New England Lighthouses: A Virtual Guide

White Island Light (Isles of Shoals Light)

Rye, New Hampshire

White Island Light main page / History / Bibliography / Cruises / Photos / Postcards


History

The Isles of Shoals, a cluster of nine islands located several miles off the seacoast of New Hampshire, were described by Robert Thayer Sterling in Maine Lighthouses and the Men Who Keep Them as "a low lying group apparently composed of masses of tumbled granite bleached white by the unceasing beating of the storm king and the glare of the blazing sun."

The islands were frequented by European fishermen for years before Capt. John Smith explored them in 1614. Smith named the islands "Smith's Isles" after himself.

According to some accounts, fishermen named the islands after their resemblance to a school, or shoal, of fish. Others say the name originated beacuse of the "shoaling," or schooling, of fish, especially mackerel and herring, around them.

#

 

The area remained an important fishing center for centuries. The first lighthouse in the Isles of Shoals was established on White Island in 1821. It was a stone tower, later encased with wood and shingled.

The lighthouse's original characteristic was unusually patriotic, with red, white, and blue flashes. The blue flash was soon discontinued because of its poor visibility.

In 1838, this was nearly one of the first American lighthouses to have a Fresnel lens installed, but it was decided that the tower was too low for a satisfactory test of the lens. A new lantern and lighting apparatus were installed in 1841.

During the following year, engineer I.W.P. Lewis inspected the station and reported, "The whole construction of the apparatus bears the mark of rude workmanship." The lamps and reflectors weren't replaced by a more efficient Fresnel lens until 1855.

In 1839, Thomas Laighton (1805-1866) became keeper. He and his brother Joseph had bought three of the islands in the Isles of Shoals including the largest, Hog (later known as Appledore), and Smuttynose.

old photo of lighthouse
The first White Island Lighthouse, circa late 1850s
U.S. Coast Guard photo

Thomas Laighton was a former postmaster and representative to the New Hampshire legislature, and he had recently lost a run for selectman in Portsmouth. Laighton and his wife, Eliza, moved to White Island with their two children, Oscar and Celia. In 1841 a baby, Cedric, was born to the Laightons at the lighthouse.

Laighton's daughter, Celia, later gained widespread fame as Celia Thaxter, poet and author.

In her book, Among the Isles of Shoals, she described the family's arrival at White Island:

It was at sunset in autumn that we were set ashore on that loneliest, lovely rock, where the lighthouse looked down on us like some tall, black-capped giant, and filled me with awe and wonder. At its base a few goats were grouped on the rock, standing out against the red sky as I looked up at them...

Some one began to light the lamps in the tower. Rich red and golden, they swung around in mid-air; everything was strange and fascinating and new.

Celia Thaxter
Celia (Laighton) Thaxter

She wrote about an evening visit to the water's edge:

High above, the lighthouse rays streamed out into the humid dark, and the cottage windows were ruddy from the glow within. I felt so much a part of the Lord's universe, I was no more afraid of the dark than the wave or the winds.

Storms frequently swept over White Island. One particularly severe gale struck in 1839 when Celia was four years old, washing away henhouses and forcing her father to bring the family's cow into the kitchen. During the storm the brig Pocahontas was wrecked on a nearby sandbar and all aboard perished. The memory of this incident inspired Celia Thaxter's poem, "The Wreck of the Pocahontas," which read, in part:

 
 I lit the lamps in the lighthouse tower,
For the sun dropped down and the day was dead.
They shone like a glorious clustered flower,
Ten golden and five red.
 
Like all the demons loosed at last,
Whistling and shrieking, wild and wide,
The mad wind raged, while strong and fast
Rolled in the rising tide.
 
The thick storm seemed to break apart
To show us, staggering to her grave,
The fated brig. We had no heart
To look, for naught could save.
 

Many visitors came to White Island in the summers while the Laightons lived there. The visitors included Richard Henry Dana, author of Two Years Before the Mast.

In times of rough weather, the residents of White Island were frequently cut off from the mainland. A pilot boat brought mail and supplies every week or ten days. Once a year Eliza Laighton traveled to Portsmouth to buy materials to make clothing for her family. A few times a year the lighthouse inspector would come, bringing oil for the lamps and other supplies, sometimes including a barrel of pork.

Celia's brother, Oscar Laighton, wrote about his childhood on White Island in his book, Ninety Years at the Isles of Shoals:

Many people have said, 'You must have been very lonely at the Light.' They did not know that where our mother dwelt there was happiness also. I am sure no family was ever more united and contented than the Laightons on White Island.

As a young girl, Celia learned to help her father light the lamps and polish the reflectors and lantern glass. The Laightons eventually moved to the much larger island of Appledore, where they operated a hotel for many years. The hotel's guests included Longfellow, Emerson, and Whittier. Levi Thaxter tutored the Laighton children; he and Celia eventually married. old engraving

A new 58-foot brick lighthouse tower was built on White Island in 1859. The new tower was fitted with a second-order Fresnel lens.

