October 14, 2024 • 53 mins
It is not often that a lighthouse is built to replace an old tower, only for both to remain in service (and not as range lights)! This is the case for the Cape Romain Lighthouses, very different in color, stature, and light characteristic, but only a few yards apart! Listen in to this episode to hear about their exciting history and how you can visit them today.
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(00:00):
We're on.
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We're on.
Hi everyone.
I'm Emily.
And I'm Vince.
And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown.
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Turn it up slightly.
I've noticed our cat lays on it.
Our cat lays on it?
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Mm-hmm.
Oh, on the soundboard?
Yes.
That makes sense.
Which is why sometimes the little things are off.
Yeah, I've wondered, like in theory,
why would I ever need to change?
There's all a bunch of knobs and sliders and stuff.
Yeah.
Well, because of Bo.
Well, now we know.
Now we know.
Only you could lock him down.
If only.
(00:41):
And we can move on to our episode.
Now that we've discussed that.
So I do have a history buoy today.
All right, let's go.
Very exciting.
There will be nothing on the screen.
Okay.
It looked expectantly.
I always like the screen.
Yes.
What's the buoy of the day?
I'm gonna talk about the main lights program,
which is something we mentioned in our last episode.
(01:03):
And a lot of lighthouses we talk about in Maine.
Oh, nice.
Are given over to different owners by this program.
Okay.
So I'm gonna talk about what it is, where it came from.
And so now our listeners will know in the future.
Main lights program, M-A-I-N-E.
Yes, the state.
Gotcha.
So the program was passed in 1996
(01:24):
as a way to get lighthouses off the Coast Guard's hand
without having to destroy them.
And that's what they were having to do in Maine
because lighthouses get old, they replace them
with different little skeleton lights or buoys or something.
And then what do you do with them?
They're under the Coast Guard jurisdiction
and there's no way for them to get rid of them
unless they destroy them.
(01:45):
Yeah.
So it all started in 1982 when a group of military frogmen,
which for people that don't know is basically soldiers.
AV SEALs.
The gear.
What?
Yeah, they're like.
They're not Navy SEALs?
I don't know.
I thought that was a nickname for Navy SEALs was frogmen.
(02:07):
I saw, frog, here, let me look at it.
Man, if there's the own,
military has its own branch called the frogmen.
Frogmen is someone who is trained in scuba diving
or swimming underwater in a tactical capacity
that includes military
and in some European countries, police work.
So, okay, so Navy SEALs are frogmen,
(02:27):
but frogmen are not all Navy SEALs.
Are all Navy SEALs trained in scuba diving
or swimming underwater in tactical capacity?
Very much so, yes.
Okay, well then we're both right.
Cool.
They exploded a lighthouse, like a keeper's house.
They had gotten permission to.
On purpose.
Yeah, well they had gotten permission to blow it up
(02:49):
as part of a training exercise.
And so the keeper's house they blew up
was built in 1903, it's the one on Mistake Island, which.
The house was meant to implode,
that was part of the training exercise.
It was meant to implode, but instead it exploded
and damaged the helipad that was out there
(03:12):
and some of the panes in the tower.
So obviously nobody knows that they're doing this.
Also left a crater in the ground,
which that island is all rock.
So it's like still there.
So they used a little too much C4.
Sure.
A lot too much.
So the townspeople were obviously unaware
that this was going to be happening
(03:34):
and were very angry and heartbroken
because they just used something historical
and meaningful to the townspeople as a training exercise
and it didn't even go well.
Like it doesn't even, it wasn't even a good experience
for anybody involved.
So this spurred the formation of the Island Institute,
(03:56):
which now basically works with coastal communities
in environmental sustainability and restoration efforts.
So they're still around.
When the Heron Neck Light Keepers House
was damaged by a fire, the Institute worked
with the Coast Guard and Congress to pass legislation
that allowed the Heron Neck Light to be transferred
to private owners for free in exchange for restoring it.
(04:18):
So it was just.
It was mutually satisfactory.
What is the word I'm trying to think of?
Symbiotic.
No, it was focused just on this one lighthouse
in transferring it.
So they wrote legislation in order to pass this on
and it got them thinking, why don't we do this
with all of the lighthouses that you guys
(04:39):
want to be rid of?
So the Coast Guard identified 36 lighthouses in Maine
that could be transferred under the Maine Lights Program
passed in 96 after all the legal material was funded
by the donation of 300 limited edition prints
of a painting of Southern Island light painted
by artist Jamie Wyeth.
That's nice.
(05:00):
Ultimately 27 lighthouses were transferred
into private ownership.
The American Lighthouse Foundation scooped up several
of the leftover lighthouses.
So they weren't like all, they didn't get rid of them
or anything.
Two years after the transfers were completed,
Congress passed the National Historic Lighthouse
Preservation Act, which we talk about a lot too,
(05:21):
which was based on the Maine Lights Program
and established the process for transferring
any federal property across the country
to government agencies and nonprofits.
So that was 1980s, 1990s, all this happened?
1996.
Wow.
Maine Lights Program.
I had thought the, what's the?
(05:45):
What?
The Act.
Oh, the other one?
The Maine Act.
National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
Yes, National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act
had happened earlier.
I would have guessed like 60s or 70s
because the Coast Guard got into lighthouses in the 30s.
39.
Right?
(06:06):
Yeah.
And then I'm thinking of Absicum Lighthouse
where we talked about this kind of been booms and busts
in lighthouse tourism and funding
to go along with a lot of other financial trends
but in the United States.
But okay, so let's say circa 2000
was when a lot of them were transferred to individuals
(06:27):
and then our individuals representative
of lighthouse friends groups, like friends of.
Yeah, and it would be transferred
to that whole organization, not just like people.
Okay, nice.
It had to be.
It wasn't just someone bottom.
Yeah, it had to be a government agency
or like a nonprofit.
That's smart.
(06:47):
Agreed, but that's the main lights program.
So anytime we're talking about a main lighthouse
and they say it got transferred over,
it's from this specifically.
Cool.
So there was a lot of cool history about it
but I had to keep it history buoy length.
Well, it's huge.
I mean, that alone has been responsible
for so many lighthouses still around today in 2024.
(07:07):
And I wanted to go through and say which lighthouses
and like what happened after that.
Some of them had like, you know,
changes of ownership and everything.
But there was a good article about it.
It will be in our show notes.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I can move on to our lighthouse of the day.
Good buoy.
Or should I say lighthouses?
Woo hoo.
(07:29):
Every time you press a button, I'm like, animal noises.
Ah, ah, ah.
Woo woo.
It's natural.
I can't help it.
We rarely press the button.
So anytime one goes off, I'm like, hey, the button.
It's lights on.
Wow.
So ironically, I'm not covering a main lighthouse today.
Oh, what a spin move.
(07:51):
I know.
I didn't even think about it.
I had it picked out and then I was like,
oh, we talked about main lights program.
And we were like, what even is that?
And like, I don't know.
I should probably cover it.
So we're actually going to South Carolina,
Cape Romaine, South Carolina.
Nice.
Romaine like the lettuce?
Like the lettuce.
Nice.
I think it had different names leading up to this,
(08:13):
this final name, like Cape Roma.
And then it was like Cape started with a C,
some kind of French.
Cabbage, iceberg.
Sure.
Actually, we might as well.
But so normally when a new tower is built,
you know, in the past, our past episodes,
when a new tower is built,
they tend to destroy the original tower,
(08:36):
especially if it's like beat down or
Goes to sea.
Not serving the purpose correctly
or whatever else.
And yeah, like in the case of the three sisters,
they just let them fall into the ocean.
Sometimes they leave both lighthouses,
even if one of them is not being used.
And some cases like today and rarely are both still used
(08:58):
even after they build a lighthouse
to replace a different one.
So this is the case for the Cape Romaine lighthouses.
Okay, nice.
In 1823, Congress appropriated $10,000
to build a lighthouse on Cape Romaine,
planning to use an old stone windmill
that mariners had been mistaking for a lighthouse
(09:19):
near Charleston.
So they kept seeing this windmill
thinking it was a lighthouse
and mistaking it for like a lighthouse
on their charts and stuff.
It's a shame they didn't see the big windmill part.
Just the tower.
Yeah, I wonder how tall this thing was.
It must have been a light up high.
And they're like, oh yeah.
I mean, a light though,
why would they put a light on a windmill?
I mean, they wouldn't put a light,
(09:40):
but you could see a crack. Yeah, like a day mark
sort of thing.
I don't know.
It had to have happened several times
for this to be applicable, but anyway.
The area of this windmill was prone to flooding.
And so they decided to build it
a slightly higher elevation.
And that land was owned already by somebody else.
So they had to go through, of course,
the lengthy negotiation phase.
(10:02):
And by then the funds that were appropriated
for this lighthouse were sent to surplus funds,
which means you can't access them
for what their original purpose was.
It's like a shame.
So they had to wait until 1826
when Congress appropriated $17,000 for the lighthouse,
which was finished a year later.
Nice, good timeline.
Here's a picture of the area we're talking about.
(10:24):
New Charleston.
Yes, it's like 30 miles from Charleston.
I'll talk about McClellanville
is how I'm deciding to pronounce it, with no background.
Yeah, I was just up in Goose Creek.
What's Goose Creek?
That's where I was at.
Oh, for work?
Yeah.
Interesting.
Well, cool.
Not far.
(10:44):
You know exactly what I'm talking about today then.
I do.
So I just pulled up a picture of the original lighthouse.
It wasn't white at the beginning.
This picture is a little bit later.
65 foot brick conical tower with lamp and reflectors.
So we're not to the era of,
well, we are to the era of Fresnel lenses almost,
but this one is still a lamp and reflectors.
(11:07):
It looks like it's not an enclosed cupola.
Like the lantern room is more like skeletal.
Is it white or?
I think it's white.
Okay.
And this is a really old photo, like 1800s still.
Very cool.
Exposure probably wasn't 100%.
Maybe it's just metal.
Yeah, true.
I'm pretty sure it was white.
(11:27):
I remember reading that it was white.
It was built on Raccoon Key,
which is now known as Lighthouse Island
because there are lighthouses on it.
Is it haunted by chance?
Cause look at that kid in front of the house.
Oh God.
Anyone who wants to go see it.
It's a very spooky photo.
Very creepy.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was haunted
(11:49):
and I'll tell you more about it later.
So it's Lighthouse Island now, used to be Raccoon Key.
There was a few other names for it too,
but I'm sticking with those,
which is six miles offshore from the mainland.
And as there were no ports in the vicinity,
the main purpose was to warn away from a shoal
that was nine miles southeast of this little island.
(12:09):
Charleston then.
Yeah.
But the beacon they built was too weak,
which seems, if my memory is correct,
the one who designed and built this was Winslow Lewis,
who had a hand in, well,
who I think invented the lamp and reflectors combination.
(12:31):
Okay, I don't know that.
Okay, and he built a couple of lighthouses,
like designed and built,
but I don't think that's what he was trained in.
So.
You don't think he was trained in?
Yeah, I have a vague memory that Winslow Lewis
built some lighthouses that failed like within a decade,
like very quickly.
Oof.
But I don't know him.
(12:52):
Yeah.
So you never really know.
Maybe, that's true.
Could be wrong, just a little precursor there, everybody.
How many islands are called Lighthouse Island, do you think?
I was thinking about that because of how every time
we drive down a road to a lighthouse,
it's called Lighthouse Road.
It's like surrounded by a water island.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Beaches Island.
(13:12):
Oh wow.
The name was changed at some point,
and I don't have in my notes of when that was,
but it obviously has had different names.
