The Key West Citizen Newspaper, October 8, 1952, Page 7

PANORAMIC VIEW OF “THE OLD ROCK” look from the marrow ba)cony of the Key West Ligi Citizen Staff Photo ing toward the southwest was taken recently ‘ouse which juts 115 feet high above the city, In the background are o cruiser and an aircraft carrier anchored off the huge Naval Station here. Left is Mrs, J days before electr: Boer who remembers helping her father trim the kerosene. wick in used for the beam. Right is Comdr. Henry B. Guard (retired) who spent 43 years in the lighil Haskins, U.S. Coast cuse service of the southeast area and Key West. ‘Wednesday, October 8, 1952 THE KEY WEST CITIZEN atch For Over C HISYORY OF 104 YEAR OLD ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE REVEALS STORY OF DEEP LOYALTY TO A By DOROTHY RAYMER Iron and brick and glass, and | omething far more indestructible, | went into the building and the keep- | ing of the Key West’ Lighthouse which still stands in active use | after 104 years. The other element i is the stuff of human endurance, | loyalty and faithfulness to a ser- | vice. Scores of old timers in the Island City can tell stories about the Key West Light and even newcomers | know the statistics of the structure on Whitehead street nearing the | south end of the island. They can | tell you that the tower first built | in 1846, was only 66 feet high. As | the town grew, and the view was | threatened by surrounding build- ings, the height was raised to 115 | feet from creamtinted base to | green-capped top of the light cage. | The narrow encircling platform girdled with a ribbon of metal on the outside, is 94 feet from the earth. The de stairway of iron | twists its way up in dizzy | spiral With 117 Step’ Visitors given | the privilege of making the climb | have to stop for breath as they as- | cend. I know, I tried it! Facts and figures are interesting, but more fascinating is the history and the drama of the lives of those connected with the lighthouse. The | tory of the Lighthouse Service with | | George Putnam. He carefully mark lighthouse and every zeef and bea-; glass, showering the tender with con light periodically. We wet dy | burning oil,” he said, boat and horse and buggy | The French first used incandes- early days, then by train and bus leas vapor in 1898 and it eaten | and boat. I saw kerosene wicks in | introduced in this country, In the | the lights replaced with gas and /| se of gas, a generator produced | then with electricity by generator | acetylene gas from calcium car- right at the station. When the Coast | bide. Lens were improved and Guard took over in 1939, certain | beautifully cut and polished prism- formalities made me an officer in | ed glass improved the power. The the Coast Guard.” first electricity for the Key West But whether in Coast Guard | Light was not installed until the uniform, or wearing i ’|20th Century, although electricity the job is exacting. He ex-/| of arc light type was installed in plained that strict discipline is | the Statute of Liberty in 1896, of military caliber; Cmdr. Haskins,} Cmdr, Haskins has a vast fund a square-rigged, compact man is | of knowledge about the way in a portrait himself of the trustwor- | which a lighthouse operates. One | thy personnel who maintain the interesting fact brought out was | vital illumination and patrol of our | that the distance at which a light coast line. i may be seen at sea depends not Cmdr. Haskins offered the loan | only on the power, but on the cur- of a volume on lighthouses and | vature of the earth, increasing as light ships written by his friend | the 4quare of the distance. An ob- | server on a ship 15 feet above the si see a light 100 feet, a- | bove the sea at a distance of over | helpful in gathering data on the | 15 . A tower on a low ‘coast | operstion of the service. H@ also | lik that of Key West does not have} said John Fleming, present atten- | to exceed 200 feet: in height, dant of the Key West Light could | wreckING BUSINESS give me more specific and up-to ed on slips of paper the numbers of chapters and pages which would be date data. Yet in one short hour | Cmdr. Haskins, briefed me on the | duties and administration and | The wrecking business in these } waters was a real industry back in j the 1600's” Cmdr. Haskins said. | ‘It amounted to perhaps a million dollars every year for years. The jhave'an emerald glint, and that fits in with his background toc: He was born in Galloway, Ireland, and the brogue of the “Quid Sod” is still. with him though he came to this. country with his parents ‘‘when he was a babe”, he said. “It was Pitts; burgh. where we lived first. Since then I’ve traveled all over the wide world. It’s strange that I’m here, attendant of the light for 27 years, who never cared much for stayin’ in one place,” he chuckled. We stopped at a little white stand with a covered niche. “Fleming ex- plained, jat’s where we kept the