Thomas Farragher is a Globe columnist. . She started in Hatteras, North Carolina, near where she grew up and moved north, toward Hull, Mass., toward my dad. I was scared out in that placeIt was an awful life., On August 20, 1932, a newspaper printed a letter about the life of a keeper at Boon Island. The lighthouse was twenty-five feet in diameter at its base, twelve feet in diameter at the top, and 118 feet high to the base of its lantern. Whaleback Lighthouse sits at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, Kittery, Maine; the Atlantic Ocean stretches away in the background. Arriving, we balance on periwinkles and barnacles to step from the dinghy onto a jetty, tie up to a piling, and walk 40 feet on slippery rocks to the base of the lighthouse. Phone & Email (1) All Addresses (1) Family (4) Social; Court (2) And More; God bless you all. The body of Joseph Antoine washed ashore later at Nantasket. Great Lakes Lighthouses, Seacoasts, Islands, Sounds. The lighthouse is privately owned. We walk the fresh pale planks, turn around, and I see it why Waller would throw down the most moneyjust shy of a million dollarsever spent privately on a lighthouse. The sea washd the small rocks from under the Lighthouse and Dwelling house; the island was all under water for 4 hours., On May 10, 1839, the complaints about Keeper Grover must have finally hit their mark, as the keeper wrote in his log: Turnd of[f] of Boon Island after Serving as Lighthouse Keeper 22 years and 10 months and 20 Day Without Cause.. The first light of dawn revealed only the bent remains of a few pilings. Add climate change to the mix, and were going to lose a significant number of lighthouses in the coming decades. 5.25 See list below of other lighthouses that allow tours and lodging. During low tide when the sea was calm, the Indians would paddle out to offer dishes, ornaments, and beads as sacrifices to appease the Wicked One. Apparently these offerings were rejected, since by the 1750s eighty ships and 400 lives had been lost in the surrounding waters. Although the area is no longer populated by Indians who believe in the evil spirit of Hobomock, for years tales have abounded of strange moaning, tapping, and even mysterious polishing of the lens by ghostly hands. an immediate left onto Government Island where you will see the lantern room replica. 3.15 We went all in, he says. The Late Gale at Minots Rock Light, John W. Bennett, 1851. At the cost of your own life, you would keep that light lit, says Waller. Fortunately for Graves, we really care a lot about it.. If you apply too much logic to itlook at the cost, the resale, and the amount of workit doesnt make sense, says Waller. 1 The valley is getting smaller as the ocean is getting closer. The fact that it no longer belongs to the public that its owned by an individual who can turn it into a vacation house or tear it down feels like a transgression. For Waller, who owns a special effects company in Boston, restoring the lighthouse and its artifacts is a continuum of problem-solving. The new lights characteristic was fixed white, and a fog bell mounted on the gallery encircling the lantern room, was tolled once every thirty seconds as needed. From the top deck of Graves tower, Waller points two miles south to Little Brewster Island, home only to Boston Light, the first lighthouse in the United States, built in 1716. Following two shipwrecks in 1810, a twenty-five-foot tall tower topped by an octagonal lantern was constructed at a cost of $2,377 along with a stone keepers house for $150. Many link the name Boon Island to the wrecks of the trading vessel. Some of the people purchasing auctioned lighthouses feel the same as me, and theyre buying them to save them. When John Morris was in charge of Boon Island Lighthouse in December 1945, a similar storm struck the island. Sign up today. Last summer we went back and piled cousins and aunts into a rented house. Bobby has created an easy way for those that would like to make a difference and a way for anyone to send a Hope Soccer Ball to underprivileged children. Life for the keepers of Minots Ledge Lighthouse remained difficult, though not fatal. Among the federal detritus, lighthouses are a special case. Lives in Montgomery, Texas. 12,800 Waller and I gaze from the top deck through the windows of his seaswept kingdom at the shoreline towns, historic shipping ports that arose here in the first place because of the water, and we look toward Boston Light. His wife Florence recalled that in lieu of indoor toilets, each of the three families would cut off the tops of five-gallon tins of kerosene oil and place them in an outhouse. It says a lot about Dave Waller that he and Bobby Sager have worked out an agreement, making Sager a partner in the Graves Light project. (8 minutes) Bobby Sager thinks in bulk. The ladder up from sea level, Graves Light, built in 1905. No. A few years ago, the mooring was ripped out of the ocean floor by a gale, and a breaker dragged Dave Wallers boat, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter he bought used, into the shoal below the lighthouse. When a whale went by, spouting, Id make believe that was my submarine. And Harold Hutchins