Coast Guard Days at Portsmouth Harbor©
By Jeremy D'Entremont
New Hampshire’s Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse (a.k.a. Fort Point Light, Newcastle Light, Fort Constitution Light) is among the oldest light stations in the U.S., dating back to 1771. The present 1877 cast iron tower, adjacent to the U.S. Coast Guard Station Portsmouth Harbor and the Fort Constitution Historic Site, is now leased to the American Lighthouse Foundation (ALF). A chapter of ALF, the Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse, look after the tower and run monthly open houses in summer. The old keeper’s house, located just inside the granite outer walls of Fort Constitution, is now used by the Coast Guard for offices.
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In
1948 a lifesaving station on Wood Island, offshore near the mouth
of the Piscataqua River, was closed down and the operations were
relocated to the site of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse. Coast Guard crews moved into the 1872 lighthouse
keeper’s house, and the Lighthouse Service era in Portsmouth
Harbor came to a close. The last in the line of U.S. Lighthouse
Service keepers at the station was Elson Small, who retired from
the station in 1948 after about 30 years at various lighthouses,
mostly in Maine. Keeper Small’s wife Connie, now 101 years old,
is familiar to readers of Lighthouse Digest as the “First Lady
of Light” and the author of the book The Lighthouse Keeper’s
Wife. Connie’s duties at Portsmouth
Harbor Lighthouse included flying weather signal flags.
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Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse was not automated until 1960. So who switched the light on and off and kept an eye on things between 1948 and 1960? William H. (Bill) Johnson, Jr. of Newport News, Virginia, was the cook at the Portsmouth Harbor Lifeboat Station, as it was then called, from 1956 to 1959, and he has provided some interesting photos and details from that era.
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Johnson’s
memories of the station and its personnel are sharp and clear.
There was a lookout tower during that period that stood near the
shoreline, not far from the lighthouse. According to Johnson, the
tower was “similar to the towers that are used in national
forests for fire lookouts” and was approximately 50 feet high.
There were two radios and a telephone switchboard in the tower.
“We stood watch in the lookout tower and recorded all boats
entering and leaving the harbor and monitored the radios and
telephone switchboard.” Johnson explains,
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About the lighthouse he recalls, “The responsibility for turning on the light fell upon whoever was on watch at the time. The person on watch also turned the light on a half-hour before sunset each day.”
There
was a fog bell and striking mechanism mounted on the side of the
lighthouse facing the Piscataqua River until 1972. Johnson
remembers, “When it was foggy the watchstander had to hand crank
the bell mechanism every two hours before it would completely
unwind. The watchstander would shift the radios and telephones to
the main office when he came down from the tower to turn on the
light or crank up the bell mechanism. To insure the watchstander
didn’t fall asleep, he was required to punch a clock every ten
— or was it eight — minutes.” Today the old fog bell is
displayed outside the main building of Coast Guard Station
Portsmouth Harbor.
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There
was also a storm warning tower near the keeper’s house “It had
three red lights,” says Johnson. “They would be lit at night
to warn of storms, hurricanes, and so on. Storm flags also would
be flown. A long red pennant would be flown at the top as a small
craft warning”
This story appeared in the March 2003 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine.
All contents copyright © 1995 - 2003 by Lighthouse Digest®, Inc. No story, photograph, or any other item on this website may be reprinted or reproduced without the express permission of Lighthouse Digest.
A
recent view from the top of the lighthouse ...
Photo by: Jeremy D'Entremont
Bill Johnson would love to hear from any of the crew stationed at the Portsmouth Harbor Lifeboat Station in the late 1950s, and the Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse are always looking for any material and photos relating to the history of the lighthouse.