A duplex keeper's house built in 1878 was removed by the Coast Guard in the 1950s.

There was an amazing rescue one winter in the mid-1800s at White Island Light.

John Bragg Downs was temporarily acting as keeper, with a friend as his assistant. The two men were at the lighthouse when a severe blizzard hit, with blinding snow and heavy seas covering the island. One night, much to their shock, there was a knock at the door.

White Island Light c. 1870s

When they opened the door, the men discovered a lone sailor, dressed in tattered rags and bleeding from many wounds. The man had somehow come ashore from a brig wrecked on the rocks.

After a great deal of effort, Downs ventured out on a ledge and managed to get a line to the rest of the crew on the vessel. He then tied the line around himself. Downs wedged himself into a crevice, and every man managed to get ashore from the sinking ship.

The lighthouse station's kitchen, circa 1950.
From The Shoreliner, September 1950.
 

The fog bell at White Island was replaced by a new bell and striking machinery in 1906. This was replaced later by a powerful air siren.

After the Coast Guard took over at White Island, three men were assigned to the station. Kevin Murphy was one of the Coast Guard keepers 1982-83. In an email in August 2009, he wrote, "While I have no horrific storm stories to tell, we certainly had our share of storms and there where times we would get stuck out on the island for a month because we couldn’t get the dory off the island. Occasionally we had to be air lifted off the island which I thought was kind of fun!" Murphy says he enjoyed his time on the island and he's happy to see that local people are working for the preservation of the light station's buildings.

U.S. Coast Guard photo

Glenn Young of York, Maine, was a machinery technician when he was in the Coast Guard. He was stationed on the island during a memorable storm in March 1984. As 35-foot waves crashed against the lighthouse and keeper's house, the crewmen calmly watched TV.

About once an hour, Young went to check the light. To do so he had to go through an enclosed wooden walkway between the house and tower. Waves were washing right over the walkway and water was pouring through the cracks, so Young had to wait for the waves to recede before running the length of the walkway. The storm did much damage at the station and deposited a 3 1/2-ton boulder on the helicopter pad

Rick Bennett and Kevin Madison were among the last Coast Guardsmen at White Island. In the summer, the men would visit the inhabitants of the other islands nearby. Storms sometimes made it very difficult for the crew to land at White Island.

Kevin Madison says that although the 1986 automation of White Island Light was sad in a way, it was also very interesting. The Coast Guard crew spent three months working with a civilian crew from Portland on the automation process.

After the automation, the Coast Guard keepers were removed. A couple of years later, the huge Fresnel lens was replaced by aerobeacons. The present VRB-25 optic is solar-powered.

Hurricane Bob and the ferocious "Perfect Storm" of October 1991 washed away the walkway from the tower to the house, as well as the old fog signal tower.

In 1993, White Island became the property of the State of New Hampshire. For a period beginning in1998, a local diving school operator, Don Stevens of Atlantic Aquasport, had an agreement with the state to bring divers to the island.

These solar panels provide power for the light

 

people with birds all around
Members of the Audubon Society of New Hampshire conducting a tern count on Seavey Island

 

More recently the house has been used by personnel of the Audubon Society of New Hampshire, who have implemented a tern restoration project on adjacent Seavey Island.

Over the years, the lighthouse tower developed major cracks in its exterior, mostly on the northeast side that bears the brunt of storms.

 

The good news is that seventh grade students in North Hampton, New Hampshire, along with a teacher, Sue Reynolds, have worked to save the lighthouse. You can see the website of the "Lighthouse Kids" here.

On April 30, 2003, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire announced that a matching grant of $250,000 in federal funds from the Save America's Treasures program was awarded for the restoration of the White Island Lighthouse.

On June 22, 2005, the Lighthouse Kids presented New Hampshire Governor John Lynch with a check for $110,000. In accepting the check, the state authorized the Division of Parks and Recreation to expend the money for conservation and restoration of the White Island Light Station.

cracks
Some of the cracks on the tower's exterior in 2002

Lighthouse Kids
Some of the "Lighthouse Kids" on a trip to White Island, June 20, 2002
The check represented money the Lighthouse Kids raised through corporate and private fundraising, foundation grants and merchandise sales. It was combined with a portion of the $250,000 Save America's Treasures grant and state funds to allow a full restoration of the tower and a partial restoration of the keeper's house.

kids neasuring
The Lighthouse Kids measure the cracks in the lighthouse on October 10, 2002
Local businesses pitched in to help the Kids

 
 
 
The Lighthouse Kids in downtown Portsmouth, NH, April 8, 2005

The work was done during the summer of 2005 by Ricci Construction of Portsmouth, NH, J. B. Leslie Company of South Berwick, Maine, and F. A. Gray Company of Portsmouth.

