The Unsung Heroes in the Lights: Stories of Female Keepers
As I dove down the rabbit hole of lighthouse history, one fact separated itself from all the others. I read it on the website of the U.S. Coast Guard, which controls the country’s lighthouses today:
“One of the first non-clerical U.S. government jobs that was open to women were positions as lighthouse keepers.”
In a time when women were unfairly restricted from voting and many workplaces, it was amazing to think that female lighthouse keepers existed in America.
The reason, I discovered, arose from tragedy and desperation—not social progress. Married couples would relocate to a lighthouse, only to have the husband perish in the line of duty. With his widow desperate for income, the Lighthouse Board would grant her control of the tower. From rescuing shipwrecked crews to hauling fuel up a tower’s spiral staircase, these women completed backbreaking labor without flinching. They proved to the world that women were capable of performing any task.
Let me introduce you to a pair of these pioneers…
Ida Lewis
“The light is my child and I know when it needs me, even if I sleep.
If there’s a poster-child for heroic female lighthouse keepers, it’s Ida Lewis. Ida came from a family of lighthouse keepers, spending most of her life at Lime Rock Light in Newport, Rhode Island. Ida’s father, Hosea Lewis, was appointed as Head Keeper in 1854, but he suffered a debilitating stroke just four months into his watch. That left Ida and her mother to take on his duties.
The Lime Rock Light is located on a miniature island off the mainland. The schoolhouse was across the channel, which meant that Ida had to row to class each morning. This commute honed her rowing abilities, which would come handy throughout the rest of her life.
Ida’s first rescue occurred when a sailboat containing four young men capsized. At 16 years of age, Ida set out in her rowboat and fished the desperate sailors from the ocean. She later recounted that “she did not think the matter worth talking about and never gave it a second thought.”
One of Ida’s most remarkable rescues occurred in a snowstorm in 1869. She had come down with a terrible cold when she spotted two figures bobbing in the icy water. She ran out to her rowboat without putting on a coat or shoes and rescued the men, who turned out to be a pair of soldiers. Ida later recounted the event vividly:
“I don't know if I was ever afraid. I just went, and that was all there was to it. Now my mother, she wasn't like me. That night when the two soldiers were tipped out of their boat, I was sitting there with my feet in the oven. I had a bad cold. But when I heard those men calling, I started right out, just as I was, with a towel over my shoulders, and mother begged me not to go. She was so nervous that she nearly fainted away while I was out there. But then, she was sickly quite a time. It was my father who showed me how to take people into my boat. You have to draw them over the stern or they will tip you over.”
Though Ida grew up fulfilling the duties of a Head Keeper, she was officially promoted when her mother died in 1879. She continued her watch for the rest of her life. Her heroic acts led to her being honored by President Ulysses S. Grant and Vice President Schuyler Colfax. She was also featured on the cover of Harpers’s Weekly, which referred to her as “the bravest women in America.” National publications acknowledged that Ida could row a boat faster than any man in Rhode Island.
Ida was credited with saving 18 lives over the course of her service. However, many historians estimate that the actual number is closer to 40.
Sometimes the spray dashes against these windows so thick I can't see out, and for days at a time the waves are so high that no boat would dare come near the rock, not even if we were starving. But I am happy. There's a peace on this rock that you don't get on shore. There are hundreds of boats going in and out of this harbor in summer, and it's part of my happiness to know that they are depending on me to guide them safely.
Emily Fish
“Boat and man drifted into heavy breakers north of the station. [...] The exhausted men were warmed and cared for until restored. The boat was secured.”
If you thought that being a lighthouse keeper and living a luxurious lifestyle were polar opposites, think again. Known as “the socialite keeper,” Emily Fish turned Point Pinos Lighthouse in Pacific Grove, California into a center for the arts.
By the token of coincidence, Emily’s son-in-law was Commander Henry Nichols. He was responsible for managing all of the lighthouses on the coast of California. When Nichols related that the keeper of Point Pinos Lighthouse was about to retire, Emily rallied hard for the job. In 1893, she took over the light at the age of fifty.
When Emily arrived at Point Pinos, it was nothing more than a barren sand dune. Trees could scarcely grow on the point because of the high sand volume and the light was known as a solitary outpost, distanced from the cities of Pacific Grove and Monterey. Emily insisted on changing the lighthouse’s reputation. To support an expansive garden, she arranged massive amounts of topsoil to be shipped in. The Lighthouse Board provided cattle for Point Pinos, but they did not meet Emily’s standards. She had thoroughbred horses and Holstein cattle hauled to her lighthouse.
Tending the light and manicuring the Lighthouse Board’s 92 acres weren’t Emily’s only activities. She transformed the lighthouse into a cultural hotspot, attracting local artists, writers, and naval officers. Emily may have been a socialite, but she had no problem coming down on her staff. Over the -two years of her service, she hired and fired over 30 assistants. The only person she kept around was Que, her Chinese servant. Some historians believe that Emily and Que shared a romance that they kept hidden from a society that scorned interracial relationships.
Though Emily enjoyed entertaining, she had a fierce pioneer spirit. She wrote about the satisfaction of trapping and shooting the coyotes, skunks, badgers, and wildcats that raided her chickens. Emily’s strength invariably inspired her adopted daughter. Juliet ultimately became the Head Keeper of San Francisco’s Angel Island Light after Commander Nichols died in war.
Today, the Point Pinos Lighthouse has been restored to the appearance it had when Emily kept the station.
Emily Fish at Point Pinos Lighthouse, Circa 1897
Ida and Emily are just two examples of women who broke barriers through lighthouse keeping. There are hundreds of women who excelled in unforgiving circumstances and proved that women can take on any job.
Lucy, my protagonist, is an amalgam of these amazing women. Their stories have played a vital role in shaping her character and giving her a distinct voice.