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Cruise News: Lighthouse cruise July 6th-12th
We expect to sail by several dozen Maine lighthouses and tour several of them on our special trip this summer. Lighthouses are more than aids to navigation and historic structures; they serve as reminders of the way coastal life was in a time when work afloat was essential to every community on the water. They looked to the sea for industry, commerce, and transportation. Light keepers may have been government employees but were integral with island life, a critical part of maritime enterprise.
What's in an old postcard? I picked up this one for the picture of the steamer Cape Ann, but found the back story even more intriguing. The Cape Ann was a steel steamer built in 1895, had an interesting career in service between Gloucester and Boston until 1917 when she was sold to French interests to be converted into an ocean going tug. The addressee on the card had an even longer career. Ambrose H. Wasgatt was born in Eden, Maine (now called Bar Harbor) in 1843, served as a private in the Maine first Artillery Company C during the Civil War, and was probably wounded. Preference was often given to wounded veterans; he became the lighthouse keeper on Egg Rock in Frenchman's Bay when the light station was newly constructed in 1875.
In 1885 he became the keeper at Prospect Harbor Light further down east, and retired in 1924. He and his wife, Della, had a family of seven children. Still don't know who Harold was; he didn't marry any of the daughters. He may have been an assistant keeper. Although the light station being on the mainland enjoyed a lot of summer visitors, this card was mailed in February, not the sort of weather enjoyed by out-of-staters.
The Prospect Harbor Light originally had a granite dwelling attached to the tower. A wooden structure replaced the original one in 1891. The site is now part of a Naval Station and is notable for its round wooden light tower which has been largely restored.
And in a further connection, Capt. Henry Godfrey of the Cape Ann had been the light keeper at West Quoddy Head, Maine, last of several generations of Godfreys who had tended that light most of the years between 1813 and 1889. I was in the Coast Guard with Bobby Brann, Jr., an engineman who had been posted to West Quoddy Head in 1966-67. Small world; we'll try to provide pictures of Egg Rock and Prospect Harbor Lights taken from the American Eagle this season.
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