July 22, 1872 - A very busy night fighting large blue Miller moths off of the outside of the plate glass with an old feather brush. We almost despaired conquering them, they were actually in myriads although it was drizzling rain. But fortunately a puff of cold air from the Lake about 3 o'clock a.m. caused them to vanish as suddenly as they appeared.
Due to a heavy increase in commerce into Annapolis Harbor and the Severn River, the Maryland House of Delegates passed a resolution to petition the Lighthouse Service to construct a lighthouse on Greenbury Point, on the north side of the entrance into Annapolis Harbor. A year later Congress appropriated $3,500 on March 3, 1847. Fifth Auditor Pleasonton instructed the Collector of Customs in Annapolis to select a site for the new station and purchase the necessary acreage.
It was wonderful growing up at the lighthouse. I was pushing three years old when we moved to Point Loma in 1931. Dad had been assistant keeper at the Farrallon Islands [off San Francisco]. Every child should have the opportunity to live at a lighthouse. It was sometimes lonely. [She had no siblings.] I learned to enjoy my own company. Mom loved living on the Point. Dad liked being a keeper, too. The work wasn't real hard, but it was long hours. A keeper has to be a jack-of-all-trades - carpenter, mechanic, painter, you name it, and be able to polish brass!
It was around the latter part of January 1932, my dad, T. J. Allen, told my mother, Martha, and me that we were going to move to northern California. He had been accepted into the United States Lighthouse Service as a 2nd Assistant Keeper [at the Humboldt Bay Fog Signal Station]. Prior to this, as far back as I can recall, he was chief engineer on the Southern Pacific Ferry boats that ran between Oakland and San Francisco before the Bay Bridge was built.
In 1867, the United States acquired the territory of Alaska for $7,200,000 (about 2 cents an acre) - a huge bargain. Two years after the acquisition, the Senate called for a review of the safety of the Pacific Northwest coasts, requiring the President to, "... detail an office to select from public lands such prominent points on the coasts of Oregon, Washington Territory, and Alaska...in his judgment may be necessary for lighthouse purposes, in view of the future commercial necessity of the Pacific coasts and to reserve the same for the exclusive use of the United States."
In early July 1897, gold was discovered in Rabbit Creek near Dawson City in the Yukon. A few weeks later, several grubstake miners arrived in Seattle and San Francisco, showing off their bags of gold. One nugget was said to be the size of a walnut! The Klondike Gold Rush began, sending a shockwave of excitement around the world. The "Panic of 1893" and the subsequent "Panic of 1896" had sent the United States plummeting into the throes of a recession, with serious bank failures, high unemployment, and businesses out of money.
Gull Rock is a small island roughly the size of a football field consisting of conglomerate bedrock covered with a sprinkling of glacial till [the sediment deposited by a glacier]. The island sits in the open waters of Lake Superior and rises roughly 12 feet above the surface of the lake. As the name implies, Gull Rock is a well-established nesting area for gulls. Other than lichen and a few hardy crevice-borne bushes and plants, the rock is devoid of vegetation or even much topsoil.
Nils Gustaf Daldn was born on November 30, 1869 at Sternstorp in the District of Skaraborg, the third of five brothers and sisters. His parents were the farmer Anders Johansson and his wife Lovisa Dahlen, which latter name all the brothers and sisters adopted. As a child Gustaf Dakn showed a natural gift for mechanics. In view of the natural gifts shown by young Dalen it was decided that he should become a farmer like his father. As a consequence he was sent after his school days to a School of Agriculture, where he studied specially dairy farming.
The light keeper had many tasks to do each morning. One of them was to shield the Fresnel lens in the lantern room from daytime sunshine. This article explores the use of the various shielding devices and attempts to determine if there were specific factors that determined the use of one or another of them or if there was any correlation with lens size or lighthouse era.
The first time I saw Hank Vavrina was in August, 1947, when my husband at the time, John Wood Dinges, and I were on our honeymoon at Floradale Resort on Silver Lake, Michigan. The resort was not far from the Little Point Sable Lighthouse on the shores of Lake Michigan. The resort was built and owned by John's cousin, Malcolm (Mac) Wood. Mac was famous for the Dune Scooters he invented, using a Model T chassis.