Well, I'm getting carried away, but Hog Island?
Uh-huh.
Hog Island, we talked about first being in the Bahamas,
is a common, that's Paradise Island, that one.
Yeah, yeah.
Look it up, cruise store, cruise, cruise stores.
(13:34):
Oh my gosh.
Cruise ships stop there.
You buy your cruise.
You buy a cruise there, no.
But anyways, that's worth a look up as well.
But there's several other hog islands I've stumbled upon
since then. No way.
I think that was something people did is they put hogs,
they put pigs on an island.
Oh yeah.
To keep them there.
That makes sense.
They would reproduce and grow,
and you'd go take some and anyways.
(13:57):
They talk about this island once it's abandoned.
Oh really?
It's covered in goats,
and they had to actually remove the goats
because they were messing everything up.
Nice.
So maybe that's, it could be Goat Island.
Goat Island.
Yeah, the Lighthouse.
Greatest of all time.
So 1847, they redid the beacon,
but it still wasn't good enough,
and described as quote, small and useless
(14:20):
by the Lighthouse Board.
Oh my gosh.
Oh very sad.
It failed twice.
I know, it's just a little guy.
He was doing his best.
So 1852, Congress appropriated $20,000,
and then another $30,000 to build a quote,
first class sea coast light.
And we love it when they say that
(14:41):
because they're always tall,
they're always first order and sexy.
Nice.
I got a photo.
Did I tell you I got made fun of at work
for describing an architecture thing as sexy?
No, I wasn't being serious.
I was trying to say that there's a plain Jane,
or whatever, a plain normal,
(15:01):
and then there's this one,
and I was just having fun with the conversation.
I was like, this one's sexy.
This one's curved, and it's got the louvers,
and it's got the paint match.
And the architect I was talking to,
project manager, she was like,
I have never heard anyone describe anything like that as sexy.
Inanimate and HVAC is sexy.
Louvers, it was a rain hood or something.
(15:24):
Okay.
Not a sexy thing.
Well, you and I are on the same wavelength.
Sexy lighthouses, look at it.
We pull up a photo of the two lighthouses next to each other,
and this is how they stayed.
So they're best friends.
One is labeled Old Town, and the other is New,
Oh, Tower.
Old Tower.
(15:45):
It's the cursive E-R that's getting me.
But I was gonna say,
I have never heard them described as Old Town and New Town.
That's because they're not.
Because we needed a 65 inch screen
to see Old Tower and New Tower.
That's what it is.
It's that now we're on a big screen, and I can see.
(16:05):
What is that though?
Lighted Janie, 1858.
One.
J-A-N-Y.
Janie.
January.
I don't, yes.
So.
So, they are weird.
Yeah, they're handwriting.
Whoever wrote this in 1858.
Whoever wrote this is weird.
We've established it moving on.
So anyway, the New Tower is 150 foot natural brick
(16:27):
octagonal tower.
Oh, sorry.
Octagonal tower.
Octagonal.
And was built with a white flashing first order
for Nelons.
Very hot.
Smoking hot tower.
Nice.
What's that range?
34 miles?
No.
Probably at most like 20 some.
23. I'm gonna say 30 plus.
(16:47):
25, okay.
Hot.
The two towers were easy to spot during the day
as the original tower was painted with red and white bands,
which you can see in this picture,
there's some remnants of, but sorry.
The brick is starting to show through the white paint.
So, this old tower, while it remained and was lit,
was kind of neglected.
(17:09):
And this is the one they ended up blowing up?
No, that's separate.
Okay, I was gonna say that I'm gonna be surprised
it damaged the new tower.
This is what I was talking about,
how ironic it was that I wasn't even gonna cover it.
Oh my gosh, we're not even talking about Maine.
Yeah, I know, we're talking South Carolina, baby.
You even told, okay.
But I was like, maybe I should cover that lighthouse
if I'm gonna talk about the Maine Lights program.
(17:29):
Got the ball rolling and everything?
No, that's something else.
Imagine if someone just skipped the lighthouse buoy
and they're listening to this.
Yeah, they're like, what are you talking about?
What?
Do you think people, do you think we can skip
our history buoys?
No.
All right, listeners, if our history buoys
are really boring, let us know.
We can stop.
Actually, it would be a large weight off my shoulders.
(17:50):
I actually enjoyed doing this one though.
I think things like legislation is more exciting
because it's important and permanent.
And very fun.
For sure.
Widespread.
Okay, sorry.
Red and white bands on the old tower.
New tower was a reddish gray from the brick.
So it wasn't even painted.
(18:11):
It was just.
Natural.
It's dark, moody.
Kind of sexy.
I was like, I cannot say it again.
That's too much.
I'm just joking around,
but it is a really nice looking tower.
And octagonal's fun.
We don't have a lot of octagonal lighthouses.
(18:32):
Nope, not a lot.
At night, the original light was fixed red.
Love that.
With the new flashing once every minute.
So very slow revolution going on.
Had clockwork mechanism and everything.
Nice.
This is the first lighthouse also that I saw
that mentioned it was built by slave labor.
Oh.
(18:52):
Which is fitting as just a few miles south.
The first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter.
So I wasn't gonna dive too deep into that.
I could, but it was the first lighthouse I've seen
that specified how it was built.
1800s.
I never considered that, that that would be a thing.
When was the decoration?
Independence?
(19:13):
No, no, no, no.
Oh, I'm like, this is drilled into us.
Oh, come on, I'm failing.
The proclamation emancipation.
Oh.
That's what I was trying to say.
Let's look it up.
Just for curiosity.
Cause I know when I visited Charleston years ago,
we talked the historical tour focused on slave markets.
1863.
Significant.
Oh man.
(19:35):
Some of the last legal slaves had to build a lighthouse.
So the lighthouse lantern room was destroyed
to avoid being used by either side in the war,
which I think is interesting.
Is that we've heard in the past when it's destroyed
by like artillery or it's destroyed
because they dismantled it and lost it or something.
But this is like, they beat the crap out of it
(19:56):
so that neither side could use it.
That happened to a lot of lighthouses.
Yeah, but like I haven't heard about any that are like,
instead of preserving the lens for use later,
they just in the moment just destroyed it.
I think it was, yeah, I don't know.
Like I said, I don't know the history of the civil war.
I was gonna say it's probably too close to the borderline
(20:17):
to really can't afford to lose it, but don't know.
True.
But it was fixed and relit in 1866.
So three years after the end.
Wow, nice.
Over this time, the tower had developed
a very noticeable lean, which you may see in later photos.
It looks very nice and upright in this picture
that I have up, but it started leaning almost two feet
(20:41):
and the lean increased by three inches within the next year,
but then apparently stabilized
so they didn't do anything about it.
But it's gotten worse as time has gone on.
Oh no.
The station also had three keepers dwellings
and a boathouse.
Two keepers dwellings were added at the same time
this tower was added because they added
(21:02):
More staff.
Two assistant keepers to the existing headkeeper
because now we have a clockwork lens.
We have a Fresnel lens and a very tall tower.
So all of it's just like a ton of added work.
So they added two assistants and two assistant dwellings.
And in 1886, the old tower got a concrete floor
(21:23):
and a fireproof door so that it could serve as an oil house.
So that's pretty neat.
Fancy oil house.
Yeah, you know, usually we have oil houses that are cute,
small, red, like in our last episode,
but this time they just converted the old one
into an oil house.
It's freaking cool.
I'm kidding.
It's funny to me, it didn't have a concrete floor
before then.
(21:44):
You think it's stone probably.
Dirt?
Whatever.
Yeah, I know.
Whatever's inside the structure.
I didn't think about it.
I think I've only seen concrete floors
or maybe I haven't paid attention.
I guess I haven't either.
I haven't looked too closely at the floor.
Too busy looking up.
I have some photos of Long Point floor.
(22:05):
Or is it with the other one?
It was near Long Point.
Oh, that's right, Wood End.
Yeah, it was Wood End, pretty sure.
We'll have to take a look.
I bet it's concrete.
I think it is.
Because Long Point and Wood End,
they didn't look like, those are added later.
They used to be keepers' houses with lens on them.
(22:27):
Oh really, integral, I forgot about that.
From what I remember.
We'll have to actually do episodes on them.
Anyway, eventually the old tower was painted white,
which is what we saw in the first picture that I pulled up,
with the new tower being red.
And then the new tower was painted white on the bottom half
with the top half painted alternating white and black.
Cool.
(22:48):
And then they painted the old tower red.
So that's what we have today.
Is it really showing off?
Yeah, very unique.
It's because it's octagonal again
that we get these cool art alternating colors on the sides.
Why are you smiling at me?
You think I'm goofy?
Yep.
(23:08):
1931, the new tower was modernized.
So they added electric generators,
replaced the incandescent oil vapor lamp
with a 500 watt electric bulb,
which increased the lights candle power
from 280,000 to 430,000.
So we got a good double in, less than double of our power
(23:34):
inside the Phenellis.
It's candle power.
McClellanville's villagers began holding cape parties,
is what they called it,
because it's really lonely out there at Lighthouse Island.
And there were three families living on this island
by themselves and it's six miles offshore.
So it's not like our, I keep saying our last episode,
but our last episode, they were a hundred yards away.
(23:55):
They just come over whenever.
This was like pretty secluded and lonely.
So they'd have cape parties and they would play games,
swim, catch fish and collect crabs and oysters.
And then they would roast all of the food
that they find at the end and eat together.
It sounds awesome.
Pretty cute.
The lighthouse was automated after the last headkeeper
(24:16):
had an accident with acid,
which I didn't get to see too much into it.
Someone mentioned an explosion and there was acid
and he got burns on his face and his eyeballs in 1937.
And that was the end of, they just automated it
instead of bringing new people on.
It's hard to replace that guy.
Yeah, whoever he was.
(24:37):
What happened to the last guy?
Explosion of acid?
I was like, oh, maybe we shouldn't.
It was like, the source that I read said,
pouring acid into a container or something.
I'm like, why do we have acid?
And what about pouring acid makes an explosion?
You tell me, chemical engineer.
It's some weird stuff.
No, thank you.
(24:58):
The lighthouse was actually abandoned in 1947
and has been sitting since then.
No big renovations.
Really?
No visitors.
I mean, there's some visitors and I'll talk about it too,
but it's, yeah, it's just full on abandoned.
I know.
It was added to the national,
oh, another thing is that the shoal that it was marking
(25:20):
was they marked it with lit buoys, so.
To replace the need for the lighthouse, light tower.
Exactly.
They added these to the National Register
of Historic Places in 1981,
so they're protected at least.
And right now, the island is a refuge,
(25:40):
like a wildlife refuge.
For birds?
Yeah, birds and some other stuff.
Some of those creatures.
Wildlife.
That stuff.
So they had a couple,
I'm gonna go through a couple of stories,
a couple of noteworthy keepers during this time,
so it kind of revolves around them.
First one I'm gonna talk about is why this lighthouse
(26:01):
may be haunted.
Andrew Johnson, head keeper from 1867 to 1875.
So about eight years, head keeper, really early on.
In 1873, keeper Johnson returned from duty around 9 p.m.
to find his wife on the bed, her throat slit.
(26:23):
Oh my God.
From ear to ear.
And he ran from the house,
yelling that she had commit suicide.
I'm like, who would commit suicide in such a fashion?
That'd be hard.
And why would you automatically assume,
I'm immediately suspicious.
When I heard that, I was like,
you don't come out and just.
(26:44):
I can't believe she did that to herself.
Did you see?
Look what she did to herself.
