Cypress Communications
219 pages
A tradition of excellence, upheld
The team of J. Candace Clifford and her mother, Mary Louise Clifford, has contributed a third volume to their outstanding efforts to capture the history of our nation’s lighthouses. Their first two books, Women Who Kept the Lights: An Illustrated History of Female Lighthouse Keepers (1993) and Nineteenth-Century Lights: Historic Images of American Lighthouses (2000) are both filled with a wealth of historic photos and drawings, and interesting accounts of the lighthouses and their keepers, all gleaned from primary sources. Their latest book, Maine Lighthouses: Documentation of Their Past is fully in the tradition of the excellence of their previous work.
Candace is the principal researcher on the team and her mother, Mary Louise, brings to the project a writing talent honed from 12 other titles. Staff members at the National Archives have told this reviewer that Candace is more knowledgeable about the archives’ holdings than most of the staff there. She is always most generous with help to others struggling with lighthouse research. The result of this collaborative effort is an outstanding volume on Maine lighthouse history, covering the period from 1789 when the federal government assumed responsibility for all lighthouses in the U.S. to the start of the U. S. Coast Guard period in 1939.
In the foreword the authors have described their approach of seeking out the primary sources to document the lighthouse histories. These letters from lighthouse keepers, customs collectors who administered lighthouses locally, and Treasury Department officials in Washington, D. C., all handwritten prior to the 1870s, provide rich insight into why the lighthouses were built, how they were built, how they were staffed with keepers and how they were maintained over the years. After 1852 under the U.S. Light-House Board and later under the U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses’ more formal printed reports, logs and journals and other correspondence and documents add to the fabric of the history of a lighthouse, its keepers and the Lighthouse Service as a whole. These primary sources are complemented by a rich collection of early lighthouse drawings and photographs, which draw on the resources of the U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office, The National Archives and local Maine sources.
The body of the book is divided into five major parts; one, two, three and five are generally laid out chronologically. Each part begins with an introduction to set the stage for lighthouse administration, construction and technology during that period, and filled with historical vignettes from various lighthouses built around extensive quotations from the various primary sources. These give a very personal dimension to what can otherwise be dry history. An occasional sidebar provides additional, very pertinent information. Each part ends with a comprehensive set of endnotes. These notes make the parts them more convenient and likely to be referred to.
The forth part covers the keepers; “Who They Were, How They Lived, What They Said.” This part is a gem, filled with stories that give a real sense of the life of the keeper and his family at the light station. Those that muse on the “romantic” life of the lighthouse keeper would do well to read this part and discover the truth. It was a very hard, lonely, dangerous and not-too-well compensated job.
An epilogue gives the reader some insight onto the present state of Maine lighthouses, now all automated and many under the care of new stewards, such as other federal agencies, the State of Maine, towns and private nonprofit organizations. The new stewards are working diligently to preserve these symbols of Maine’s and the nation’s maritime heritage. The Cliffords’ book tells why this is so important, even though most Maine lighthouses, while still active aids to navigation, are relegated to secondary importance with the advent of modern electronic navigation systems.
An Appendix gives a summary of information on each Maine lighthouse that had a resident keeper. This data is based on the National Park Service’s Inventory of Historic Light Stations, which Candace Clifford helped develop in 1994.
Maine Lighthouses: Documentation of Their Past is the standard by which future regional lighthouse history books will be judged. Any readers who would like to meet Candace and Mary Louise will be able to do so at a book signing at the new Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland on Tuesday, July 12.
Ted Panayotoff is the historian for The Friends of the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse.