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With increasing ferry traffic
between Wickford and Newport, the Lighthouse Board's annual reports
in 1878 and 1879 recommended:
Additional aids to navigation to mark the entrance to Wickford
Harbor are required. A granite pier surmounted by a small light
should be established on Old Gay Rock. . . . The light at Poplar
Point could be discontinued if one on Old Gay is established.
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On June 15, 1880, Congress appropriated $45,000 for a lighthouse
on Old Gay Rock, about 200 yards offshore from the 1831 lighthouse
at Poplar Point.
The lighthouse superstructure was an eight-room wood-frame
Gothic Revival house much like the one constructed a few years
later at the northern tip of Conanicut Island. A square lighthouse
tower was attached to a corner of the dwelling. A 2,500-gallon
cistern in the basement collected rainwater for the use of the
keeper and his family, and a privy hung over the outside deck.
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Poplar Point Light and Wickford Harbor
Light |
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From the collection of Edward Rowe
Snow, courtesy of Dorothy Bicknell |
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A fifth-order Fresnel lens, showing a fixed white light 52
feet above the water, was first illuminated on November 1, 1882.
The old light at Poplar Point was simultaneously discontinued.
A fog bell and striking machinery were also installed.
There were only three keepers of Wickford Light in its history.
They were Henry F. Sherman (1882-1886), Nathaniel Dodge (1886-1893)
and Edmund Andrews.
Keeper Edmund (his name was often reported as Edward) Andrews,
who came to Wickford in 1893, was born in 1868 in Providence.
He was the son of an English carpenter and an Irishwoman.
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Andrews went to sea aboard the George W. Darrison out
of Block Island, and by 1891 he was working as an assistant lighthouse
keeper at Whale Rock Light. While in that position Andrews married
Lillian A. Sprague, 17, of Block Island.
Andrews eventually became the head keeper at Whale Rock. Edmund
and Lillian had one child when they moved to Wickford, and three
more children were born at the lighthouse during their years
there. The children made the most of their waterbound home. Their
son, Edward, later said that his knuckles were frequently banged
up from riding his bicycle in circles around the lighthouse,
bumping into the iron railings that surrounded it.
The lighthouse was destroyed in 1930. As a cost-saving measure,
it was replaced by a small, unmanned, automatic light. Today,
a square skeleton tower showing a flashing green light tops a
pile of rocks on the old lighthouse site.
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- Keeper Edmund Andrews (1868-1939)
- Photo courtesy of Jo Ann Tarbox
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- Keeper Edmund Andrews, his wife Lillian
and son Harry Franklin Andrews. Circa
1912. Photo courtesy of Jo Ann Tarbox.
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- U.S. Coast Guard photo
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- The steel tower at the left marks
the spot where the Wickford Harbor Lighthouse once stood. Poplar
Point Light is in the background.
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 - A
detailed model of Wickford Harbor Lighthouse, built by Dominic
Zachorne, is now on display at the North Kingstown Free Library in
North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Donovan, North Kingstown Free Library.
- You can read much more about this lighthouse in the
book The
Lighthouses of Rhode Island by Jeremy D'Entremont.
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- Keepers: Henry F. Sherman (1882-1885),
Nathaniel Dodge (1885-1893), Edmund Andrews (1893-1930)
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