Turning off A1A and entering the parking area of the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum, we were greeted by the sprawling tentacles of a thick stand of old oak trees. We entered the welcoming center and purchased our tickets. For the next hour or so, we toured the restored keeper's quarters and climbed the 219 cast iron steps with eight landings to the observation platform of the 165 foot tall lighthouse overlooking the oldest port in America. From there, we soaked in a breathtaking view of old St. Augustine's rich maritime landscape, converging waterways, and the far reaching temperamental Atlantic Ocean.
Discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon and established by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles in the 1500's, St. Augustine's treacherous port had its beginnings under Spanish control, but almost became a French interest in its early years. With an established settlement called Fort Caroline near what is Jacksonville today, Jean Ribault threatened to take the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine with a heavily armed fleet of seven ships carrying one thousand French colonists and troops. In a preemptive strike aimed at thwarting Menéndez' plans to found St. Augustine, Ribault sailed his fleet southwards. Advantage was reversed when the fleet was struck by a hurricane which scattered and wrecked his ships between Matanzas Inlet and Cape Canaveral. Instead, Fort Caroline was taken, Ribault and his men put to the sword, and Spain established a firm grip over the frontier lands of Florida.
The Spanish built the first of a series of watchtowers for the fledgling port in the late 1500's. These early towers likely held a flame, as is indicated on several archival maps and documents. In time, St. Augustine came under British control in 1764, was returned to Spain after the American Revolutionary War in 1784, and then was ceded to the United states in 1819. Outfitted with a fourth-order Fresnal lens, Florida's American territorial government officially lit the first St. Augustine light in an existing coquina structure in May of 1824. Coquina is a tan-colored sedimentary rock formed when seashells and coral are glued together with calcite. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Florida seceded the Union and joined the Confederacy, but St. Augustine was taken back by Northern troops in 1862 and the war finally ended in 1865.
With the coquina structure threatened by shoreline erosion, the US Congress appropriated $100K for a new tower. Construction began in 1871 and was completed in 1874. It was built with over a million Alabama bricks and Philadelphia iron works used to form the 219 stairs, 8 landings, observation decking and lens housing that crowned its top 165 feet above ground. A new hand-blown Fresnel lens, from Paris, France was installed and lit in October of 1874 by head keeper William Russell. The first-order Fresnel lens consists of 370 hand-cut glass prisms arranged in a beehive shape towering twelve feet tall and six feet in diameter. Today, the beacon is powered by a 1000 watt bulb and can be seen 19 to 25 miles out to sea. It remains one of only few such operating lenses in the United States. The old tower succumbed to the sea during a storm in 1880. At this time retired Brev. Major William A. Harn of the United States Army was head keeper. Harn was at Fort Sumter when the first shelling began to open the Civil War and present at Appomattox when the Confederacy surrendered. He fought in most of the major battles of the Civil War including Gettysburg.
In 1876, a Victorian brick light keeper's house was added to the property, a triplex that held two families and a young, single, 2nd assistant keeper, most often of Menorcan descent. Brick summer kitchens were added in 1886. During World War II armed Coast guardsmen stood guard atop the tower, fixed jeeps in the 1836 garage and lived in a small barracks building. Light keepers' and their assistants lived and worked at the Light Station until the tower was automated in 1955.
The original light in 1874 was fueled by lard oil and then changed to kerosene in 1885. The kerosene was stored in four tanks with spigots in the oil room across from the keeper's office. To keep the light lit, the head keeper had to fill a five gallon bucket with the flammable liquid weighing about thirty pounds and carry it the grueling 219 steps to the lens room. A lighthouse operates like a clockworks keeping time as the lens turns around the light source. The keeper performed this strenuous task every 2 hours. Not only did he do this, but also his wife if he for some reason was not able.