The keeper's house was reroofed and painted, and rotting woodwork was replaced. The renovations stopped water leaks that had plagued the house in recent years.

More than 1,000 bricks were replaced in the tower during the 2005 restoration. The brick courses were strengthened with the addition of stainless steel ties, and the entire tower received a protective layer of stucco. The glass block windows in the tower were replaced by windows that are more like the original ones.

A northeast storm in mid-April 2007 did much damage on the island. The walkway was demolished, and the solar panels for the light were swept away. Hopefully, this setback won't prevent a full restoration of the station in the coming years.

In early 2008, the rotating VRB-25 optic that had been in use at White Island for several years was replaced by a VLB-44 light emitting diode unit (LED). It's one of the first lighthouses in the U.S. to have this type of light; you can read more about it here.

An aerial view of Star Island with White Island in the background.
 
The lighthouse in June 2007, after the covered walkway was demolished by a storm in April
 

Keepers: Joseph L. Locke (c.1833-1839); Thomas Laighton (1839-1846); Ben Whaling (employee of Thomas Laighton, c.1839-1846); Fabius Becker (c.1846-1849?); L. H. D. Shepard (1849-1855); Richard G. Haley (1855-1861); Otis F. Haley (assistant, 1859-1861); John Bragg Downs (c. 1850, temporary keeper); Alfred J. Leavitt (1861-1866); Jonathan Godfrey (assistant, 1861-1863); Alonzo D. Berry (assistant, 1863-1864); Albert S. Perkins (assistant, 1864-1866); John E. Hoyt (assistant, 1866-1867); Alonzo Wise (1866-1869); George Balch (assistant, 1867-1868); John L. Allen (assistant, 1867-1868); Wiliam H. White (assistant, 1868-1869); Frank A. Otis (assistant, 1868-1870); Joshua Bickford (1869); Jonathan W. Berry (1869-1874); Abram Mathes (?) (assistant, 1869-1871); Thomas J. Varrell (assistant, 1870); George Chaplin (assistant, 1871); ? Gray (assistant, 1870); ? A. Yeaton (assistant, 1872); Parsons (?) Locke (assistant, 1872-1873); Charles H. Ramsdell (second assistant, 1873); Franklin R. Bragden (assistant, 1874-1876); Israel P. Miller (1874-1876); Edwin J. Hobbs (1876-1880); Alden W. P. White (assistant, 1876-1877); David R. Grogan (1880-1894); James Burke (1894-1912); Elias Tarlton, Jr. (assistant, 1884-1890); Thomas H. Barber (assistant, 1890-1891); Walter S. Amee (assistant, 1893); John Scannell (assistant, 1893-1894); John A. Hall (assistant, 1894-1896); Wallace S. Chase (assistant, 1897); William M. Brooks (assistant, 1897); Gordon A. Sullivan (assistant, 1909-1912); Alvah Robinson (assistant, c. 1914?); Edwin A. Pettegrow (c. early 1920s); Albert Staples (1926-1930); Charles U. Gardner (Coast Guard relief keeper, c, 1942-1943) ; Douglas Larrabee (c. 1950); Bill Cannon (Coast Guard, c. 1948-1950); John Parks (Coast Guard, c, 1948-1950); Charles Martin (c. 1956-1958); Harold Roberts (c. 1956-1958); Anthony Cherico (c. 1956-1958); Allan Petersen (USCG Officer in Charge, 1961-1962); BM1 Ira Machon (Coast Guard Officer in Charge, c. 1965-1966); ? Gordon, USCG (1968-1970); Bruce Blanchard (Coast Guard EN2, 1968-70); Bob Larson (Coast Guard, 1972-1974); Ron Tinkham (Coast Guard, 1972-1974); John C. Waterman (Coast Guard, c. 1977-1978); PO1 Rick Loster, USCG Officer in Charge (8/1983-6/1984); FN Kevin Murphy (Coast Guard, 1982-1983); PO3 Joel Wood (Coast Guard, c. 1983);  Jeff Jones, (Coast Guard, c. 1983); Scott Powell, (Coast Guard, c. 1983); Glenn Young (Coast Guard, c. 1984); Rick Bennett, (Coast Guard, c. 1986); Kevin Madison, (Coast Guard, c. 1986)

Last updated 8/26/09

© Jeremy D'Entremont. Do not reproduce any part of this website without permission of the author.

Unless otherwise specified, the historic images on this page are from the collection of
Edward Rowe Snow and are used with the permssion of Dorothy Bicknell

White Island Light main page / History / Bibliography / Cruises / Photos / Postcards

New Hampshire Menu / New England Menu / Back to Contents

 

Vote for this site on Top 25 Lighthouse Web Sites List!

lighthouse banner