11 Unique Facts About New England Lighthouses

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

11 UNIQUE FACTS ABOUT NEW ENGLAND LIGHTHOUSES

(Also try the questions at 11 Unique Facts About Lighthouses )

 Lighthouses in New England…sounds very romantic, although the life of a keeper can be challenging. Recently, the Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse in New Castle was named the best lighthouse. I learned it does have one special feature: on Sundays from May to October you can climb the 44 steps to the Watch Room, then a ladder to the Lantern Room. This adventure will certainly be on my non-negotiable list of things to do in New England if we ever travel there again. After all, Portsmouth is where I spent my younger years.

But I digress. Below are 11 questions about New England lighthouses. Have fun!

QUESTIONS

1. What was used for the first fog signal, installed at Little Brewsters Island Lighthouse?
2. What horrifying event occurred at Minots Ledge Lighthouse (near Cohasset, Massachusetts) one of the first screw pile lighthouses?
3. From what lighthouse do romantics interpret to signal “I love you?”
4. What was a lighthouse keeper’s annual salary in 1879, which held steady well into the 20^th century?
5. In August 2013 the federal government closed out an auction for Boon Island Light Station, New England’s tallest lighthouse. What was the top bid for this lighthouse built in 1855 on a tiny rocky island six miles off Maine’s coast.
6. Which New England lighthouse has traveled the furthest?
7. Which lighthouse boasts an enormous first-order rotating Fresnel lens fitted with a green light?
8. What happened to the first lighthouse keeper in America, George Worthylake?
9. Name the most haunted New England lighthouse.
10. What special item did Nubble Lighthouse keeper Eugene Coleman inherit from the previous keeper?
11. What four unique facts describe the Boston Harbor Light?

BONUS QUESTION:

What four features describe the Boston Harbor Light?

To learn the answers click on MORE

Beaver Tail Lighthouse taken from the boat

Angel Rescues Traveler in Massachusetts

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

ANGEL RESCUES TRAVELER IN MASSACHUSETTS

A Night Time Ride to Safety

Along a Circuitous Path as

Angel Rescues Traveler in Massachusetts

(A Devotion)

SCRIPTURE: Genesis 40:23, 41:9    23. But (even after all that) the chief butler gave no thought to Joseph, but forgot (all about) him. 9. Then the chief butler said to Pharoah, I remember my faults today. (AMP)

Luke 17:18   Was there no one found to return and to recognize and give thanks and praise to God except this alien? (Amp)

Related Scripture:   Luke 17:12-19

REFLECTION:  Gratitude. For major events. And most commonly rudely forgotten.

For Joseph, who interpreted the dream for the chief butler and whose request to be recognized to the Pharaoh was “forgotten.” For Jesus, nine healed lepers neglected to thank him.

I, too, can be ungrateful. I don’t express gratitude often enough.

Sometimes, though, verbal thanks seems insufficient.

I traveled to New England by myself in the spring of 1996, and left Brocton, Massachusetts after 7 p. m., unconcerned about finding a hotel. I would be on a main road. No problem. I’d drive towards Merrimack, New Hampshire and stop along the way.

Wrong! I was traveling through a “bedroom community.” No motels!

At 8:45 p. m. I stopped at a drugstore in a strange town not too far from Framingham. “Are there any motels around?” I asked the pharmacist. Neither he nor the customers knew of any.

One customer said she felt bad. She had a spare room, but she also had company. She knew a place in Framingham but the dark night, the late hour and the heavy construction would create travel difficulties, particularly to a stranger. But she knew of a Bed & Breakfast out in the country. She’d call from her car phone.

A room was available! She drew me a land-marked map, then said

Quonset Air Museum in Rhode Island

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

VISITING QUONSET AIR MUSEUM

NORTH KINGSTON, RHODE ISLAND

Blue Angel and Tomcat Navy Planes

 

September 7, 2013, was An adventurous day as my husband Monte and I visited the Quonset Air Museum in North Kingston, Rhode Island.