daughter Shirley Kelley said: As a kid, it was my idea of Paradise! He can be reached at thomas.farragher@globe.com. Minots Ledge Lighthouse lost its resident keepers in 1947, when the light was electrified and automated. Rick Friedman/Sager Family Found Stay up-to-date with important news developments, delivered right to your inbox.. Grover was still keeper in 1837, earning $600 per year, and his letter-writing enemies continued their assault, branding him a profane man, uncivil to those who visit the island and alleging that he lived in great intimacy with his wifes sister (while apparently estranged from his ailing wife). Keepers at Boon Island occasionally assisted mariners who found themselves in dire circumstances near the station. In 1847, a crew began working from a schooner anchored next to the ledge, and over two years and $39,000 later, on January 1, 1850, Minots Ledge Lighthouse was illuminated for the first time. (Photo: Javaris Johnson/Snipezart). The solitude and thunderous crashing of the waves drove more than one keeper insane. His first renovation was his Malden home, a 10,000-square-foot Queen Anne style firehouse that had nearly burned to the ground when he and his wife, Lynn, bought it from the town for $32,500. A bell-buoy was placed on Boon Island Ledge, about three miles east of Boon Island, starting in 1858 to mark this navigational hazard. Fun? Bobby Sager says, repeating my question. I feel irrationally possessive of Minots light, even though Ive never been in the tower. Established in 1873, Yaquina Head Lighthouse, in Newport, Oregon, is the states tallest at 93 feet. That cistern had green scum an inch thick on top of it., Despite the storms and hardships, several children and grandchildren loved their time on Boon Island. The lighthouse towers overhead, tall and proud and quiet, like an ode to maritime history. Actress Neve Campbell and philanthropist and photographer Bobby Sager arrive for the 'Power Of The Invisible Sun' photocall at the Saatchi Gallery on. I havent looked at my phone since we left. A wreck on this fatal reef is always attended with the destruction of human life, owing to its great distance from the shore, and the tremendous sea that rolls in over the rocks when the wind is at the eastward.. Turn north on 228, and follow East Street, I barely know how to read a nautical chart (although there is an app for that), and sometimes, even though its irrational, that feels like a loss. On October 13th, Bobby Sager, Polaroids chairman, won the auction and bought the lighthouse for $222,000. Of course placement of the granite blocks was conducted only at low tide when the sea was calm; even so, many times construction workers were swept off the rocks by the waves. Stories about the lighthouse dovetailed with our familys history. In this design, interlocking granite blocks were placed on foundation stones weighing two tons each. Seacoasts, Sounds, River Entry, Bays, Channels, Range Lights. The island is now owned by philanthropist and lighthouse enthusiast Bobby Sager. Beacon in a storm might be one of the most overplayed metaphors of all time. This lens was one of two lenses, built using the Mahan system, that were displayed at the Columbian Exposition held at Chicago in 1893. Bobby Sager. But, ultimately hes turning it into a vacation house. Several keepers were convinced that the ghosts of the two doomed assistant keepers still resided in the lighthouse, sending signals to each other, cleaning the lens, and warning others of the dangers presented by Minots Ledge. Instead, Swift proposed a radical new design consisting of nine, sixty-foot-long iron pilings cemented five feet into the submerged rock, atop which would perch the lantern and keepers dwelling. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Graves Light sits on a rocky ledge in the middle of Boston Harbor, surrounded by water. . The lighthouse is privately owned. Some time around 1a.m. White Shoal Light. And, with that, the Sager Family Traveling Foundation and Roadshow was born. William H. Swift, the builder of the lighthouse, felt compelled to respond to the published reports with a letter to the editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser. Naval Museum in Kittery, Maine where it may be viewed by the public. The interior was damp. The 59-foot Cape Blanco Lighthouse, built in 1870 and the oldest lighthouse still standing in Oregon, offers tours into the workroom only and allows visitors onto the grounds. The dory was leaking so badly, that one man had to bale while the other manned the oars. Outside a lot. When he ran out of money a year into the renovation, he teamed up with another original bidder who matched his million, a local businessman named Bobby Sager, who has hosted celebrities like Sting and Tom Hanks at Graves. Fort Point Lighthouse was completed in 1853, shortly after its twin lighthouse at Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, California. It offers stair-climbing tours in summer, and other months as staffing and conditions allow. 