It's like, you're telling me,
oh, she must have been a strong woman
to be able to commit that much.
So they ruled it a suicide.
But there was a gun nearby, a loaded gun,
so if she was going to commit suicide,
maybe that would have been an easier way to go.
Eh.
(27:05):
What do you mean, eh?
There was a razor nearby, and I just think
that that, I just think maybe she was trying
to defend herself, and that's why there was a gun.
Was a gun?
I mean, I don't know.
I don't know how you would, yeah, anyways.
Yeah, anyway, her jewelry was missing,
along with $1400 that she had taken out
(27:25):
of the bank 10 days earlier.
And at that time, $1400 was $25,000.
That is suspicious.
Very suspicious.
If she commits suicide, where is her stuff?
So what's the, supposedly, she was gonna leave him
and took out all the money, and he found out and killed her?
Yeah, so a couple of interesting facts here.
Mrs. Johnson had withdrawn all of her money.
(27:48):
This wasn't just like she had withdrawn money for something.
She had cleared out her bank account,
and she had lots of gold and diamond jewelry
that she immigrated from Sweden with.
So it's like family stuff.
All of it was missing from the crime scene,
and Keeper Johnson's jewelry and belongings were untouched.
(28:09):
So he just, okay.
So there's speculation that she planned to leave him,
and he murdered her in a rage.
Assistant Keeper Lee and his wife
were the last ones to see her alive,
because supposedly at 6 p.m., she went over to their place,
and that was the last time anybody
had seen anything from her.
They both left the lighthouse board,
(28:31):
left the island very shortly after this happened,
and just disappeared.
So they're also missing.
They're also under suspicion.
Keeper Johnson continued for two more years
until he was put onto a new lighthouse.
I'm like.
Oh yeah, that shit was crazy.
I guess back to work.
I better crawl into bed.
We better change these sheets.
(28:52):
Take the oil up.
Like what?
I don't know.
It's all suspicious, but there's also like,
oh, so this is, okay, this is what I forgot about the gun.
It had, someone had attempted to fire it,
and it misfired.
There's all kinds of different storylines.
If it was suicide, she may have tried to use the gun first.
(29:15):
So I saw online one of the, it was on Lighthouse Digest.
They did an article on it, and they speculated
that if it was suicide, he could have known
that she was trying to leave and hid her belongings,
her money and her jewelry and everything,
(29:36):
so she couldn't leave, because where would she go?
Escape, yeah.
And so she tore apart the house,
because the house was ransacked, by the way.
She probably tore through the house looking for it,
couldn't find it, and felt that she had no other options.
And so then the gun misfired.
She couldn't use that, so then she used a razor, I suppose.
(29:56):
But I'm like, I guess, I guess that's plausible.
So in the 1800s, semi-automatic firearms were not popular,
if there was any at all.
Revolvers were still most common for handguns.
This could have not been a revolver as well.
It could have been a shotgun or a rifle.
Oh.
I just don't know.
(30:16):
But if it was a revolver, and so what I'm guessing
is it misfired, so the primer on the back of the cartridge,
typically when a gun shoots a bullet,
there's a little thing called a hammer.
It's a little piece of metal, and it strikes the primer
with quite a bit of speed when you pull the trigger.
The primer starts a little fire inside of the cartridge,
(30:39):
which lights the gunpowder, then the bullet goes pew
down the gun barrel.
So maybe the cartridge, or the primer had a strike on it.
It was dented, which still happens today.
It's very rare, but some bullets are just duds.
Or they're squib rounds.
A squib round is where not enough of the gunpowder ignites,
(31:01):
so the bullet actually gets lodged in the barrel,
and the gun's unusable.
If you fire it again, it explodes.
Oh.
Because there's compression happening inside the barrel.
So I don't know.
If that happened, it would have made a lot of noise,
and she would have severely injured herself.
If it was a squib round, and she caught it,
(31:22):
and was like, oh, well, this isn't gonna work.
That's pretty wild.
Most people don't.
Maybe in that scenario you would.
Yeah.
Or maybe if it didn't work once, she's just not familiar,
and she's like, oh.
Imagine building up to shoot yourself.
Yeah.
You can't do that again.
(31:43):
Right.
I don't know.
But apparently can.
I'm speaking pretty cavalierly.
About this, but.
Carve your neck with a razor.
From ear to ear?
I feel like you'd get about, like maybe.
I don't know.
You know what, guys, I feel like you would quit,
and not really see it all the way through.
It's a very strange.
(32:03):
What I think happened, knowing nothing else,
is that he murdered her.
She tried to use the gun, and it didn't work.
Yeah.
By chance.
And he probably knows enough about it to be like.
And it just made him so mad,
and he was physically stronger,
that he couldn't do that.
Disgusting.
Terrible.
And he got a bunch of money out of it, too.
Diamonds.
Yeah, so what happened with him?
Did he like, how you can't spend that money?
(32:26):
I know.
Right?
I just feel like at this time.
You can't go selling diamonds,
and be like, yeah, well, she left these to me.
Yeah, or probably took them to a pawn shop.
They don't track that kind of stuff.
But that's what I'm saying.
If he's a lighthouse keeper for another,
he kept being a lighthouse keeper?
Yeah, for two years here,
and then got moved to another lighthouse.
So it's not even like he disappeared.
He didn't disappear,
(32:47):
and then all of a sudden he's living on a yacht in Bahamas.
Yeah.
Although $25,000 today is not that crazy.
I guess it's not that crazy.
And it wouldn't be motive to kill somebody, either.
If they're your loved one.
Emotional.
Yeah, I don't know.
So there's my short episode of Vince speculating.
Thank you for the knowledge.
(33:07):
What, what did you call it?
Vince speculating.
This is all speculation.
What I wanna know is like more details about,
they obviously do an autopsy.
Is she, to say there's defensive wounds?
Like did it look like she was fighting somebody?
They obviously ruled it a suicide.
Was that because her husband said it was,
(33:28):
or like at this time, it really,
it was easy to skew investigations.
Very easy.
It looks like someone held her down
while she killed herself.
Like that can't be right.
Crazy how that happens.
She was alone, so it's like, oh, okay.
So anyway.
Awful.
I feel bad, because all, I mean.
Well, these are people, you know.
Yeah, and there's a possibility
(33:49):
that Andrew Johnson did nothing wrong,
walked in, and his wife has just commit suicide.
But he talked some crap about her afterwards, so.
Maybe she did it on purpose.
Maybe she tried to make it look like a murder.
Yeah.
All right, moving on.
We're going to our next notable keeper.
John Robertson was head keeper from 1880 to 1906.
26 years at this lighthouse.
(34:11):
Really long time.
He contracted malaria, and which by the way,
this sent me on a huge, what's it called?
Rabbit hole.
Yeah.
A rabbit hole.
A tangent.
That's what I was thinking of.
Thank you for all.
Synonym.
I know words I was thinking of, but couldn't figure out.
This sent me on a huge tangent into looking at malaria.
(34:33):
And because it sounded like, you know,
the other assistant keepers and their families
were hesitant to be near him.
So I was like, do they think that malaria
was contagious at that time?
But I couldn't find out the details.
It was.
And it's not, right?
No.
Unless you share blood somehow.
Yeah, which is why.
It's like mosquitoes.
What did they know in the 1800s?
Weren't people like bleeding themselves
(34:55):
to get out of having a cold?
They started, look, they had microscopes and stuff.
Well, I mean, someone did, but what did the public know?
Oh, probably nothing.
What do scientists know now versus the average general?
They thought that you got malaria from swamp air
when we're in a swampy area.
So.
Mosquitoes, right?
Yeah.
So yeah, they thought it was like,
(35:16):
smelling the stagnant air could make you sick.
I mean, that's a fair line to draw in their world.
Malaria actually means bad air or something
in, I don't know.
I didn't take any notes.
I was just reading on my own time.
Anyway, he was in bed with fever
when the strongest earthquake
to ever hit South Carolina happened.
(35:37):
And it was a 7.3 in 1886.
It's never been an earthquake like it after that.
And I think the epicenter was on Charleston.
And this is like 30 miles from Charleston or something.
So, but the lighthouse and houses did not sustain
any damage besides like cracked plaster.
But anything that was on shelves was absolutely destroyed.
(36:00):
The assistant keepers and their families
came to the keeper's house as his house
was the least likely to get hit if the towers fell down.
Which is like a crazy thing that you have to think about
as a lighthouse keeper.
That'd be nuts.
It wouldn't make any sound.
Yeah.
You'd just be sitting at your kitchen table,
eating mac and cheese,
get crushed by a 12 foot tall lantern.
(36:24):
Crushed by a tower.
I wonder if that's ever happened.
Oh my gosh.
Cause all these keepers houses are close to the towers.
So they rushed to his house.
That's least likely to be crushed.
They hid into his house, which is when they were like,
it was obvious they didn't want to
because he was sick with the fever.
I was like, oh, sad.
Lighthouse board posted their account of the noise
(36:44):
as quote sounding something like a battery of artillery
or a troop of cavalry crossing a long bridge.
I'm like very specific.
I don't know what an earthquake would sound like.
It's just, apparently it made a lot of sound
like long before the shock waves hit them.
So it's like, you could hear the earth moving.
And that's scary.
(37:04):
I know.
Can you imagine hearing that and not feeling anything?
It's like, what the heck is that?
Who's Bluetooth speakers on?
Oh my gosh.
Where are they watching?
Bluetooth speakers.
1886.
The tremors spooked the estimated 1000 cranes
that were nesting on Raccoon Key
who all took flight at the same time
and made a quote fearful noise.
(37:27):
I bet.
Can you imagine a thousand pairs of wings
flapping at the same time?
And these are cranes.
They're not small.
They're big animals.
Do they squawk as well?
I bet they were squawking.
Squawking.
They do make sounds.
I don't know what they are though.
I would assume it's kind of like that.
Wah.
(37:49):
God, I wish we had video for this podcast.
I made a bird motion.
So while the clockwork stopped
during both main shock waves that hit,
there was two main ones and the rest were like
a little less powerful, but not, yeah, but not,
not by any means comfortable.
(38:10):
Sure.
The clockwork stopped during both of them.
So it must be something about like the pendulum swinging
or something, but it just stopped the rotating
of the lens, which is very interesting.
The keepers kept the lights on during the entire disaster.
So we can commend them for that.
It's pretty cool.
Powering through.
Next we have, it just spelled August,
(38:34):
but I know that a lot of people used to be called like
Augusta and, but it just looks like August.
August is a name as well.
August F. Wickman known for being commended
five times over his service publicly
for helping mariners at Cape Romaine.
So he's a real lighthouse keeper, life saving man.
(38:55):
Wickman, was his title or was this last name?
Last name.
Meant to be.
If that's how it's pronounced, I'm doing my best,
but it's W-I-C-H-M-A-N-N.
Sounds right.
1916, the Schooner barge Northwest wrecked near the Cape.
Five men washed ashore on wreckage.
(39:17):
The keeper spent 14 hours in a rowboat
because his motorboat was broken
and swam through the night to save them.
14 hours of like serious manual labor saving these men
just because they were there.
That's sad.
I mean, that's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah, sad too.
And one of the guys was the captain of this barge
(39:38):
and he exchanged Christmas cards with the keeper
for many years after that.
Cool.
Can you imagine somebody saving your life?
You'd be, I'd be like, how do I?
Send him a Christmas card, yeah.
Yeah.
Starbucks gift card.
At the bare minimum, I would be exchanging Christmas cards.
But can you imagine how indebted you'd feel?
How would you make it?
You can't.
(39:58):
Like how would you?
You can't.
So anyway, he also got the efficiency star
one time at Cape Romaine
as being the best well-kept station.
Ooh, very nice.
So we can commend Wickman.
He also had a couple stories about his children
or he had three wives.
First one died in childbirth.
(40:19):
I'm going by memory here.
Second one he was married to for over 20 years.
She died from a heart attack.
Third one was 40 years his junior, 40 years his junior.
Well, he wasn't gonna have another one die on him.
But she did.
Oh no, I should have said that.
Should not have said that.
Should not have said that.
(40:40):
Harry Potter reference.
She gave birth inside the lighthouse.
Very exciting.
He went fishing while it happened.
So he came back with like a 25 pound fish
and was like, look what I caught.
And she was dead.
And the nurse was like, look what I caught
and held up their son.
Oh, that's much lighthearted.
I know.
(41:01):
So he, their son was four.
I read this all today.
That's the only reason I can remember these numbers.
Their son was four when they were done at this lighthouse.
And then three years later, she commits suicide.
Damn.
So there's something evil going on here.
Whether it be men.
Immediately.
What could it be?
(41:22):
Men.
What else is there?
I'm just getting.
Was it the patriarchy do you think?
It's probably the patriarchy.
You know, it beat down all the will of women,
you know, in the past.
Suffrage.
Which is a good thing.
That sounds awful.
Friends reference.
Moving on.
Those were our notable keepers,
(41:42):
which I feel like is something I want to do
on other episodes that I should really be giving
more attention to the keepers.
It's the heart of the lighthouse.
For a little bit, I would say like the number of keepers
and like, I think I just stopped doing that.
But lighthouse friends, shout out the website.
They usually list all the keepers and their dates.
That's really nice.
(42:02):
I'm gonna put that at the end,
which is really helpful when I'm trying to figure out
like who was keeper when something happened.
The old tower has lost its lantern room,
not sure when it was removed.
I'm thinking I saw a picture of it without the lantern room
and the photo is from 1913.
I'm telling you, all these lantern rooms,
there's gotta be a whole black market of lighthouse stuff.
(42:25):
I guarantee it.
I'm gonna be on there.
Put me on the black market.
Can I get something for cheap?
No.
I want a Fresnel lens.
I'm telling you, people have like,
there's a dude in California who has a Raptor,
that the dinosaur, he has a Raptor in his house.
He sold it with house, millions of dollars.
There's people out there like us
(42:47):
who are fascinated with lighthouses
that have Fresnel lenses, that have keepers log books
and they've got the cabinets with the keepers.
I'm sure all that stuff is highly collectible
and very expensive.
Yeah, true.
Okay, I don't wanna feed into that kind of business,
but I do want that stuff.
I don't think we should feed into it.
I do find it interesting.
Yeah.
(43:08):
Want stuff though.
All I want is like a prism.
I want a Fresnel lens prism.
Put it in a little glass box,
curio cabinet or something.
Gosh.
I just pulled up a picture of what they look like today.
So we've got the lantern room less old tower.
(43:29):
There's some first perspective going on, right?
Yeah, yeah.
It's much smaller.
We're right up next to the old tower.
It's like, why is it so fat?
Why is it so big?
I'm just now seeing it how you're seeing it.
That's hilarious.
It's huge.
But isn't that a cool pattern on the new tower?
It is, I like that pattern.
Very clean and pretty.
Yep, good lines.
(43:50):
The old tower's wooden staircase is nearly gone.
So it may be exposed to the elements right now or something.
And that's why.
Well, the top is probably not a solid platform.
I'm wondering because there was a floor of the lantern room.
She gone.
And there was a floor below the lantern room
in the watch room.
You deserve, yeah.
Sad, bricks look great though.
(44:10):
The bricks?
Yeah, the paint's really nice.
Do you think the paint is looking a little fresh?
I'm not, this is not a joke.
That was the one that was built by slave labor, right?
No, the first one, well, as far as I know,
the first one was not.
It was the tall one, the new tower.
Well, then probably both of them.
Yeah, maybe.
(44:30):
Likely.
I guess, yeah, we don't know details.
I didn't have anything else to say about that.
I was just like, wow.
Okay, you were just interested.
Now the new tower is over three feet off plumb,
which is plumb is up and down.
I wish I had a picture of how slanted,
but I can't tell if the photo itself is not up and down.
(44:51):
And that's why it looks like, so I didn't include it in our.
Leaning tower of Pisa.
You never really represent it well.
Yeah, got to see it in person.
Supposedly.
New doors were added to the lighthouses in 2010.
Nice.
And an emergency repair was made to the lantern room
on the new tower a year later.
So somebody just pitched in some guy.
(45:12):
Nice.
Some developer or something.
He, I think they discovered that it was unstable
while they were putting on the new doors or something.
And he fixed it up in 2011.
So six times a year,
the Cape Romaine National Wildlife Refuge
does boat tours to the island.
So if you're willing to trek through some swampy,
(45:33):
some swampy stuff,
you can go to the lighthouse to see them up close,
but the boat will also take you next to it.
And you don't have to like get off and go onto the island.
November 10th and December 8th are the next tours.
And that's like a few hours long.
Yeah, I was interested to see that December is on the list.
Like November, you can kind of swing it.
What is South Carolina?
(45:55):
True.
I don't know how cold it gets there.
Yeah, apparently it stays very windy on this island.
So it's like a toss up whether or not
you'll be able to get off.
Wow.
Yeah.
So that's the only visitation.
There's no, can't climb.
There's nothing else.
Nobody's in charge of these.
They're just out there.
National, they're protected places and.
(46:15):
It's pretty crazy.
Think about like any structure that's like in town
that's not taken care of.
It deteriorates.
20 years, 20 years would be great before.
And of course people smash windows and steal things.
Which doesn't help.
But lighthouses are built with architecture,
a lot of them that lasts even if they're not taken care of.
(46:35):
At least the brick, which is crazy.
Broke and steel.
And these survived a crazy earthquake
and had no like restoration on them.
They're just still stable.
Well, and today we design things
to be rated for seismic activity.
So like the project I worked on near Charleston
is seismic restraints on all the duct work and stuff.
(46:58):
So equipment and things don't fail early
along with all the structural and everything else.
Right.
These weren't built.
No one knew that.
They were just like, oh, someday these might sway.
Firmly straight up and down.
How tall is that black and white, the new tower?
150, yeah.
And looks like relatively skinny.
Like it doesn't taper out really.
(47:20):
Yeah, pretty flat.
Those are Cape Romaine lighthouses.
Very cool.
One of them's just a stump.
But one of the oldest of its kind in the US still standing.
So it's pretty, we commend them for that.
It's interesting how the towers are still there
on a lot of these places, but the lantern room goes.
Yeah, it just corrodes, I guess.
(47:41):
I mean, the sea water and stuff.
Yeah.
You know, Three Sisters, they talked about those.
Triangle Island doesn't have its lantern room
for obvious reasons.
Well, I have several messages I've read lately,
like four or five people now on, well, more than that,
on comments on YouTube.
So thank you for all of those.
I really appreciate it.
We love comments.
But also people are saying that they've binge watched
(48:05):
all of our episodes, which is, what are we,
three years in?
Two?
Two and a half.
We're two and a half in, which is crazy.
And then-
This is episode 63.
I still, I'm so, I'm always busy,
but I haven't uploaded, if they're only watching on YouTube,
I haven't uploaded like our first-
10 or something, right?
I wanna say like 19.
(48:26):
Oh.
Yeah.
Because we just, we didn't,
we didn't prepare that way when we were early on, so.
Yeah, I didn't want it to be a YouTube thing.
But I think somebody I asked
which one was their favorite episode,
and they said one of the Upper Peninsula,
might've been Split Rock.
Michigan?
(48:46):
Michigan?
Yeah, I can't remember now.
But they wanted us to cover some more in that area,
so we'll look at that.
Oh yeah, I saw that.
I think it was Upper Peninsula.
I actually picked out this lighthouse
because I was looking for areas we didn't have any.
I don't think we've covered a single lighthouse
in South Carolina.
I've got a lot of ideas,
and a lot of them are not just lighthouses,
(49:07):
but broader topics.
And could be like specials, but.
Yeah.
Gotta do some research.
Sometimes we get into a habit of posting
a bunch of fun ones back to back,
and we don't do a lighthouse for four episodes.
I'm like, oh no.
Yeah, I've always been guilty of that.
I've always been like,
well what else is lighthouse adjacent?
We did a lot of that early on.
We did, I did prohibition with lighthouses and stuff.
(49:30):
That was a time span where we had a lot of episodes
that weren't about lighthouses.
I still think it's important.
If you want, I don't know,
I guess I know why some people would.
So if you want to get somebody excited about lighthouses,
yes, it's nice to go see one on a trip or something,
and talk about how many steps it has,
and the years.
(49:52):
That's important, and we cover it on all of our episodes.
But also, what happened here.
What's relevant.
It's historic, almost all of them
have historical significance.
Almost all of them, like I keep saying,
have local cultural significance.
And a lot of people care about one lighthouse.
They don't care about lighthouses,
(50:12):
and the culture, and the surrounding.
Because they relate in some way to it.
Yeah, this one, this story, or this town.
I grew up looking at this one, or I volunteer.
I think it's really neat.
It's kind of where our show comes in.
Yeah, heck yeah.
We don't have a particular one.
We're just, we're into all of them.
Yeah, I don't have a lot of favoritism.
I did, did I tell you?
(50:32):
I saw the one in Salina.
Wait, what? It's still there.
Salina, Kansas.
So there's one, I talked about it a long time ago.
Oh yeah.
It was at like an old putt-putt course,
and then it turned into a like motocross track,
and now it's abandoned.
It's still there.
The lighthouse?
The lighthouse is still there.
And you saw it, and you didn't go investigate?
(50:53):
Listen, I was gonna take a picture,
but I was on the interstate,
and that would have been unsafe.
Oh yeah, you're right.
We don't condone that.
I also did not get off the highway to investigate.
Maybe another time when I go out towards where I grew up.
It's not that far from us, so.
Thank you to our YouTube listeners.
Thank you to everybody on our website.
I don't wanna keep making promises,
(51:13):
but I think non-specifically,
there's a lot of exciting things coming.
Oh, I'm doing a spooky episode.
Speaking of happening right away.
Excuse me, wait until it's time.
I'm doing a spooky episode.
On, what's the name?
Let's see.
(51:36):
October 28th.
No.
What good are you?
I hit the wrong one.
You're no longer in charge of sound effects.
Stray2Jail.
Stray2Jail.
But I'm gonna do a speak,
well, I'm gonna do a haunted lighthouse, okay?
Very good.
So it'll be good.
Thank you for everybody who are listening,
(51:58):
even if you're like a first-time listener,
or you're a returning listener.
We appreciate all the views,
and get out there and love lighthouses.
Yeah, if you made it this far,
you're an MVP, most valuable person
listening to Lighthouse.
Welcome to Lighthouse podcast.
MVP, l-l-l-l-l.
(52:21):
So check out our Instagram at the Lighthouse Lowdown.
We've got YouTube, we've got places
you can listen to our podcast.
We've got a map on our website,
Lighthouselowdown.com.
And also gmail.com, which is our email,
in case you wanna email us any fun stories
you have about lighthouses,
(52:41):
or anything you want us to cover.
People have been leaving us lighthouses
they want us to cover, or certain areas
they want us to cover, and we are on it.
We just have a queue going,
so it might take us some time, but we are on it.
That's good.
Good problem to have.
Yeah, thank you all for listening,
and we'll catch you next time on the Lighthouse Lowdown.
(53:03):
Thanks for watching!
We're on.
(00:00):
We're on.
Hi everyone.
I'm Emily.
And I'm Vince.
And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown.
["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"]
["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"]
["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"]
["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"]
["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"]
["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"]
Turn it up slightly.
I've noticed our cat lays on it.
Our cat lays on it?
(00:21):
Mm-hmm.
Oh, on the soundboard?
Yes.
That makes sense.
Which is why sometimes the little things are off.
Yeah, I've wondered, like in theory,
why would I ever need to change?
There's all a bunch of knobs and sliders and stuff.
Yeah.
Well, because of Bo.
Well, now we know.
Now we know.
Only you could lock him down.
If only.
(00:41):
And we can move on to our episode.
Now that we've discussed that.
So I do have a history buoy today.
All right, let's go.
Very exciting.
There will be nothing on the screen.
Okay.
It looked expectantly.
I always like the screen.
Yes.
What's the buoy of the day?
I'm gonna talk about the main lights program,
which is something we mentioned in our last episode.
(01:03):
And a lot of lighthouses we talk about in Maine.
Oh, nice.
Are given over to different owners by this program.
Okay.
So I'm gonna talk about what it is, where it came from.
And so now our listeners will know in the future.
Main lights program, M-A-I-N-E.
Yes, the state.
Gotcha.
So the program was passed in 1996
(01:24):
as a way to get lighthouses off the Coast Guard's hand
without having to destroy them.
And that's what they were having to do in Maine
because lighthouses get old, they replace them
with different little skeleton lights or buoys or something.
And then what do you do with them?
They're under the Coast Guard jurisdiction
and there's no way for them to get rid of them
unless they destroy them.
(01:45):
Yeah.
So it all started in 1982 when a group of military frogmen,
which for people that don't know is basically soldiers.
AV SEALs.
The gear.
What?
Yeah, they're like.
They're not Navy SEALs?
I don't know.
I thought that was a nickname for Navy SEALs was frogmen.
(02:07):
I saw, frog, here, let me look at it.
Man, if there's the own,
military has its own branch called the frogmen.
Frogmen is someone who is trained in scuba diving
or swimming underwater in a tactical capacity
that includes military
and in some European countries, police work.
So, okay, so Navy SEALs are frogmen,
(02:27):
but frogmen are not all Navy SEALs.
Are all Navy SEALs trained in scuba diving
or swimming underwater in tactical capacity?
Very much so, yes.
Okay, well then we're both right.
Cool.
They exploded a lighthouse, like a keeper's house.
They had gotten permission to.
On purpose.
Yeah, well they had gotten permission to blow it up
(02:49):
as part of a training exercise.
And so the keeper's house they blew up
was built in 1903, it's the one on Mistake Island, which.
The house was meant to implode,
that was part of the training exercise.
It was meant to implode, but instead it exploded
and damaged the helipad that was out there
(03:12):
and some of the panes in the tower.
So obviously nobody knows that they're doing this.
Also left a crater in the ground,
which that island is all rock.
So it's like still there.
So they used a little too much C4.
Sure.
A lot too much.
So the townspeople were obviously unaware
that this was going to be happening
(03:34):
and were very angry and heartbroken
because they just used something historical
and meaningful to the townspeople as a training exercise
and it didn't even go well.
Like it doesn't even, it wasn't even a good experience
for anybody involved.
So this spurred the formation of the Island Institute,
(03:56):
which now basically works with coastal communities
in environmental sustainability and restoration efforts.
So they're still around.
When the Heron Neck Light Keepers House
was damaged by a fire, the Institute worked
with the Coast Guard and Congress to pass legislation
that allowed the Heron Neck Light to be transferred
to private owners for free in exchange for restoring it.
(04:18):
So it was just.
It was mutually satisfactory.
What is the word I'm trying to think of?
Symbiotic.
No, it was focused just on this one lighthouse
in transferring it.
So they wrote legislation in order to pass this on
and it got them thinking, why don't we do this
with all of the lighthouses that you guys
(04:39):
want to be rid of?
So the Coast Guard identified 36 lighthouses in Maine
that could be transferred under the Maine Lights Program
passed in 96 after all the legal material was funded
by the donation of 300 limited edition prints
of a painting of Southern Island light painted
by artist Jamie Wyeth.
That's nice.
(05:00):
Ultimately 27 lighthouses were transferred
into private ownership.
The American Lighthouse Foundation scooped up several
of the leftover lighthouses.
So they weren't like all, they didn't get rid of them
or anything.
Two years after the transfers were completed,
Congress passed the National Historic Lighthouse
Preservation Act, which we talk about a lot too,
(05:21):
which was based on the Maine Lights Program
and established the process for transferring
any federal property across the country
to government agencies and nonprofits.
So that was 1980s, 1990s, all this happened?
1996.
Wow.
Maine Lights Program.
I had thought the, what's the?
(05:45):
What?
The Act.
Oh, the other one?
The Maine Act.
National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
Yes, National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act
had happened earlier.
I would have guessed like 60s or 70s
because the Coast Guard got into lighthouses in the 30s.
39.
Right?
(06:06):
Yeah.
And then I'm thinking of Absicum Lighthouse
where we talked about this kind of been booms and busts
in lighthouse tourism and funding
to go along with a lot of other financial trends
but in the United States.
But okay, so let's say circa 2000
was when a lot of them were transferred to individuals
(06:27):
and then our individuals representative
of lighthouse friends groups, like friends of.
Yeah, and it would be transferred
to that whole organization, not just like people.
Okay, nice.
It had to be.
It wasn't just someone bottom.
Yeah, it had to be a government agency
or like a nonprofit.
That's smart.
(06:47):
Agreed, but that's the main lights program.
So anytime we're talking about a main lighthouse
and they say it got transferred over,
it's from this specifically.
Cool.
So there was a lot of cool history about it
but I had to keep it history buoy length.
Well, it's huge.
I mean, that alone has been responsible
for so many lighthouses still around today in 2024.
(07:07):
And I wanted to go through and say which lighthouses
and like what happened after that.
Some of them had like, you know,
changes of ownership and everything.
But there was a good article about it.
It will be in our show notes.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I can move on to our lighthouse of the day.
Good buoy.
Or should I say lighthouses?
Woo hoo.
(07:29):
Every time you press a button, I'm like, animal noises.
Ah, ah, ah.
Woo woo.
It's natural.
I can't help it.
We rarely press the button.
So anytime one goes off, I'm like, hey, the button.
It's lights on.
Wow.
So ironically, I'm not covering a main lighthouse today.
Oh, what a spin move.
(07:51):
I know.
I didn't even think about it.
I had it picked out and then I was like,
oh, we talked about main lights program.
And we were like, what even is that?
And like, I don't know.
I should probably cover it.
So we're actually going to South Carolina,
Cape Romaine, South Carolina.
Nice.
Romaine like the lettuce?
Like the lettuce.
Nice.
I think it had different names leading up to this,
(08:13):
this final name, like Cape Roma.
And then it was like Cape started with a C,
some kind of French.
Cabbage, iceberg.
Sure.
Actually, we might as well.
But so normally when a new tower is built,
you know, in the past, our past episodes,
when a new tower is built,
they tend to destroy the original tower,
(08:36):
especially if it's like beat down or
Goes to sea.
Not serving the purpose correctly
or whatever else.
And yeah, like in the case of the three sisters,
they just let them fall into the ocean.
Sometimes they leave both lighthouses,
even if one of them is not being used.
And some cases like today and rarely are both still used
(08:58):
even after they build a lighthouse
to replace a different one.
So this is the case for the Cape Romaine lighthouses.
Okay, nice.
In 1823, Congress appropriated $10,000
to build a lighthouse on Cape Romaine,
planning to use an old stone windmill
that mariners had been mistaking for a lighthouse
(09:19):
near Charleston.
So they kept seeing this windmill
thinking it was a lighthouse
and mistaking it for like a lighthouse
on their charts and stuff.
It's a shame they didn't see the big windmill part.
Just the tower.
Yeah, I wonder how tall this thing was.
It must have been a light up high.
And they're like, oh yeah.
I mean, a light though,
why would they put a light on a windmill?
I mean, they wouldn't put a light,
(09:40):
but you could see a crack. Yeah, like a day mark
sort of thing.
I don't know.
It had to have happened several times
for this to be applicable, but anyway.
The area of this windmill was prone to flooding.
And so they decided to build it
a slightly higher elevation.
And that land was owned already by somebody else.
So they had to go through, of course,
the lengthy negotiation phase.
(10:02):
And by then the funds that were appropriated
for this lighthouse were sent to surplus funds,
which means you can't access them
for what their original purpose was.
It's like a shame.
So they had to wait until 1826
when Congress appropriated $17,000 for the lighthouse,
which was finished a year later.
Nice, good timeline.
Here's a picture of the area we're talking about.
(10:24):
New Charleston.
Yes, it's like 30 miles from Charleston.
I'll talk about McClellanville
is how I'm deciding to pronounce it, with no background.
Yeah, I was just up in Goose Creek.
What's Goose Creek?
That's where I was at.
Oh, for work?
Yeah.
Interesting.
Well, cool.
Not far.
(10:44):
You know exactly what I'm talking about today then.
I do.
So I just pulled up a picture of the original lighthouse.
It wasn't white at the beginning.
This picture is a little bit later.
65 foot brick conical tower with lamp and reflectors.
So we're not to the era of,
well, we are to the era of Fresnel lenses almost,
but this one is still a lamp and reflectors.
(11:07):
It looks like it's not an enclosed cupola.
Like the lantern room is more like skeletal.
Is it white or?
I think it's white.
Okay.
And this is a really old photo, like 1800s still.
Very cool.
Exposure probably wasn't 100%.
Maybe it's just metal.
Yeah, true.
I'm pretty sure it was white.
(11:27):
I remember reading that it was white.
It was built on Raccoon Key,
which is now known as Lighthouse Island
because there are lighthouses on it.
Is it haunted by chance?
Cause look at that kid in front of the house.
Oh God.
Anyone who wants to go see it.
It's a very spooky photo.
Very creepy.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was haunted
(11:49):
and I'll tell you more about it later.
So it's Lighthouse Island now, used to be Raccoon Key.
There was a few other names for it too,
but I'm sticking with those,
which is six miles offshore from the mainland.
And as there were no ports in the vicinity,
the main purpose was to warn away from a shoal
that was nine miles southeast of this little island.
(12:09):
Charleston then.
Yeah.
But the beacon they built was too weak,
which seems, if my memory is correct,
the one who designed and built this was Winslow Lewis,
who had a hand in, well,
who I think invented the lamp and reflectors combination.
(12:31):
Okay, I don't know that.
Okay, and he built a couple of lighthouses,
like designed and built,
but I don't think that's what he was trained in.
So.
You don't think he was trained in?
Yeah, I have a vague memory that Winslow Lewis
built some lighthouses that failed like within a decade,
like very quickly.
Oof.
But I don't know him.
(12:52):
Yeah.
So you never really know.
Maybe, that's true.
Could be wrong, just a little precursor there, everybody.
How many islands are called Lighthouse Island, do you think?
I was thinking about that because of how every time
we drive down a road to a lighthouse,
it's called Lighthouse Road.
It's like surrounded by a water island.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Beaches Island.
(13:12):
Oh wow.
The name was changed at some point,
and I don't have in my notes of when that was,
but it obviously has had different names.
Well, I'm getting carried away, but Hog Island?
Uh-huh.
