William Waterway - Gay Head Lighthouse: The First Light on Marthas Vineyard

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2014 by William Waterway

All rights reserved

First published 2014

e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978.1.62584.938.0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Waterway, William.

Gay Head Lighthouse : the first light on Marthas Vineyard / William Waterway.

pages cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-406-9

1. Gay Head Light (Mass.)--History. 2. Marthas Vineyard (Mass.)--History. I. Title.

VK1024.M35W38 2014

387.1550974494--dc23

2014017449

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

a

torch

red and white

to guide us through

water

churning beneath Devils Bridge

rising, threatening our

sailors landfall

Gay Head Light

in darkest dark

of stormy night

she reaches out

flame so bright

forever my love

illuminate truth

protect our lights

from hidden dark

working in stealth

to steal our wealth

leaving dark mark

on our future youth

dedicated to Marthas Vineyard and poetic justice for our islands light

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ww

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

I was delighted to learn that William Waterway had written a book about one of Americas earliest light stations and also the first one I visited when a very young lad.

I summered on Marthas Vineyard with my family from the time I was seven until after I left for college, and Ive returned many times since. Around 1949, my father announced he was taking my sister and me to see a lighthouse. What that was, I had no idea. My only memory of that visit was when a Coast Guard sailor assisted me up the ladder and into the lantern room, where I was dazzled and stunned by the light reflecting off the first-order Fresnel lens, an optic with over one thousand prisms. Overall, a first-order lens stands nineteen feet high and is six feet in diameter. To me, it was a very impressive experience at the time.

The Gay Head station was established in 1799, one of just twenty-two American light stations established before 1800. The lighthouse marked a dangerous and heavily used passage between the island and the mainland known as Devils Bridge.

Although the Gay Head station has been written about or mentioned in numerous books and articles, this comprehensive work by Waterway is a welcome addition to the few scholarly works on my favorite subject. The site has a colorful and significant history. The colorful cliffs of Gay Head are unique in themselves. The station was one of the first in this country to receive a first-order Fresnel lens, and its early history includes two Indian keepers, including the first Indian principal keeper in Americas history in 1922.

This is a good read and a well-researched work. It belongs in every lighthouse enthusiasts library.

WAYNE C. WHEELER

Founder/President of the Board

United States Lighthouse Society

PREFACE

This book is written in remembrance of our Gay Head Light keeperskeepers who, for little money and oftentimes as much recognition, made sacrifices and toiled long hours to ensure safe sailing for passing seafarers.

In the early 1980s, Vineyard Environmental Research Institute (VERI), an organization I founded, was given access to the Gay Head Light. It was the first time in U.S. history that a civilian organization was given a lease for an active aid to navigation.

In 1985, I felt honored to open the door of the hallowed brick tower that has saved so many lives. As years passed, I learned of the tragic deaths of children born to Keeper Crosby Crocker and his wife, Eliza. After publishing the Crosby family tragedy in Marthas Vineyard Magazine, I felt haunted. As I walked up the lighthouse stairs, I often imagined the Crosby children climbing and playing along the same steel stairsstairs that sing and vibrate to the weight of footfalls.

With little doubt, the lightweight footfalls of the Crosby children were those of wide-eyed youths living in the moment without thought of death. I asked myself, Who am I to walk the stairs of innocent youth, laboring keepers, curious tourists, romantic lovers, inquisitive neighbors and thankful sailorsall of whom, through time, sought something from this beckoning light?

This is a light whose outstretched arm reaches across the waterswaters of millennia flowing through all life, through the center of our Earth and through our sky and stars. The same water that now threatens to embrace the light and drag it down into the dark depths of Devils Bridge.

In a poetic fashion, the ocean is now seeking to reclaim the clays born within its depths. Clays fired into bricks by human hands to create a towera tower to hold a light to illuminate the night for sailors sight.

A light now perched atop a crumbling cliff just beyond reach of oceans might.

WILLIAM WATERWAY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS