bobby sager lighthouse

I have been hear 13 years and 4 months 28 days and never see such a time before. After a year on the island, Keeper Hanna wrote the following threat: unless the Government provides for me and my family as agreed, I shall on the first day of April leave this place. Hannas request was forwarded to Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin with the following notation, it has been difficult to get anyone who would consent to accept the appointment as keeper for the compensation allowed. At 133-feet-tall, the new Boon Island Lighthouse, built of granite quarried in Biddeford and lined with brick, was and is the tallest in New England. I get the lighthouse obsession from both sides. Their website is full of Black Hawk helicopters and former cop cars. Approximate Weight of Assembled Lens (lbs.) Beacons - Bobby Sager Email Address: See available information. Henry David Thoreau described passing Minots Ledge Lighthouse in 1849: Keeper Williams was inside the tower worrying about what he and his boys could enjoy the next day, when suddenly there was a crash on the parapet deck. In 2013, the Kittery Historical and Naval Museum announced it was having difficulty paying the premium on the $800,000 insurance policy for the Boon Island lens. Rick Friedman/Sager Family Found Stay up-to-date with important news developments, delivered right to your inbox.. Keepers at Boon Island occasionally assisted mariners who found themselves in dire circumstances near the station. The new lights characteristic was fixed white, and a fog bell mounted on the gallery encircling the lantern room, was tolled once every thirty seconds as needed. One of the first lighthouses that he built of granite was the Saddleback Ledge Lighthouse, in 1837. When there are no takers in this phase, private owners like Waller go to bid on lighthouses through public auctions. Plus: lighthouses where you can spend the night. For the Graves lighthouse, Waller dove in again, pinching pennies. People named Bobby Sager. Boon Island Light sold for second time, Paul Briand. Minots was constructed to replace an earlier light, which was swept away in a storm. It was above being a captain of a ship, because you were the guardian of all the ships, he adds. See list below of other lighthouses that allow tours and lodging. South Africa. That summer, they posted a notice of availability. I dont have to fill in all the boxes before I decide to do something, for better or worse.. The same guy who purchases a meteorite that fell from the heavens in Ghana and places it in a little red wagon in his living quarters. Waller has been coming here from his home in Malden at least twice a month for eight years. He and his wife pulled their two children out of school and traveled the world. Therefore on these considerations I feel myself inadequate to the task, unless government will supply me with some of the above stated articles.. Outside's long reads email newsletter features our strongest writing, most ambitious reporting, and award-winning storytelling about the outdoors. The tower itself and its fourteen windows, which were sealed shut, were leaky. At our return to the house found all our water gone and all my turnips and cabage washt away and my walls all Down. In 2014, Polaroid Chairman "Bobby" Sager won the bid for Minot's Ledge . Sager has been taking photos of youngsters from war-torn countries for several years now, as he and his family have traveled the world practicing what he calls "eyeball-to-eyeball philanthropy.". Early view of lighthouse and stone dwelling, Boon Island from sea note bell atop oil house, Aerial view showing two dwellings and boathouse, Boon Island Lighthouse and dwellings in 1944. I ask Waller if he ever imagines himself as one of the lightkeepers. Two water tanks, weighing about four tons each, were lifted off their granite foundations and carried a distance of seventy-five feet to the northeast end of the island and totally wrecked. When a whale went by, spouting, Id make believe that was my submarine. And Harold Hutchins daughter Shirley Kelley said: As a kid, it was my idea of Paradise! If you apply too much logic to itlook at the cost, the resale, and the amount of workit doesnt make sense, says Waller. Florence related a similar experience had by Keeper Harold Hutchins. In May 2000, Boon Island Lighthouse, from which a flashing white light, visible for nineteen nautical miles, is emitted every five seconds, was leased to the American Lighthouse Foundation. He can be reached at, the government had auctioned it off in 2014. Head: Benjamin Wane (1811), David Oliver (1811 1812), Thomas Hanna (1812 1816), Eliphalet Grover (1816 1839), Joseph P. Junkins (1839 1840), Mark Dennet (1840 1841), John S. Thompson (1841 1843), John Kennard (1843 1844), Isidore S. Thompson (1844), John Kennard (1844 1846), Nathaniel Baker (1846 1849), John S. Thompson (1849 1853), Hiram Tobey (1853), Caleb L. Goold (1853 1854), George Bowden (1854 1855), Josiah Tobey (1855 1859), Nathaniel Baker (1859), Joseph H. Hart (1859 1861), George B. Wallace (1861), Benjamin Bridges (1861 1864), R.C. Christopher Sager, Age 41. aka Chris Sager. Hanna soon realized the