Hog Island, we talked about first being in the Bahamas,
is a common, that's Paradise Island, that one.
Yeah, yeah.
Look it up, cruise store, cruise, cruise stores.
(13:34):
Oh my gosh.
Cruise ships stop there.
You buy your cruise.
You buy a cruise there, no.
But anyways, that's worth a look up as well.
But there's several other hog islands I've stumbled upon
since then. No way.
I think that was something people did is they put hogs,
they put pigs on an island.
Oh yeah.
To keep them there.
That makes sense.
They would reproduce and grow,
and you'd go take some and anyways.
(13:57):
They talk about this island once it's abandoned.
Oh really?
It's covered in goats,
and they had to actually remove the goats
because they were messing everything up.
Nice.
So maybe that's, it could be Goat Island.
Goat Island.
Yeah, the Lighthouse.
Greatest of all time.
So 1847, they redid the beacon,
but it still wasn't good enough,
and described as quote, small and useless
(14:20):
by the Lighthouse Board.
Oh my gosh.
Oh very sad.
It failed twice.
I know, it's just a little guy.
He was doing his best.
So 1852, Congress appropriated $20,000,
and then another $30,000 to build a quote,
first class sea coast light.
And we love it when they say that
(14:41):
because they're always tall,
they're always first order and sexy.
Nice.
I got a photo.
Did I tell you I got made fun of at work
for describing an architecture thing as sexy?
No, I wasn't being serious.
I was trying to say that there's a plain Jane,
or whatever, a plain normal,
(15:01):
and then there's this one,
and I was just having fun with the conversation.
I was like, this one's sexy.
This one's curved, and it's got the louvers,
and it's got the paint match.
And the architect I was talking to,
project manager, she was like,
I have never heard anyone describe anything like that as sexy.
Inanimate and HVAC is sexy.
Louvers, it was a rain hood or something.
(15:24):
Okay.
Not a sexy thing.
Well, you and I are on the same wavelength.
Sexy lighthouses, look at it.
We pull up a photo of the two lighthouses next to each other,
and this is how they stayed.
So they're best friends.
One is labeled Old Town, and the other is New,
Oh, Tower.
Old Tower.
(15:45):
It's the cursive E-R that's getting me.
But I was gonna say,
I have never heard them described as Old Town and New Town.
That's because they're not.
Because we needed a 65 inch screen
to see Old Tower and New Tower.
That's what it is.
It's that now we're on a big screen, and I can see.
(16:05):
What is that though?
Lighted Janie, 1858.
One.
J-A-N-Y.
Janie.
January.
I don't, yes.
So.
So, they are weird.
Yeah, they're handwriting.
Whoever wrote this in 1858.
Whoever wrote this is weird.
We've established it moving on.
So anyway, the New Tower is 150 foot natural brick
(16:27):
octagonal tower.
Oh, sorry.
Octagonal tower.
Octagonal.
And was built with a white flashing first order
for Nelons.
Very hot.
Smoking hot tower.
Nice.
What's that range?
34 miles?
No.
Probably at most like 20 some.
23. I'm gonna say 30 plus.
(16:47):
25, okay.
Hot.
The two towers were easy to spot during the day
as the original tower was painted with red and white bands,
which you can see in this picture,
there's some remnants of, but sorry.
The brick is starting to show through the white paint.
So, this old tower, while it remained and was lit,
was kind of neglected.
(17:09):
And this is the one they ended up blowing up?
No, that's separate.
Okay, I was gonna say that I'm gonna be surprised
it damaged the new tower.
This is what I was talking about,
how ironic it was that I wasn't even gonna cover it.
Oh my gosh, we're not even talking about Maine.
Yeah, I know, we're talking South Carolina, baby.
You even told, okay.
But I was like, maybe I should cover that lighthouse
if I'm gonna talk about the Maine Lights program.
(17:29):
Got the ball rolling and everything?
No, that's something else.
Imagine if someone just skipped the lighthouse buoy
and they're listening to this.
Yeah, they're like, what are you talking about?
What?
Do you think people, do you think we can skip
our history buoys?
No.
All right, listeners, if our history buoys
are really boring, let us know.
We can stop.
Actually, it would be a large weight off my shoulders.
(17:50):
I actually enjoyed doing this one though.
I think things like legislation is more exciting
because it's important and permanent.
And very fun.
For sure.
Widespread.
Okay, sorry.
Red and white bands on the old tower.
New tower was a reddish gray from the brick.
So it wasn't even painted.
(18:11):
It was just.
Natural.
It's dark, moody.
Kind of sexy.
I was like, I cannot say it again.
That's too much.
I'm just joking around,
but it is a really nice looking tower.
And octagonal's fun.
We don't have a lot of octagonal lighthouses.
(18:32):
Nope, not a lot.
At night, the original light was fixed red.
Love that.
With the new flashing once every minute.
So very slow revolution going on.
Had clockwork mechanism and everything.
Nice.
This is the first lighthouse also that I saw
that mentioned it was built by slave labor.
Oh.
(18:52):
Which is fitting as just a few miles south.
The first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter.
So I wasn't gonna dive too deep into that.
I could, but it was the first lighthouse I've seen
that specified how it was built.
1800s.
I never considered that, that that would be a thing.
When was the decoration?
Independence?
(19:13):
No, no, no, no.
Oh, I'm like, this is drilled into us.
Oh, come on, I'm failing.
The proclamation emancipation.
Oh.
That's what I was trying to say.
Let's look it up.
Just for curiosity.
Cause I know when I visited Charleston years ago,
we talked the historical tour focused on slave markets.
1863.
Significant.
Oh man.
(19:35):
Some of the last legal slaves had to build a lighthouse.
So the lighthouse lantern room was destroyed
to avoid being used by either side in the war,
which I think is interesting.
Is that we've heard in the past when it's destroyed
by like artillery or it's destroyed
because they dismantled it and lost it or something.
But this is like, they beat the crap out of it
(19:56):
so that neither side could use it.
That happened to a lot of lighthouses.
Yeah, but like I haven't heard about any that are like,
instead of preserving the lens for use later,
they just in the moment just destroyed it.
I think it was, yeah, I don't know.
Like I said, I don't know the history of the civil war.
I was gonna say it's probably too close to the borderline
(20:17):
to really can't afford to lose it, but don't know.
True.
But it was fixed and relit in 1866.
So three years after the end.
Wow, nice.
Over this time, the tower had developed
a very noticeable lean, which you may see in later photos.
It looks very nice and upright in this picture
that I have up, but it started leaning almost two feet
(20:41):
and the lean increased by three inches within the next year,
but then apparently stabilized
so they didn't do anything about it.
But it's gotten worse as time has gone on.
Oh no.
The station also had three keepers dwellings
and a boathouse.
Two keepers dwellings were added at the same time
this tower was added because they added
(21:02):
More staff.
Two assistant keepers to the existing headkeeper
because now we have a clockwork lens.
We have a Fresnel lens and a very tall tower.
So all of it's just like a ton of added work.
So they added two assistants and two assistant dwellings.
And in 1886, the old tower got a concrete floor
(21:23):
and a fireproof door so that it could serve as an oil house.
So that's pretty neat.
Fancy oil house.
Yeah, you know, usually we have oil houses that are cute,
small, red, like in our last episode,
but this time they just converted the old one
into an oil house.
It's freaking cool.
I'm kidding.
It's funny to me, it didn't have a concrete floor
before then.
(21:44):
You think it's stone probably.
Dirt?
Whatever.
Yeah, I know.
Whatever's inside the structure.
I didn't think about it.
I think I've only seen concrete floors
or maybe I haven't paid attention.
I guess I haven't either.
I haven't looked too closely at the floor.
Too busy looking up.
I have some photos of Long Point floor.
(22:05):
Or is it with the other one?
It was near Long Point.
Oh, that's right, Wood End.
Yeah, it was Wood End, pretty sure.
We'll have to take a look.
I bet it's concrete.
I think it is.
Because Long Point and Wood End,
they didn't look like, those are added later.
They used to be keepers' houses with lens on them.
(22:27):
Oh really, integral, I forgot about that.
From what I remember.
We'll have to actually do episodes on them.
Anyway, eventually the old tower was painted white,
which is what we saw in the first picture that I pulled up,
with the new tower being red.
And then the new tower was painted white on the bottom half
with the top half painted alternating white and black.
Cool.
(22:48):
And then they painted the old tower red.
So that's what we have today.
Is it really showing off?
Yeah, very unique.
It's because it's octagonal again
that we get these cool art alternating colors on the sides.
Why are you smiling at me?
You think I'm goofy?
Yep.
(23:08):
1931, the new tower was modernized.
So they added electric generators,
replaced the incandescent oil vapor lamp
with a 500 watt electric bulb,
which increased the lights candle power
from 280,000 to 430,000.
So we got a good double in, less than double of our power
(23:34):
inside the Phenellis.
It's candle power.
McClellanville's villagers began holding cape parties,
is what they called it,
because it's really lonely out there at Lighthouse Island.
And there were three families living on this island
by themselves and it's six miles offshore.
So it's not like our, I keep saying our last episode,
but our last episode, they were a hundred yards away.
(23:55):
They just come over whenever.
This was like pretty secluded and lonely.
So they'd have cape parties and they would play games,
swim, catch fish and collect crabs and oysters.
And then they would roast all of the food
that they find at the end and eat together.
It sounds awesome.
Pretty cute.
The lighthouse was automated after the last headkeeper
(24:16):
had an accident with acid,
which I didn't get to see too much into it.
Someone mentioned an explosion and there was acid
and he got burns on his face and his eyeballs in 1937.
And that was the end of, they just automated it
instead of bringing new people on.
It's hard to replace that guy.
Yeah, whoever he was.
(24:37):
What happened to the last guy?
Explosion of acid?
I was like, oh, maybe we shouldn't.
It was like, the source that I read said,
pouring acid into a container or something.
I'm like, why do we have acid?
And what about pouring acid makes an explosion?
You tell me, chemical engineer.
It's some weird stuff.
No, thank you.
(24:58):
The lighthouse was actually abandoned in 1947
and has been sitting since then.
No big renovations.
Really?
No visitors.
I mean, there's some visitors and I'll talk about it too,
but it's, yeah, it's just full on abandoned.
I know.
It was added to the national,
oh, another thing is that the shoal that it was marking
(25:20):
was they marked it with lit buoys, so.
To replace the need for the lighthouse, light tower.
Exactly.
They added these to the National Register
of Historic Places in 1981,
so they're protected at least.
And right now, the island is a refuge,
(25:40):
like a wildlife refuge.
For birds?
Yeah, birds and some other stuff.
Some of those creatures.
Wildlife.
That stuff.
So they had a couple,
I'm gonna go through a couple of stories,
a couple of noteworthy keepers during this time,
so it kind of revolves around them.
First one I'm gonna talk about is why this lighthouse
(26:01):
may be haunted.
Andrew Johnson, head keeper from 1867 to 1875.
So about eight years, head keeper, really early on.
In 1873, keeper Johnson returned from duty around 9 p.m.
to find his wife on the bed, her throat slit.
(26:23):
Oh my God.
From ear to ear.
And he ran from the house,
yelling that she had commit suicide.
I'm like, who would commit suicide in such a fashion?
That'd be hard.
And why would you automatically assume,
I'm immediately suspicious.
When I heard that, I was like,
you don't come out and just.
(26:44):
I can't believe she did that to herself.
Did you see?
Look what she did to herself.
It's like, you're telling me,
oh, she must have been a strong woman
to be able to commit that much.
So they ruled it a suicide.