registry. Many’s the day when the lighthouse was open to the public and we had as many as 400 people traipsin’ up the stairs, But it got too much for one man to handle and they don’t keep the three of us that were here these days.” He showed me the last guest book and the final entry, January 26, 19- 48. A Key Westes had written the closing signature: Mrs. H. Numa Tedder, TRYST FOR LOVERS Before entering the doo? at the a bench and a loveseat in the tered shade. “This was a vorite place for courtship of the ‘speaking, Fleming explained that the wattage of the comparatively small lampbulb was able to “send leading out onto the Bright sun and a fine sea breeze swept into the rotunda. To the left, another very narrow flight of iron stairs made one abrupt twist and there was the guiding Jight’ itself. I stalled for time and;breath. My knees were trembling and for the moment all I gould of was that one step up is the same as 13 running steps forward. , .which meant that I had just run 1,521 strides. MODERN EQUIPMENT Fleming is a student nature. He gave respite attention to a mysterious black box on the wall. Unlocking it he pointed out the intricate mechanism, deli- cate and unbelieval compact. It controls the; powe: beam by Photo electric cell with 11,000 candle power in white light and 3,300 eandlepower in the red sector light. He displayed the iampbulb, & globe of 250 watts. In his soft Irish lyric way of beam across. the wave,” by # jor | platform. | means of huge magnified prisms of | the light itself which is of French make. The cylinder looks like a low glass drum with accordion Pleats running around in gleaming ribs like a series of rings one on top of the other, “The visibility is 15 miles in ad- verse weather,” Fleming informed, “and has a maximum clear range of 20 miles. On a very clear night, the light can be seen at sea for per- haps 35 miles. It has six seconds of light period and six seconds of the dark. In the days of the old lan- terns, it wasn’t so powerful. They had two shifts of keepers on the night shift,” he continued, “Old timers had to trim the wicks and keep constant watch, especially on stormy nights. On January 1, 1915, acetylene gas replaced the kero- ‘sene and operation was mr au- tomatic. But the electric shts weren't installed until 1927.” THE WIDE BLUE YONDER He paused, déubtless noticing that by that time I had stopped shaking and was composedly tak- | ing notes. I had also stopped wheez- “ing after that climb. “And now for SERVICE @ treat,” he said grinning and ushered fs out on to the circular balcony 94 feet in the air, I eased'out. . . and immediately backed up against the solid wall of the shaft. The view is magnificnt, but for the first breathless moment, unless you are a paratrooper, the tury height gets you. I forced myself to d go toward the iron railing, gripped .it for dear life and looked out over the expanse of the “Old Rock." Half point of due North, (at least | I think that’s what he said), Flem- ing indicated the Monroe County Courthouse. Just below and across Whitehead street was the Heming- way house. “Hemingway used to come over and sit under the bany- an tree to write,” Fleming injected comments on points of interest. OUT OF THIS WORLD Up there, vocies seemed to drift there?”. I in the world, practically,” = (and poet, case), “ i world for.a feature story. We cov compass, subsided, as if I we ing slowly after hand touching the wall i ; r l “Page? © human interest is like the mortar | all the impressive and accurate which binds together the bricks of | thoroughness which was part of and boys in the old days. salvage made people rich in Key a cozy corner for the young the tower; mortar which is vital, of necessary and present even now, but less obvious FOLLOWING THE GLEAM Finding out more about this part of the story was like following a clue mystery. It all began mally when chatting with Lt Cmdr. Earl H. Lindsey, Key Wes er by adoption but Mississippi born He suggested that a feature on the Key West Light would make good reading, He also questioned whether or not Key West could lay claim to having the only light house within a c' think the one at Biloxi. the city, but I don't you check with C Haskins who was in charge of light houses in the entire area," Lindsey urged. Comdr. Haskins, C. G. retired, although he has been ill, courteous- ly consented. His hand shake was firm and friendly at the door of the beautiful old white house where he lives at 614 Fleming street. The home’s green shutters were closed making the traditiona! lace-curtain- ed paror cool though the sun out side was scorching We sat in white wickerwork scrolt chairs, priceless heirlooms now a bygone era, beneath two oil paint ings in regal gold frames. Comdr Haskins’ keen dark eyes caught my look. “The portraits are my great grandparents,” he said, “Now how can I be of help?” SETTLES QUESTION He settled the Biloxi question at once. “I spent 43 years