A beacon of navigational safety for 157 years
"BLAZING STAR"
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Bearing a distinctive, wide red stripe around its middle, Sankaty Head Light has stood sentinel for mariners for 157 years, protecting them from the many treacherous shoals off Nantucket's eastern shore. Not long after Sankaty's light was first illuminated in February 1850, the beacon, then towering 60 feet above Siasconset's 90- foot bluff, earned nicknames such as "Rocket Light" and "Blazing Star," and became known as New England's most powerful light with a flashing beam visible some 40 miles away.

COURTESY NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Sankaty Lighthouse keeper and family, 1922. Left to right: Marie Larsen, Alice Thatcher Larsen, Ethel Larsen, Eugene N. Larsen (keeper of Sankaty Lighthouse), and a visiting girl whose mother took the photo.

After requests from countless sailors, civil engineers and others, in August 1848, Congress appropriated $12,000 to build the station on 10 acres of headland

purchased by the government from George Myrick for $250. When construction ended, the brick and granite landmark with an accompanying keeper's house and barn took on its mission of illuminating the

sea with a lens and light lit by a single wick whale oil lamp. After Sankaty became operational, a

second order Fresnel lens from Paris was

installed to increase the light's intensity. Lenses are rated from first order to sixth order, with first order being the brightest. Sankaty's

second order lens contained prisms at the top and bottom to refract light, with the light intensifying at the center through a magnifying glass. In 1888, when a new lantern section was installed along with a new watch room, the height of Sankaty Light grew to 70 feet.

The whale oil lamp was replaced by a kerosene vapor lamp to boost the light's candlepower, and in 1933 the electrification of the light created yet a brighter beam and allowed the lighthouse keeper to sleep through the night.The lens was originally turned by a weight-driven, clock-like apparatus which required rewinding every three to four hours. In 1938 that mechanism was replaced by a motor, reducing some of the keeper's duties. That was also the year the Lighthouse Service was brought under the auspices of the U.S. Coast Guard.

COURTESY NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Four children of the Doyle family and one woman with a picnic basket, top, sitting on the 'Sconset bluff, with Sankaty Lighthouse and keeper's cottage in the background in 1906. Rear view of Sankaty showing temporary lighthouse on the left, 1893. The lighthouse was 175 feet from the bluff's edge in 1892, and 160 feet from the edge in 1933. Today it is 76 feet from the edge.

There was a bit of an uproar in 1969 when the lighthouse top was replaced and a new light dropped in at a lower level, causing the beam to shine into homes and to blind motorists. No one seemed to like the appearance of the new top: letters of protest were sent to the Coast Guard about the light's intrusion, and petitions were circulated through the island's chamber of commerce decrying the destruction of a historic landmark. The following year the Coast Guard removed the offending top and substituted a design more like the original, which also resulted in a higher positioning of the beam.

Besides repairs, repainting and lens replacements over the years, there was also a succession of lighthouse keepers and changes to their quarters. According to documents at the Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, the first permanent keeper assigned to Sankaty Head Light was Alexander Bunker, a retired sea captain, who took his post in February 1850. The keeper's brick housing was small, and later a second brick dwelling was added for the assistant keepers. In 1887 the dilapidated, brick keeper's house was replaced by a larger, wood-frame double dwelling that had room for the keeper, the first assistant keeper and both families.

Joseph Remsen was appointed in 1892 and served for 27 years. When he retired in 1919, Charles Wood Vanderhoop, a Wampanoag Indian, took the helm until he was transferred and replaced by Eugene N. Larsen who remained keeper for almost 30 years. In 1944, the year the Coast Guard assumed official command of Sankaty, Aechford V. Haskins, a Coast Guard keeper, transferred from Great Point Light and was the last keeper of Sankaty Light.

Over the next 20 years new housing was built for Coast Guard personnel. The light became automated in 1965, but Coast Guard light crews continued to live on the property until 1992. Soon after, because of the bluff's continuing erosion from storms, one of the homes was removed and relocated to Miacomet Village and the other buildings were demolished.

Next month, the painstaking process of moving Sankaty Light away from the crumbling bluff over which it has stood for more than a century and a half will begin. It is being moved to ensure that this beacon of safety and guidance will remain - not just as a part of island and maritime history, but as an ever vigilant aid to navigation, beaming farther out to sea than any other lighthouse

along the Atlantic Coast. I