As you climb the 219 cast iron stairs, there are 8 landings. Each landing features a wall history, recounting the stories of the Keeper's and their families. One amusing story you will discover on your ascent is about Cracker Daniels, the son of Light Keeper C.D. Daniels. Cracker Daniels "found out cat's can float when he attached a parachute to his sister's cat, Smokey and dropped him from the top the lighthouse. Smokey survived the descent, but the cat was very frightened and went missing for several weeks. Cracker's sister Wilma did not learn of this dastardly deed until 50 years later when he told her during a visit to the lighthouse."The world’s first restoration of a Fresnel lens was accomplished at the St. Augustine lighthouse. After 19 of the first-order Fresnel lens's original prisms including one of three bull’s-eye panels had become damaged by a ricocheting vandal's rifle bullet, the USCG considered replacing the rare artifact with a modern airport beacon, which would be a huge historical loss for the lighthouse. The Junior Service League (JSL) of St. Augustine in cooperation with Chief Boatswains Mate Joe Cocking and Machinist Nick Johnston of the United States Coast Guard successfully pulled off the daunting task of repairing the lens and recorded the remarkable achievement.
St. Augustine and Charleston have shared histories. Toward the end of the Revolutionary War, thousands of loyalists fled from Charleston and Savannah to British held St. Augustine for safe refuge. St. Augustine's treacherous inlet claimed many of these refugee ships, including sixteen from the final fleet to evacuate Charleston in December 1782. Today, the Keeper's House is filled with artifacts salvaged from one of these shipwrecks together with two colonnade cast-iron cannons and two military buttons, including one from the 71st Regiment of the British Army dating 1780. The name of the ship has not yet been verified. Also, on August 31, 1886, the Charleston earthquake caused the tower to "sway violently", according to the keeper's log, but there was no recorded damage.
In 1936, electric light was installed in the lighthouse and the clockwork mechanism was replaced by an electric motor. The light had a candlepower of 20,000. Interestingly, in 1962, the brightest light in the United States belonged to Charleston Lighthouse also known as the Sullivan's Island Lighthouse. The beam was produced by six separate lights mounted on an aluminum base weighing 1800 pounds, The six lights produced an astonishing 28 million candlepower, which could be seen 70 miles out to sea. Since, due to complaints, it was reduced to 1.5 million candlepower and is visible for 26 miles on a clear night.The Museum opened to the public full time in May of 1994. In 1998, it separately incorporated from the JSL as a community based museum with a non-profit, educational mission and a vision to become a distinguished center of maritime discovery. The Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program, Inc. (LAMP) was founded in 1999. LAMP archaeologists manage an active research program, surveying inland and offshore waters to discover new shipwrecks and other archaeological sites, and overseeing diving and excavation operations to investigate and monitor those already known. Many of the artifacts in the Keepers Quarters have been recovered by LAMP from the Storm Wreck project and it is ongoing.
Here are a couple of interesting events pulled from the lighthouse's time line. In 1861, the fourth-order lens in the coquina tower was darkened, removed, and buried in a secret location at the start of the Civil War to keep the Union from using it. The light was re-exhibited on June 1st, 1867. In 1874, flocks of ducks at night hit the new tower breaking window panes and chipping lens prisms. Netting was installed and keeper's feasted on duck.
I am drawn to lighthouses like a wave is to the shore. They are a fascinating part of an era that is long gone and only appreciated through what has been left for us to wonder and amaze. A time when the natural surroundings and civilization were one. Guardians of the coast, the Fresnel light beaming out from the lighthouse was a welcoming and lifesaving beacon to the stalwart mariner who had traveled long ocean distances from far away ports. Often built on some of the most foreboding landscapes and exposed to the harshest of seascape conditions, they were a symbol of solitary endurance as were the men and families who maintained their lights. The St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum is worth a visit.
Ticket prices for St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum Tour--Adults 12.95, Seniors 10.95, Children age 12 and under $10.95--Children MUST be 44 inches tall to climb the tower. Children under 44" tall receive free museum admission.
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