My father, Chief Navy Photographer Robert W. Cornell, was stationed out of Quonset Naval Station in December 1943, when I was born in Providence. In August 1963 I visited up to the gate of the Navy Station while visiting a friend, the late Carol Cargill, who lived nearby in Warwick, Rhode Island.

The museum website states

• The mission of the Rhode Island Quonset Air Museum (QAM) is to preserve, interpret and present Rhode Island’s aviation history through collections, research, education and exhibits…Founded in 1992 with the assistance of then Governor Bruce Sundlun, the air museum educates the public in the state’s rich aviation legacy and displays collections that document the contributions of Rhode Island to the growth and development of aviation and space exploration…QAM is housed on three acres in an original Naval Air Station Quonset Point (NASQP) hangar built in 1945, as the point building for the Overhaul and Repair (O&R) facility.

The museum has a large and valuable collection of aircraft, aircraft parts and other historical artifacts. The 28 aircraft currently on display or under restoration include civilian, military and prototype aircraft dating from 1944 (Hellcat under restoration) to 1983 (F-14 Tomcat), including the last aircraft to fly from Quonset NAS, a C-1A COD BU#136792, a one-of-a-kind TWIN TAIL Navy transport.

I’m sitting in a model demonstrating what it is like to be in an airplane cockpit

I was surprised to see a Navy Blue Angel, an A-4 Skyhawk, a small and simple tailed delta jet…the concept behind the Douglas A-4 was to keep the design simple and the weight as light as possible. It was the first operational A-4 Squadron was VA-72, stationed at the Naval Air Station Quonset Point. This aircraft is a veteran of the Vietnam conflict having served with U. S. Navy Attack Squadron VA-1645 ‘Ghostriders,” while assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Hancock.

In 1974 the A-4 Skyhawk became part of the Navy flight demonstration aircraft. It was a smaller and lighter aircraft with a tighter turning radius allowing for a more dynamic flight demonstration.

Lighthouse Beach in Chatham on Cape Cod, MA

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

 

Hug for cousin Bob on Cape Cod

LIGHTHOUSE BEACH IN CHATHAM

ON CAPE COD, MASSACHUSETTS

“A white shark was seen just out there in the water,” the woman on the beach told me.

My husband and I stopped at Lighthouse Beach to view the Chatham Lighthouse, and, of course, to immerse my feet in the cool beach sand. I didn’t want my feet in the water because it was too early in the day to have sand stuck to these feet.

There were warning signs everywhere about the danger of entering the water here. One sign warned about sharks: 

Standing at the shoreline I’d watched the two women walked towards me with two small children, fortunately a one-on-one situation. I recalled my beach days as I watched the children, one of whom wanted to

The Isles of Shoals: Beauty, Mystery, Intrigue

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

THE ISLES OF SHOALS: BEAUTY, MYSTERY, INTRIGUE

I had just learned of the death of my aunt and uncle, Marion and Gene Stegner. Marion died at March 28, 2007. Gene died June 2, 2007. I’m posting this New England article in their memory.

      Last year my aunt, Marion Stegner of North Tonawanda, N. Y., put me in touch with one of her friends, Roy Webber because we had something in common: an interest in the Isles of Shoals.
     I wanted to take a boat excursion to the islands, something I’d seen only in the distance during childhood and adult visits to Wallis Sands Beach. From the beach they appear to be

THE WRITING LIFE CONTINUES

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

THE WRITING LIFE CONTINUES    

 

     When I wrote THE WRITING LIFE: There’s a World Out There? I had just completed a historical journal article, and found I needed to renumber the footnotes. A simple task. However, I discovered I had numourous errors, including having two items footnoted in my article but not locatable in my list. Thus, I was unable to complete editing the footnotes before Thanksgiving. Sad, since one of my landmarks was to