sum was insufficient and requested $450 annually. Of course placement of the granite blocks was conducted only at low tide when the sea was calm; even so, many times construction workers were swept off the rocks by the waves. Hes rechinked the granite blocks to make it watertight, and put in running water and electricity. It takes an extra level of patience to piece together 594 handmade glass prisms from Chicago and Australia, dating back 100 years, to form a two-ton incandescent oil-vapor Fresnel lens almost identical to the original now sitting in the Smithsonian, and once one of the brightest in history at 375,000 candlepower. There were two Coast Guard keepers on the island when the storm hit, tossing boulders across the island. The valley is getting smaller as the ocean is getting closer. It lets the federal government give away lighthouses to qualifying local governments, non-profits, or community development organizations. Sometimes nothing makes them happy. In those days, some workers even signed contracts to prevent lobster from being fed to them too frequently. Bobby has created an easy way for those that would like to make a difference and a way for anyone to send a Hope Soccer Ball to underprivileged children. In June 2007, Coast Guard Maritime Safety and Security Team divers were transported to the waters near Minots Ledge Lighthouse aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Abbie Burgess. Bobby Sager - Chairman - Sager Family Foundation | LinkedIn After explaining exactly how the lighthouse was constructed, Swift concluded by justifying the choice of a pile lighthouse instead of a stone lighthouse: Time didnt wait long to rule on the matter. The Late Gale at Minots Rock Light, John W. Bennett, 1851. Exactly 40 feet overhead, like something from a dizzying Escher painting, is the maroon door to his second home, Graves Light Station. Graves Light, a historic lighthouse in Boston Harbor, is privately owned by David Waller and a partner, Bobby Sager, and under renovation to preserve it. We walk the fresh pale planks, turn around, and I see it why Waller would throw down the most moneyjust shy of a million dollarsever spent privately on a lighthouse. That would be his last raise, even though he stayed on for twenty-three more years. 4 Among other things, the lighthouse needs to be repointed and sealed up. A Notice of Availability, dated June 30, 2009, announced that Minots Ledge Lighthouse, deemed excess by the Coast Guard, was being offered at no cost to eligible entities, including federal, state, and local agencies, non-profit corporations, and educational organizations under the provisions of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. In December 2014, just months after acquiring the lighthouse, Girard sold the property to Boon Island LLC for $119,673. The reasoning was that the legs would offer almost no resistance to the wind and water. My mom did her architecture school thesis on lighthouses. Captain William H. Swift, an engineer in the U.S. Topographical Department, knew that it would be terribly expensive if not impossible to build a traditional solid cylinder that could survive full exposure to the ocean. You have to be pretty creative to live in an offshore lighthouse in the first place. Once during a storm, Florence heard her daughters shrieks. Only three months into his tenure as keeper, sitting in the living quarters atop the tower and supposedly out of reach of the waves, Isaac Dunham wrote The wind E. blowing very hard with an ugly sea which makes the light reel like a Drunken ManI hope God will in mercy still the raging seaor we must perishGod only knows what the end will be. By October 1850, Dunham quit, and John Bennett took his place, only to despair soon afterwards at his perilous situation in storms. Sager grew up in Malden, on the North Shore of Massachusetts, so maybe he just has that same nostalgia-fueled fascination. Minots future is still up in the air. A keeper would clean the light, and anything short of meticulous was unforgivable. No one bit on the original bid, and this June, they put it up again for $10,000. Keeper Williams and his assistants saved the six crewmembers, though afterward, the keepers and the crew were almost equally incapacitated by exposure. In 1919, Keeper Harry Smith and his two assistants rescued seven men aboard the schooner Hazel E. Ritcey, after it struck a rock and sank near the island. Its 36 degrees out, and the sweeping waves splashing up make the scene even more surreal. Until construction of the new dwelling was completed in 1905, animosity festered, as was noted in a letter by First Assistant Charles W. Torry, charging the Keeper of that station with neglect of duty, in not properly keeping an account of oil expended at the station, and a waste of the Government property in throwing surplus oil away in order to make his account of expenditures tally. Apparently, no disciplinary action was taken against Keeper Williams; but Torry soon found himself unemployed. The living quarters were also damaged, and boulders were swept onto the island. Bobby Sager Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images On January 26, 1839, the