But there was a gun nearby, a loaded gun,
so if she was going to commit suicide,
maybe that would have been an easier way to go.
Eh.
(27:05):
What do you mean, eh?
There was a razor nearby, and I just think
that that, I just think maybe she was trying
to defend herself, and that's why there was a gun.
Was a gun?
I mean, I don't know.
I don't know how you would, yeah, anyways.
Yeah, anyway, her jewelry was missing,
along with $1400 that she had taken out
(27:25):
of the bank 10 days earlier.
And at that time, $1400 was $25,000.
That is suspicious.
Very suspicious.
If she commits suicide, where is her stuff?
So what's the, supposedly, she was gonna leave him
and took out all the money, and he found out and killed her?
Yeah, so a couple of interesting facts here.
Mrs. Johnson had withdrawn all of her money.
(27:48):
This wasn't just like she had withdrawn money for something.
She had cleared out her bank account,
and she had lots of gold and diamond jewelry
that she immigrated from Sweden with.
So it's like family stuff.
All of it was missing from the crime scene,
and Keeper Johnson's jewelry and belongings were untouched.
(28:09):
So he just, okay.
So there's speculation that she planned to leave him,
and he murdered her in a rage.
Assistant Keeper Lee and his wife
were the last ones to see her alive,
because supposedly at 6 p.m., she went over to their place,
and that was the last time anybody
had seen anything from her.
They both left the lighthouse board,
(28:31):
left the island very shortly after this happened,
and just disappeared.
So they're also missing.
They're also under suspicion.
Keeper Johnson continued for two more years
until he was put onto a new lighthouse.
I'm like.
Oh yeah, that shit was crazy.
I guess back to work.
I better crawl into bed.
We better change these sheets.
(28:52):
Take the oil up.
Like what?
I don't know.
It's all suspicious, but there's also like,
oh, so this is, okay, this is what I forgot about the gun.
It had, someone had attempted to fire it,
and it misfired.
There's all kinds of different storylines.
If it was suicide, she may have tried to use the gun first.
(29:15):
So I saw online one of the, it was on Lighthouse Digest.
They did an article on it, and they speculated
that if it was suicide, he could have known
that she was trying to leave and hid her belongings,
her money and her jewelry and everything,
(29:36):
so she couldn't leave, because where would she go?
Escape, yeah.
And so she tore apart the house,
because the house was ransacked, by the way.
She probably tore through the house looking for it,
couldn't find it, and felt that she had no other options.
And so then the gun misfired.
She couldn't use that, so then she used a razor, I suppose.
(29:56):
But I'm like, I guess, I guess that's plausible.
So in the 1800s, semi-automatic firearms were not popular,
if there was any at all.
Revolvers were still most common for handguns.
This could have not been a revolver as well.
It could have been a shotgun or a rifle.
Oh.
I just don't know.
(30:16):
But if it was a revolver, and so what I'm guessing
is it misfired, so the primer on the back of the cartridge,
typically when a gun shoots a bullet,
there's a little thing called a hammer.
It's a little piece of metal, and it strikes the primer
with quite a bit of speed when you pull the trigger.
The primer starts a little fire inside of the cartridge,
(30:39):
which lights the gunpowder, then the bullet goes pew
down the gun barrel.
So maybe the cartridge, or the primer had a strike on it.
It was dented, which still happens today.
It's very rare, but some bullets are just duds.
Or they're squib rounds.
A squib round is where not enough of the gunpowder ignites,
(31:01):
so the bullet actually gets lodged in the barrel,
and the gun's unusable.
If you fire it again, it explodes.
Oh.
Because there's compression happening inside the barrel.
So I don't know.
If that happened, it would have made a lot of noise,
and she would have severely injured herself.
If it was a squib round, and she caught it,
(31:22):
and was like, oh, well, this isn't gonna work.
That's pretty wild.
Most people don't.
Maybe in that scenario you would.
Yeah.
Or maybe if it didn't work once, she's just not familiar,
and she's like, oh.
Imagine building up to shoot yourself.
Yeah.
You can't do that again.
(31:43):
Right.
I don't know.
But apparently can.
I'm speaking pretty cavalierly.
About this, but.
Carve your neck with a razor.
From ear to ear?
I feel like you'd get about, like maybe.
I don't know.
You know what, guys, I feel like you would quit,
and not really see it all the way through.
It's a very strange.
(32:03):
What I think happened, knowing nothing else,
is that he murdered her.
She tried to use the gun, and it didn't work.
Yeah.
By chance.
And he probably knows enough about it to be like.
And it just made him so mad,
and he was physically stronger,
that he couldn't do that.
Disgusting.
Terrible.
And he got a bunch of money out of it, too.
Diamonds.
Yeah, so what happened with him?
Did he like, how you can't spend that money?
(32:26):
I know.
Right?
I just feel like at this time.
You can't go selling diamonds,
and be like, yeah, well, she left these to me.
Yeah, or probably took them to a pawn shop.
They don't track that kind of stuff.
But that's what I'm saying.
If he's a lighthouse keeper for another,
he kept being a lighthouse keeper?
Yeah, for two years here,
and then got moved to another lighthouse.
So it's not even like he disappeared.
He didn't disappear,
(32:47):
and then all of a sudden he's living on a yacht in Bahamas.
Yeah.
Although $25,000 today is not that crazy.
I guess it's not that crazy.
And it wouldn't be motive to kill somebody, either.
If they're your loved one.
Emotional.
Yeah, I don't know.
So there's my short episode of Vince speculating.
Thank you for the knowledge.
(33:07):
What, what did you call it?
Vince speculating.
This is all speculation.
What I wanna know is like more details about,
they obviously do an autopsy.
Is she, to say there's defensive wounds?
Like did it look like she was fighting somebody?
They obviously ruled it a suicide.
Was that because her husband said it was,
(33:28):
or like at this time, it really,
it was easy to skew investigations.
Very easy.
It looks like someone held her down
while she killed herself.
Like that can't be right.
Crazy how that happens.
She was alone, so it's like, oh, okay.
So anyway.
Awful.
I feel bad, because all, I mean.
Well, these are people, you know.
Yeah, and there's a possibility
(33:49):
that Andrew Johnson did nothing wrong,
walked in, and his wife has just commit suicide.
But he talked some crap about her afterwards, so.
Maybe she did it on purpose.
Maybe she tried to make it look like a murder.
Yeah.
All right, moving on.
We're going to our next notable keeper.
John Robertson was head keeper from 1880 to 1906.
26 years at this lighthouse.
(34:11):
Really long time.
He contracted malaria, and which by the way,
this sent me on a huge, what's it called?
Rabbit hole.
Yeah.
A rabbit hole.
A tangent.
That's what I was thinking of.
Thank you for all.
Synonym.
I know words I was thinking of, but couldn't figure out.
This sent me on a huge tangent into looking at malaria.
(34:33):
And because it sounded like, you know,
the other assistant keepers and their families
were hesitant to be near him.
So I was like, do they think that malaria
was contagious at that time?
But I couldn't find out the details.
It was.
And it's not, right?
No.
Unless you share blood somehow.
Yeah, which is why.
It's like mosquitoes.
What did they know in the 1800s?
Weren't people like bleeding themselves
(34:55):
to get out of having a cold?
They started, look, they had microscopes and stuff.
Well, I mean, someone did, but what did the public know?
Oh, probably nothing.
What do scientists know now versus the average general?
They thought that you got malaria from swamp air
when we're in a swampy area.
So.
Mosquitoes, right?
Yeah.
So yeah, they thought it was like,
(35:16):
smelling the stagnant air could make you sick.
I mean, that's a fair line to draw in their world.
Malaria actually means bad air or something
in, I don't know.
I didn't take any notes.
I was just reading on my own time.
Anyway, he was in bed with fever
when the strongest earthquake
to ever hit South Carolina happened.
(35:37):
And it was a 7.3 in 1886.
It's never been an earthquake like it after that.
And I think the epicenter was on Charleston.
And this is like 30 miles from Charleston or something.
So, but the lighthouse and houses did not sustain
any damage besides like cracked plaster.
But anything that was on shelves was absolutely destroyed.
(36:00):
The assistant keepers and their families
came to the keeper's house as his house
was the least likely to get hit if the towers fell down.
Which is like a crazy thing that you have to think about
as a lighthouse keeper.
That'd be nuts.
It wouldn't make any sound.
Yeah.
You'd just be sitting at your kitchen table,
eating mac and cheese,
get crushed by a 12 foot tall lantern.
(36:24):
Crushed by a tower.
I wonder if that's ever happened.
Oh my gosh.
Cause all these keepers houses are close to the towers.
So they rushed to his house.
That's least likely to be crushed.
They hid into his house, which is when they were like,
it was obvious they didn't want to
because he was sick with the fever.
I was like, oh, sad.
Lighthouse board posted their account of the noise
(36:44):
as quote sounding something like a battery of artillery
or a troop of cavalry crossing a long bridge.
I'm like very specific.
I don't know what an earthquake would sound like.
It's just, apparently it made a lot of sound
like long before the shock waves hit them.
So it's like, you could hear the earth moving.
And that's scary.
(37:04):
I know.
Can you imagine hearing that and not feeling anything?
It's like, what the heck is that?
Who's Bluetooth speakers on?
Oh my gosh.
Where are they watching?
Bluetooth speakers.
1886.
The tremors spooked the estimated 1000 cranes
that were nesting on Raccoon Key
who all took flight at the same time
and made a quote fearful noise.
(37:27):
I bet.
Can you imagine a thousand pairs of wings
flapping at the same time?
And these are cranes.
They're not small.
They're big animals.
Do they squawk as well?
I bet they were squawking.
Squawking.
They do make sounds.
I don't know what they are though.
I would assume it's kind of like that.
Wah.
(37:49):
God, I wish we had video for this podcast.
I made a bird motion.
So while the clockwork stopped
during both main shock waves that hit,
there was two main ones and the rest were like
a little less powerful, but not, yeah, but not,
not by any means comfortable.
(38:10):
Sure.
The clockwork stopped during both of them.
So it must be something about like the pendulum swinging
or something, but it just stopped the rotating
of the lens, which is very interesting.
The keepers kept the lights on during the entire disaster.
So we can commend them for that.
It's pretty cool.
Powering through.
Next we have, it just spelled August,
(38:34):
but I know that a lot of people used to be called like
Augusta and, but it just looks like August.
August is a name as well.
August F. Wickman known for being commended
five times over his service publicly
for helping mariners at Cape Romaine.
So he's a real lighthouse keeper, life saving man.
(38:55):
Wickman, was his title or was this last name?
Last name.
Meant to be.
If that's how it's pronounced, I'm doing my best,
but it's W-I-C-H-M-A-N-N.
Sounds right.
1916, the Schooner barge Northwest wrecked near the Cape.
Five men washed ashore on wreckage.
(39:17):
The keeper spent 14 hours in a rowboat
because his motorboat was broken
and swam through the night to save them.
14 hours of like serious manual labor saving these men
just because they were there.
That's sad.
I mean, that's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah, sad too.
And one of the guys was the captain of this barge
(39:38):
and he exchanged Christmas cards with the keeper
for many years after that.
Cool.
Can you imagine somebody saving your life?
You'd be, I'd be like, how do I?
Send him a Christmas card, yeah.
Yeah.
Starbucks gift card.
At the bare minimum, I would be exchanging Christmas cards.
But can you imagine how indebted you'd feel?
How would you make it?
You can't.
(39:58):
Like how would you?
You can't.
So anyway, he also got the efficiency star
one time at Cape Romaine
as being the best well-kept station.