2nd Though the government has the right to reject all bids if it believes a fair market price has not been achieved, the $78,000 bid was approved a few weeks after the auction closed, and the lighthouse was awarded to Arthur Girard a real estate developer from Portland, Maine. Lighthouses arent the only kind of obsolete public buildings that we put on a pedestal I think people feel similarly about fire towers but lights hit the crosshairs of history, design, adventure, and allegory. Be selfish. William C. Williams signed on as second assistant on August 5, 1885, earning $450 annually. Its ledges were among the most perilous spots on the eastern seaboard until a lighthouse was established there in 1811, following James Madisons approval. You have to be pretty creative to live in an offshore lighthouse in the first place. Third Assistant: Isaac A. Dunham (1850), Kendall Pearson (1851), Samuel Gardiner (1851), W.H. On October 13th, Bobby Sager, Polaroid's chairman, won the auction and bought the lighthouse for $222,000. Along the way, hes fostered micro-lending in Third World countries, befriended the Dalai Lama (A great sense of humor), sat with Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa, and replaced the ragtag soccer balls used by African children with brand-new indestructible yellow ones. Comparative Table of Lens Orders His globetrotting children, now 25 and 22, have learned this important lesson: Poor people are happy with almost anything. Rich people? He says he didnt have any solid reason for buying it, just that same deep-seated nostalgia and a long-standing but loose family tie. Although this request was repeated for over a decade, a fog horn did not replace the bell until around 1960. Lewis, who submitted a report in 1842 detailing the more than forty vessels that had met their end in the previous decade as a result of the ledge. It is 25 feet in diameter at its base and 12 feet in diameter at the top. He can be reached at, the government had auctioned it off in 2014. Sager has been taking photos of youngsters from war-torn countries for several years now, as he and his family have traveled the world practicing what he calls "eyeball-to-eyeball philanthropy.". He found eight dead black ducks that had smashed into the tower, and four more on the rocks below. People named Bobby Sager. Part of that is nostalgia. Summer Street and then right on Border Street. He imagines his family gathering there on sultry summer nights, the reflection of a full moon dazzling like diamonds on the Atlantic. In 2016, Sager also purchased Michigans Grays Reef Lighthouse at auction. The men sought refuge in the tower as the angry seas damaged the fuel tanks, helicopter pad and generator building, and destroyed the boathouse and boat launch. In December 2014, just months after acquiring the lighthouse, Girard sold the property to Boon Island LLC for $119,673. 6th Thats what makes me optimistic that the right entity is out there to work that kind of magic on Boston Light. She and some lighthouse preservationists hope Boston Light will go to the National Park Service, especially since the station is located within the Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park Area, but theres no telling what will happen over the next year or two. He studied economics at Brandeis and has a masters degree in management from Yale. He was promoted to first assistant with a $20 increase in salary in 1886, and received another $10 in 1888, before being promoted that year to head keeper at $760 per annum. I had read that. The island in the morning was one of the grandest sights I ever witnessed. She is shaking a good three feet each way as I write. View Bobby Sager results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. In 2000, the GSA, the Coast Guard and the Department of the Interior passed The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, an amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. In those days, some workers even signed contracts to prevent lobster from being fed to them too frequently. Tower closed. The living quarters were also damaged, and boulders were swept onto the island. Phone Number: (661) 296-MJKV. What kind of a guy, Fine. With no takers and erosion at its base, the 86-foot Kauhola Point Lighthouse in Hawaii was demolished altogether in 2009. The GSA says theyre a symbol of the strength and longevity of our countrys trading practices and communal spirit. In less governmenty terms theyre markers of a kind of simplicity and purposeful adventure, which is now all but obsolete. The first man offered the position refused. The only reason I ever wanted to make money was to be able to make choices. Yes. The new owner is Bobby Sager, a lighthouse enthusiast and philanthropist with enough assets to fund a thorough restoration of the tower. Not long afterward, the station was automated, and the damaged dwelling was burned in 1981. The towers powerful second-order Fresnel lens, produced in France by Sautter et Compagnie, went into service on January 1, 1855. 3,530 On May 16, 2012, Boon Island Lighthouse was made available under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 to eligible federal, state, and local agencies, non-profit corporations, educational agencies, and community development organizations to be used for educational, recreational, cultural, or historic preservation purposes.