in the light house service, and the inland Key West Light is without dispute, the only one within a the south t area. I w ough thr different regimes of the service starting as a clerk and working @y way up n @ native of Key 1878, and lighthouse m my life's work m they made me T deceased, ws unt a We made inspection tours of every ig and over 40 years ‘s part of his in- + evident in | his trai | experience. | nate character, too. ' ji deliberate stat , and the he keeps his oi. ... The neat \desk has receipts tabs for \books loaned; an extensive music library is meticulously filed in a cabinet with labels “Opera, Operettas, I- strumental,” through all types muscial recordings, all “‘ship- shape.” REVIEWS HISTORY He told how the first ligh at Key West was a wooden ture built in 1825, located on ‘the southwest side of the island in the Ft ylor compound. In 1846 a hurricane roared in and roared out taking the tower with it. The pre- sent structure was built the same year on a higher portion of ground. 12,300 feet easterly. And that’s where it keeps its vigilant watch to this day, over a century later. “One of the first public works projects right after the American Revolution,” Haskins sa’ the act of Congress to mainta Mights, beacons and buoys, Of cou: or, “that was slightly before my time! I wasn't born until November 28, 1878. Right here in Key West. I don't remember whether or not Thanksgiving fell on that day, Any- way, the Lighthouse ones under the U, S. Treasury rt- ment and a federal Lighthouse Board from Oct. 9, 1852 to Jply 1, 1903, when a Bureau of Lightijouses tablished. Supervision trans- ferred to the Department of! Com merce with civilian operatiog that | lasted nntil 1999. That was: when the United States Coast Guard took charge.” OPERATION — LIGHT BEAM Cmdr. Haskins recollected? that the Key West Light had a revolving lens in the old days which * at ed like clockwork and bed to be wound up. In these days the keep- e's work was more difficult. They used whale oil in the very early y thea kerosene. Incandescent por was very much more brilliant, and # lot safer, These have been accidents when the kero. sene exploded and shattered tbe ” he smiled with wry bum- | | West but it was costly to cargo and | crews and reef lights were finally set at the dangerous points.” According to the Putnam. data, a civil engineer named J. W. | Lewis investigated circumstance: | (which had a shady character) in 1837 after ship owners complained | that professional wreckers in the | Keys set out false lights and then | boarded the wrecks for salvage | claim. Lewis recommended five lighthouses for the Florida Coast but the Seminole Indian Wars de- | layed construction until 1848 when the second Key West Light was al- | Teady two years old, | “Nowadays,” Cmdr, Haskins con- | tinued, “ a navigator ci | the lights along the shore and tell | by its characteristics exactly where | he is. Every ship’s captain carries chart and code noting the dif- | ferent characteristics. Some lights | are fixed, some are occulting and | | @thers are flashing. Some are white, others red sectors, like the one at Key West. There ai That was our work when I was ser- fice inspecting with Capt. De- | meritt. I don't go to the lighthouse | anymore. The doctor says no more | ir climbing. But it was my life's interest for 43 years.” spent 27 years at the job. Tt was his 60th birthday { ERE Fat ia ing six feet tall easy stride and keeps shoulders squared. I | soldier, and I was right. in the Boer War with the 17th cers from 1909 to 2902. The 6 8 i ¥ : lf f gE § i é ff vers, until they put a spotlight in the banyan. This tree was planted 29 years ago when Capt. Demerrit He showed us the neat array yard care equipment; the rei | handled rakes, shovels, trowels and clippers used to keep the shrubs and flowers around the grounds, “When we come down from the light, I'll show you a rare shrub. It's called Madagascar Pink Ball.” THE BIG CLIMB He unlocked the narrow door at the base and we stepped up into the entry. Our voices sounded hol- low and reverberating. “It's 94 feet to the platform and there are 117 rr BF | iH | ? hi a ; ies aft ib HI f i | ej i i tf i af s a fi 8 if Fa fi i Hf if Fe bE i E fi t% H t » thew KEEPER OF THE LIGHT. RUGGED JOHN FLEMING. celebrated tis 69th birthday om Sepetmber 2 by clinching wp the 117 steps from the base of the tower to the big white light with its three red sectors He has been the tender of the Key Weed Light toe 27 years, Second picture i a worm’s eye view of the spiral stairway imide ighthowse, takes My Cities photographer Ellis Finch who lay prone on the floor at the entrante and simed the camera for # unique thot, Top, le the besutifd eream-tened brick shaft of the Key West Lighthouse, the only one of its kind in the 5. E within @ city’s Henite BD was Dudt ip 100) ond is 6) ip active we after ever one hundred years. Its jurisdiction is now under the Conn Gaard ‘