THE SPECTACULAR PENOBSCOT RIVER A Natural Wonder in Maine: Part 1

Last week, I presented a program to fifth grade students in my granddaughter’s reading class, which had been reading The Sign of the Beaver. I had picked the book up when she was visiting, and discovered its setting was on the west side of the Penobscot River. My research has been mostly on the east side of the river, but I had viewed the river from the Penobscot Narrows Observatory in September, and, using the pictures and the results of much of my research, I believed I had something valuable to share with the class. To read my experience in the observatory, click on: THE PENOBSCOT NARROWS BRIDGE AND OBSERVATORY
     The Penobscot River, in Maine, is as spectacular today as it was when David Ingram, Samuel de Champlain and Alexander Baring first explored it centuries ago.
     David Ingram, the first European to sail up the Penobscot River, did so about 418 years ago, in the late 1500’s. In the early 1600s, either 1604 or 1605, Samuel de Champlain also sailed up the river that the “savages” called Pematig, or Pematiq, which later lead to the waters of the bay and river, westward, being named Pematigoëtt, and, finally, “Pentagoët.” 
     “The Penobscot is one of the finest rivers in America and its banks will become the center of

SNAPSHOT ENCOUNTERS: Brief Meetings with People #4

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

SNAPSHOT ENCOUNTERS: Brief Meetings with People #4

 

As we traveled along the New England coast (a journey that began by way of Philadelphia) I periodically posted Snapshots of meetings with people we meet along the way. I will continue to post these Snapshots as I post additional “journals” of our vacation.

WARNING! CHECK YOUR DRIER LINT TO SAVE YOUR LIFE!
BLUE ROOF MOTEL IS FOR THE DOGS
COFFEE AND BETS AT THE BLUE ROOF MOTEL

WARNING! CHECK YOUR DRIER LINT TO SAVE YOUR LIFE!

     Undated, prior to September 16, 2008: The news media reported that a Lexington, Massachusetts, mother of three died in a fire. She’d gone to bed that night not knowing that a fire was brewing in her drier lint. According to the news, a thousand deaths a year can be blamed on fires caused by drier lint.
     I hope each and every one of you are

LEAF-PEEPING: Autumn Leaves

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITION’S

LEAF-PEEPING: Autumn Leaves

     “Are you going to peek at the fall leaves?”
     This was the first question most persons asked when they learned my husband Monte and I were traveling to New England in September.
     “No,” was my response. “I can see fall leaves just

IT WAS MEANT TO BE: A Meeting with Travelers from the Netherlands

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

IT WAS MEANT TO BE

A Meeting with Travelers from the Netherlands

 

     The weather was perfect for driving over and through the white mountains of New Hampshire, although the downhill drives were intimidating with their S- and hair-pin curves on step grades, and their signs “moose…. 40 miles per hour.” The leaves in many patches were at their peak, and we laughed about being among the early “leaf-peepers” in New England.

     The views were so fantastic that we frequently stopped at scenic overlooks. My husband, Monte, noted that, although most of the mountaintops were in clear view, the top of Mt. Washington, noted for foggy heights, was enshrouded in a cloud. We stopped at a pull-off to admire the view and to add to our photography record.

     I crossed the road, snapped the camera, and returned to the car, watching as a white van pulled up behind our car. Several persons had already exited the van as I reached our car, and I smiled at the one holding a camera, saying, “It’s a great day for photography.”

     He smiled and asked me if I knew the motto for the state of Pennsylvania. I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t pull up this piece of trivia, which I should know (later my daughter told me Pennsylvania’s motto is “The Keystone State.”)

     “It’s written on the license plate of some states,” he noted, pointing to the plate on the van he was driving (I forget the state and the motto).

     Noting his obvious accent and friendly nature, I asked him where he was from.

     “The Netherlands,” was his response, which caught my attention. I had just been reading some of my research materials to Monte before we stopped, and two of the historic persons we were discussing were