy Bicknell
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In 1910, Keeper Hadley described the conditions at Graves
Light in storms:
I've looked up at solid water rushing in toward the ledges.
I don't know how far up the solid water comes. I've been knocked
down by it on the wharf beside the light, and opening a window
to look out more than halfway up the tower, I've had as much
as three buckets-full dashed in my face.
A severe storm in November 1935 moved giant stones, some weighing
three tons, and deposited them near the lighthouse.
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- First Assistant Keeper George H.
Fitzpatrick, left, and Keeper Octavius Reamy, right, on October
1, 1935, the 30th anniversary of the lighting of Graves Light.
From the collection of Edward Rowe Snow, courtesy of Dorothy
Bicknell
Several wrecks have taken place in the vicinity of Graves
Light. In 1938, the 419-foot freighter City of Salisbury,
remembered as the "Zoo Ship" for its cargo of zoo animals,
struck a reef not far from the Graves. There was no loss of life.
The ship became a tourist attraction for a few months before
it finally split in two and sank.
The last civilian keeper, Llewellyn Rogers, also was at the
Graves when the steamer New York crashed into the Romance.
The Romance sank in 20 minutes, but no lives were lost
in the disaster.
In 1947, Graves Light served as a filming location to a movie
crew working on the David O. Selznick production, Portrait
of Jennie, starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones.
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Coast Guardsman Larry Bowers was stationed at Graves Light
from 1961 to 1963. He later recalled one storm when waves knocked
out the window on the first deck and destroyed the generator.
He also remembered a summer visit from Edward Rowe Snow, who
gave him a copy of his book Famous New England Lighthouses.
There were problems in the 1970s with the mercury that served
as a bearing for the rotating lens.
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- This photo of the American flag flying
at Graves Light is courtesy of the last Coast Guard officer in
charge, Pedro Marticio.
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Pedro Marticio later remembered:
I was the last Coast Guard keeper of the Graves Light.
I was there for two tours of duty -- I closed it down the first
time due to a mercury spill, and after the light was decontaminated
I went out for another year.
The light was automated in 1976. The Fresnel lens, 12 feet
high and nine feet in diameter, presently sits in storage at
the Smithsonian Institution.
For a period between 1981 and 1983, the light was powered
by an emergency generator due to damage to the electrical cable
from shore. Blake Rinker was in the Coast Guard at the time,
and he remembers, "We aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter
White Heath had to fuel it every five weeks. We could
always tell if we didn't get there in time because it was reported
as an outage. Sometimes the seas were too rough to make a landing
to fuel."
On Christmas Eve of 1984, the light failed. A Coast Guard
Aids to Navigation team headed out to the lighthouse and got
the light back on. They just beat a bad storm back into Boston.
The team's officer in charge, Chief Paul Driscoll, said "four
guys almost spent Christmas night in a lighthouse instead of
home with their families."
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- Courtesy of Pedro Marticio
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- Today crews working at Graves Light
usually arrive by helicopter, landing on a small platform next
to the tower
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Storms and vandalism have done their share of damage. The
old walkway has been destroyed by storms, and vandals have caused
thousands of dollars in damage. The fog signal house was swept
away by the "Perfect Storm" of October 1991. The badly
damaged landing platform was repaired in 1993. The original oil
house still stands.
The submarine cable from the town of Hull that powered Graves
Light was damaged in a March 2001 storm. Three months later,
the light was converted to solar power. A civilian crew working
for the Coast Guard out of South Portland, Maine, did the job.
The conversion ended the light's reliance on the submarine electrical
cable.
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In The Islands of Boston Harbor, Edward Rowe Snow wrote:
I shall not attempt to give you a description of the scene
from the top of the Light but hope that some day you may journey
to this far-flung ledge and see the splendid view for yourself.
This is now almost impossible since automation, but you can
get excellent views of Graves Light from various excursion boats
and distant views from the towns of Winthrop, Nahant, and Hull.
You can read much more about this lighthouse in the book The Lighthouses
of Massachusetts by Jeremy D'Entremont.
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- The crew that converted Graves Light
to solar power, L to R: , Electrical Work Leader Fred S. Eggleston,
Maintenance Mechanic Craig Smith, Electrician Al Wilson, Carpenter
Work Leader Hugh Hicks, Helicopter Pilot Dale Hardy. The project
was supervised by Chris Ledwith.
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Left, new electronic fog signals, and right, the
new optics installed in June 2001
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- Webmaster Jeremy D'Entremont in the
lantern room, June 7, 2001
- Photo by CWO Dave Waldrip, First
District Coast Guard Lighthouse Manager
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- Keepers: Elliott C. Hadley (1905-1911); Elliott
C. Hadley, Jr. (second assistant, 1908-1912, first assistant,1912-?);
Robert M. McAfee (second assistant, 1906-1907, first assistant,
1907-1912); Thomas J. Creed (second assistant, 1909-1910); George
L. Lyon (1911-?); William Anderson, Jr/ (second assistant, 1912-?);
Henry Towle (c. 1914-1917); Harry Whin (First Assistant, c. 1915-1917);
Bill Baldwin (Second assistant keeper, c. 1916); ? Carter (c.1917-1924);
Octavius Reamy (assistant 1906-1907, keeper 1924-at least 1939);
Allison Gregg Haskins (c. 1920s); Llewellyn Rogers (c. 1930s);
George J. Fitzpatrick (first assistant, c. 1935); Raymond Burton
(U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1945); Bernard Brady (Coast Guard, c. 1945);
Robert H. Curran (U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1945); Charles Sidney
Martin (U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1950); Gene Calmon (U.S. Coast Guard,
1952); ? Delany (U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1961); Larry Crouse (U.S.
Coast Guard, 1961); ? Newman (U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1961); John
Mariani (U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1961); ? Cookson (U.S. Coast Guard,
c. 1962); Larry Bowers (U.S. Coast Guard, 1961-1963); Stephen
Downey (Coast Guard, c. 1967), Edward Widborg (U.S. Coast Guard,
c. 1966-1967), ? Butler (U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1966-1967), Allan
Leto (U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1968), James Kreiger (U.S. Coast Guard,
c. 1968), Pat Faiella (U.S. Coast Guard, c. 1970), Douglas Smart
(Coast Guard, c. 1971), Sheldon Kaminsky (Coast Guard, 1970-1971),
Pedro Marticio (?-1976).
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