Ooh, very nice.
So we can commend Wickman.
He also had a couple stories about his children
or he had three wives.
First one died in childbirth.
(40:19):
I'm going by memory here.
Second one he was married to for over 20 years.
She died from a heart attack.
Third one was 40 years his junior, 40 years his junior.
Well, he wasn't gonna have another one die on him.
But she did.
Oh no, I should have said that.
Should not have said that.
Should not have said that.
(40:40):
Harry Potter reference.
She gave birth inside the lighthouse.
Very exciting.
He went fishing while it happened.
So he came back with like a 25 pound fish
and was like, look what I caught.
And she was dead.
And the nurse was like, look what I caught
and held up their son.
Oh, that's much lighthearted.
I know.
(41:01):
So he, their son was four.
I read this all today.
That's the only reason I can remember these numbers.
Their son was four when they were done at this lighthouse.
And then three years later, she commits suicide.
Damn.
So there's something evil going on here.
Whether it be men.
Immediately.
What could it be?
(41:22):
Men.
What else is there?
I'm just getting.
Was it the patriarchy do you think?
It's probably the patriarchy.
You know, it beat down all the will of women,
you know, in the past.
Suffrage.
Which is a good thing.
That sounds awful.
Friends reference.
Moving on.
Those were our notable keepers,
(41:42):
which I feel like is something I want to do
on other episodes that I should really be giving
more attention to the keepers.
It's the heart of the lighthouse.
For a little bit, I would say like the number of keepers
and like, I think I just stopped doing that.
But lighthouse friends, shout out the website.
They usually list all the keepers and their dates.
That's really nice.
(42:02):
I'm gonna put that at the end,
which is really helpful when I'm trying to figure out
like who was keeper when something happened.
The old tower has lost its lantern room,
not sure when it was removed.
I'm thinking I saw a picture of it without the lantern room
and the photo is from 1913.
I'm telling you, all these lantern rooms,
there's gotta be a whole black market of lighthouse stuff.
(42:25):
I guarantee it.
I'm gonna be on there.
Put me on the black market.
Can I get something for cheap?
No.
I want a Fresnel lens.
I'm telling you, people have like,
there's a dude in California who has a Raptor,
that the dinosaur, he has a Raptor in his house.
He sold it with house, millions of dollars.
There's people out there like us
(42:47):
who are fascinated with lighthouses
that have Fresnel lenses, that have keepers log books
and they've got the cabinets with the keepers.
I'm sure all that stuff is highly collectible
and very expensive.
Yeah, true.
Okay, I don't wanna feed into that kind of business,
but I do want that stuff.
I don't think we should feed into it.
I do find it interesting.
Yeah.
(43:08):
Want stuff though.
All I want is like a prism.
I want a Fresnel lens prism.
Put it in a little glass box,
curio cabinet or something.
Gosh.
I just pulled up a picture of what they look like today.
So we've got the lantern room less old tower.
(43:29):
There's some first perspective going on, right?
Yeah, yeah.
It's much smaller.
We're right up next to the old tower.
It's like, why is it so fat?
Why is it so big?
I'm just now seeing it how you're seeing it.
That's hilarious.
It's huge.
But isn't that a cool pattern on the new tower?
It is, I like that pattern.
Very clean and pretty.
Yep, good lines.
(43:50):
The old tower's wooden staircase is nearly gone.
So it may be exposed to the elements right now or something.
And that's why.
Well, the top is probably not a solid platform.
I'm wondering because there was a floor of the lantern room.
She gone.
And there was a floor below the lantern room
in the watch room.
You deserve, yeah.
Sad, bricks look great though.
(44:10):
The bricks?
Yeah, the paint's really nice.
Do you think the paint is looking a little fresh?
I'm not, this is not a joke.
That was the one that was built by slave labor, right?
No, the first one, well, as far as I know,
the first one was not.
It was the tall one, the new tower.
Well, then probably both of them.
Yeah, maybe.
(44:30):
Likely.
I guess, yeah, we don't know details.
I didn't have anything else to say about that.
I was just like, wow.
Okay, you were just interested.
Now the new tower is over three feet off plumb,
which is plumb is up and down.
I wish I had a picture of how slanted,
but I can't tell if the photo itself is not up and down.
(44:51):
And that's why it looks like, so I didn't include it in our.
Leaning tower of Pisa.
You never really represent it well.
Yeah, got to see it in person.
Supposedly.
New doors were added to the lighthouses in 2010.
Nice.
And an emergency repair was made to the lantern room
on the new tower a year later.
So somebody just pitched in some guy.
(45:12):
Nice.
Some developer or something.
He, I think they discovered that it was unstable
while they were putting on the new doors or something.
And he fixed it up in 2011.
So six times a year,
the Cape Romaine National Wildlife Refuge
does boat tours to the island.
So if you're willing to trek through some swampy,
(45:33):
some swampy stuff,
you can go to the lighthouse to see them up close,
but the boat will also take you next to it.
And you don't have to like get off and go onto the island.
November 10th and December 8th are the next tours.
And that's like a few hours long.
Yeah, I was interested to see that December is on the list.
Like November, you can kind of swing it.
What is South Carolina?
(45:55):
True.
I don't know how cold it gets there.
Yeah, apparently it stays very windy on this island.
So it's like a toss up whether or not
you'll be able to get off.
Wow.
Yeah.
So that's the only visitation.
There's no, can't climb.
There's nothing else.
Nobody's in charge of these.
They're just out there.
National, they're protected places and.
(46:15):
It's pretty crazy.
Think about like any structure that's like in town
that's not taken care of.
It deteriorates.
20 years, 20 years would be great before.
And of course people smash windows and steal things.
Which doesn't help.
But lighthouses are built with architecture,
a lot of them that lasts even if they're not taken care of.
(46:35):
At least the brick, which is crazy.
Broke and steel.
And these survived a crazy earthquake
and had no like restoration on them.
They're just still stable.
Well, and today we design things
to be rated for seismic activity.
So like the project I worked on near Charleston
is seismic restraints on all the duct work and stuff.
(46:58):
So equipment and things don't fail early
along with all the structural and everything else.
Right.
These weren't built.
No one knew that.
They were just like, oh, someday these might sway.
Firmly straight up and down.
How tall is that black and white, the new tower?
150, yeah.
And looks like relatively skinny.
Like it doesn't taper out really.
(47:20):
Yeah, pretty flat.
Those are Cape Romaine lighthouses.
Very cool.
One of them's just a stump.
But one of the oldest of its kind in the US still standing.
So it's pretty, we commend them for that.
It's interesting how the towers are still there
on a lot of these places, but the lantern room goes.
Yeah, it just corrodes, I guess.
(47:41):
I mean, the sea water and stuff.
Yeah.
You know, Three Sisters, they talked about those.
Triangle Island doesn't have its lantern room
for obvious reasons.
Well, I have several messages I've read lately,
like four or five people now on, well, more than that,
on comments on YouTube.
So thank you for all of those.
I really appreciate it.
We love comments.
But also people are saying that they've binge watched
(48:05):
all of our episodes, which is, what are we,
three years in?
Two?
Two and a half.
We're two and a half in, which is crazy.
And then-
This is episode 63.
I still, I'm so, I'm always busy,
but I haven't uploaded, if they're only watching on YouTube,
I haven't uploaded like our first-
10 or something, right?
I wanna say like 19.
(48:26):
Oh.
Yeah.
Because we just, we didn't,
we didn't prepare that way when we were early on, so.
Yeah, I didn't want it to be a YouTube thing.
But I think somebody I asked
which one was their favorite episode,
and they said one of the Upper Peninsula,
might've been Split Rock.
Michigan?
(48:46):
Michigan?
Yeah, I can't remember now.
But they wanted us to cover some more in that area,
so we'll look at that.
Oh yeah, I saw that.
I think it was Upper Peninsula.
I actually picked out this lighthouse
because I was looking for areas we didn't have any.
I don't think we've covered a single lighthouse
in South Carolina.
I've got a lot of ideas,
and a lot of them are not just lighthouses,
(49:07):
but broader topics.
And could be like specials, but.
Yeah.
Gotta do some research.
Sometimes we get into a habit of posting
a bunch of fun ones back to back,
and we don't do a lighthouse for four episodes.
I'm like, oh no.
Yeah, I've always been guilty of that.
I've always been like,
well what else is lighthouse adjacent?
We did a lot of that early on.
We did, I did prohibition with lighthouses and stuff.
(49:30):
That was a time span where we had a lot of episodes
that weren't about lighthouses.
I still think it's important.
If you want, I don't know,
I guess I know why some people would.
So if you want to get somebody excited about lighthouses,
yes, it's nice to go see one on a trip or something,
and talk about how many steps it has,
and the years.
(49:52):
That's important, and we cover it on all of our episodes.
But also, what happened here.
What's relevant.
It's historic, almost all of them
have historical significance.
Almost all of them, like I keep saying,
have local cultural significance.
And a lot of people care about one lighthouse.
They don't care about lighthouses,
(50:12):
and the culture, and the surrounding.
Because they relate in some way to it.
Yeah, this one, this story, or this town.
I grew up looking at this one, or I volunteer.
I think it's really neat.
It's kind of where our show comes in.
Yeah, heck yeah.
We don't have a particular one.
We're just, we're into all of them.
Yeah, I don't have a lot of favoritism.
I did, did I tell you?
(50:32):
I saw the one in Salina.
Wait, what? It's still there.
Salina, Kansas.
So there's one, I talked about it a long time ago.
Oh yeah.
It was at like an old putt-putt course,
and then it turned into a like motocross track,
and now it's abandoned.
It's still there.
The lighthouse?
The lighthouse is still there.
And you saw it, and you didn't go investigate?
(50:53):
Listen, I was gonna take a picture,
but I was on the interstate,
and that would have been unsafe.
Oh yeah, you're right.
We don't condone that.
I also did not get off the highway to investigate.
Maybe another time when I go out towards where I grew up.
It's not that far from us, so.
Thank you to our YouTube listeners.
Thank you to everybody on our website.
I don't wanna keep making promises,
(51:13):
but I think non-specifically,
there's a lot of exciting things coming.
Oh, I'm doing a spooky episode.
Speaking of happening right away.
Excuse me, wait until it's time.
I'm doing a spooky episode.
On, what's the name?
Let's see.
(51:36):
October 28th.
No.
What good are you?
I hit the wrong one.
You're no longer in charge of sound effects.
Stray2Jail.
Stray2Jail.
But I'm gonna do a speak,
well, I'm gonna do a haunted lighthouse, okay?
Very good.
So it'll be good.
Thank you for everybody who are listening,
(51:58):
even if you're like a first-time listener,
or you're a returning listener.
We appreciate all the views,
and get out there and love lighthouses.
Yeah, if you made it this far,
you're an MVP, most valuable person
listening to Lighthouse.
Welcome to Lighthouse podcast.
MVP, l-l-l-l-l.
(52:21):
So check out our Instagram at the Lighthouse Lowdown.
We've got YouTube, we've got places
you can listen to our podcast.
We've got a map on our website,
Lighthouselowdown.com.
And also gmail.com, which is our email,
in case you wanna email us any fun stories
you have about lighthouses,
(52:41):
or anything you want us to cover.
People have been leaving us lighthouses
they want us to cover, or certain areas
they want us to cover, and we are on it.
We just have a queue going,
so it might take us some time, but we are on it.
That's good.
Good problem to have.
Yeah, thank you all for listening,
and we'll catch you next time on the Lighthouse Lowdown.
(53:03):
Thanks for watching!
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