Grovers were forced to retreat to the Light House as a place of safety as the sea broke into the porch, unhung the doors and forced the door of the dwelling house and entered the lower rooms, causing considerable damage. The Grovers had faced a similar situation on October 31, 1829 as recorded in the keepers logbook. To have the waves, like a pack of hungry wolves, eyeing you always, night and day, and from time to time making a spring at you, almost sure to have you at last.. Rocks weighing fifteen tons or more were moved twenty feet, and two outbuildings were swept away. See Sarah Sager's age, phone number, house address, email address, social media accounts, public records, and check for criminal records on Spokeo. Since purchasing the lighthouse at a government auction seven years ago, Dave. The General Services Administration, which likes to call itself The Nations Landlord, is in charge of selling off any federal property thats deemed irrelevant. Whaleback Lighthouse sits at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, Kittery, Maine; the Atlantic Ocean stretches away in the background. Great Lakes Lighthouses, Seacoasts, Islands, Sounds. The lights base, an almost invisible outcropping of rocks off Cohasset, Massachusetts, has plagued mariners for more years than the light has protected them. display: none; It was kind of redundant.. The identity of the new owner was soon revealed to be Bobby Sager, a Boston philanthropist and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Polaroid. Minots Ledge Lighthouse lost its resident keepers in 1947, when the light was electrified and automated. Think of making your bed thus in the crest of a breaker! On the third day of the expedition, remnants of iron beams, believed to be support legs for the fallen lighthouse, were located with the assistance of a remote-operated vehicle. They always say the best government is a benevolent king because his heart is in the right place, he says. Captain F.A. As the iron supports began to snap one by one, the bell was silenced, the beacon was extinguished, and the men were cast into the raging sea. Many link the name Boon Island to the wrecks of the trading vessel. Bobby Sager, chairman of Polaroid and founder of the Sager Family Traveling Foundation and Road Show, wrote to Assad's adviser Bouthaina Shaaban that international media distorted and. Boon Island Lighthouse, Maine at Lighthousefriends.com Fine. Saugerties Lighthouse on the Hudson River, in upstate New York, offers overnight accommodation. To find the money, he and his wife mortgaged their house, as did his mom, to help them out. In the case of the lens built for Minots Ledge, the number 143 was produced by eight flash panels that created three groups of flashes: the first showing one flash, the next four flashes, and the last three flashes. The inaccessibility of the station, especially during inclement weather, made the delivery of supplies difficult, and visiting the mainland sometimes impossible. The tragedy that earned the area its name happened in 1754, when a prominent Boston merchant named George Minot lost a valuable ship there; henceforth it was called Minots Ledge. The 2000 National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act was established to maintain these historic structures, saving many, including Graves. He was promoted to first assistant with a $20 increase in salary in 1886, and received another $10 in 1888, before being promoted that year to head keeper at $760 per annum. Property tax battle looms over Graves Light in Boston Harbor In 1816, keepers salaries varied from $150 per year at Plymouth Lighthouse to a well-deserved high at Boon Island of $400. Light Hearted ep 61 - U.S. Lighthouse Society News Great Lakes Lighthouses, Seacoasts, Islands, Sounds. I was scared out in that placeIt was an awful life., On August 20, 1932, a newspaper printed a letter about the life of a keeper at Boon Island. 3 south from Boston, to Route 228. First, a little background: Sager grew up in Malden, where he met and married his high school sweetheart. Second Assistant: Samuel Tobey (1855 1856), Josiah Tobey Jr. (1856 1859), John S. Baker (1859), Enos Gray (1859 1861), S. Tobey (1861 1864), George E. Bridges (1864 1865), Charles Ramsdell (1865 1868), Samuel R. McLorn (1868), Luther Amazeen (1868 1870), Nathan White, Jr. (1870 1874), Edwin J. Hobbs (1874 1876), David R. Grogan (1876 1878), George O. Leavitt (1878 1880), Paschal Fernald (1880 1881), Orrin M. Lamprey (1881 1885), William C. Williams (1885 1886), James Burke (1886 1888), Leonidas H. Sawyer (1888 1890), Charles W. Torry (1890), Walter S. Amee (1891 1893), William M. Brooks (1893), Alvah J. Toby (1893 1894), James Hawe (1894), Joseph A. Pruett (1894 1896), Charles S. Williams (1896 1897), Meshach M. Seaward (1897 1900), Merton E. Tolman (1900), Henry C. Neal (1900 1902), Frank L. Peabbles (1902), Leroy L. Myers (1902), James R. Faulkingham (1902 1903), William T. Stevens (1903 1904), Mitchell Blackwood (1905), William Henry Burns (1905 1907), Charles Whitten Allen (1907 1911), Fuller E. Larrabee (1912 1913), Charles A. Radley (1913), Albert Staples (1914 at least 1915), Roscoe M. Chandler (1916 1917), Harry M. Kelley (1917 1919), George E. Woodward (1919 1920), Arthur E. Ginn (at least 1921), Eugene L. Coleman (1923 1924), Myron L. Wilson (1924 1925), Andrew H. Kennedy (1925 1928), Fred C. Batty (1930), Frank M. Rumery (1930 ), Howard W. Gray (1932 1934), Hoyt P. Smith (1935 1936), Harry H. McClure (1936 1937), Henry S. Brown (1937 at least 1941), Calvin Dolby (1944 1945), Russell G. Carpenter (at least 1945), Clifford Gustavson (at least 1947), Charles Kendrick Capon (1951 1953), Harold L. Roberts (1956), Ron Schultz (1959). The local brewery makes a Minot Light, Thoreau wrote about it, and its been used in ads for Cape Cod Cranberries and American Tobacco cigarettes. After the events of 9/11 over a decade ago, without a primary need, government lighthouse maintenance funds were absorbed during the incorporation of the Coast Guard into homeland security, leaving enough only to maintain the automated lights and foghorns. [4] 6 Flannan Isles Lighthouse Scotland When we have high tides with big storms, we actually become two islands. The damage has limited public access in recent years, and at the bottom of the cliff below the lighthouse, rock-filled cages, used as protection from erosion until they were ripped out of the ground in 2018 by a storm, roll around like tumbleweedsmaking the future of Boston Light even more ominous. The lighthouse is a three-story cast iron square structure, 45 feet in height, that rests on a cylindrical tower. In 1901, the Lighthouse Board requested $10,000 for a powerful fog signal to replace the bell used on Boon Island. They were relied upon and honored. The ladder up from sea level, Graves Light, built in 1905. Wilson climbed up the iron ladder to light the lantern, but found it impossible to descend to the living quarters. Brides (1939 1940), Percy A. Evans (1940 1942). The second, David Oliver, accepted, but left without notice to work aboard a ship after the government refused his salary request. Girard was one of two bidders seriously pursuing Ram Island Ledge Lighthouse in 2010, but he dropped out of that auction after losing a coin toss to the eventual winner. At first, Boon Island was barely able to attract and retain a keeper. At the conclusion of the operation, a memorial plaque honoring Joseph Antoine and Joseph Wilson, the two keepers lost with the lighthouse, was lowered to the seafloor. He is the president and historian for the American Lighthouse Foundation and founder of Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses, and he has lectured and narrated cruises throughout the Northeast and in other regions. The Dalai Lama, Sting, and Bobby Sager at Sager's home in Boston in 2012. When John Morris was in charge of Boon Island Lighthouse in December 1945, a similar storm struck the island. The act sets a high bar for ongoing and pricey preservation and education. Some time around 1a.m. As a strong wind was blowing offshore, the men decided to continue to the tower rather than turn back, but they were swept past the lighthouse and out to sea. Sarah Sager, Santa Clarita, CA (91350) - Spokeo Think not that I will ever flinch from my post, though the waves should gain the mastery for which they are so incessantly striving. I dont know how far up the solid water comes. He is also the producer and host of the U.S. Lighthouse Society podcast, "Light Hearted." He can be emailed at Jeremy@uslhs.org 12,800 The other occupants of the island at the time were Head Keeper Williams and his wife, and S. H. Sawyer, who was filling in for Assistant Keeper Seaward, who was ashore taking care of his wife. I was thinking of that recently as I sat on a South Shore beach, listening to excitement rise in Joe Castigliones radio voice as a home-team fly ball cleared the bullpen wall at Fenway. The U.S. General Services Administration, which is essentially the real estate arm of the government, was tasked with getting rid of it. Lighthouse. The message: I dont do charity. Pier or Breakwater Lights in Harbors. 3 We went all in, he says. The illuminating apparatus was changed in 1885 to burn mineral oil instead of lard oil, and then in 1894, a new second-order Fresnel lens was installed atop the lighthouse. We have come to Graves Light Station on a good day. High above them, Minot Lights signature 1-4-3 beacon will spread its simple message across the sea: I love you. Hes arguably made it better. Past Addresses: See available information. The 59-foot Cape Blanco Lighthouse, built in 1870 and the oldest lighthouse still standing in Oregon, offers tours into the workroom only and allows visitors onto the grounds. William H. Swift, the builder of the lighthouse, felt compelled to respond to the published reports with a letter to the editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser. Vessels mostly use satellite, GPS, and radar to dodge rocks, avoid the bottom of the ocean or bay, and dock safely in a harbor, even if someespecially small boatsstill rely on lighthouses as visual aids, like buoys. Eva Philbricks father was an assistant keeper on Boon Island from 1913 to 1917. The Coast Guard has already divested the vast majority of offshore lighthouses, says DEntremont. The new owner is Bobby Sager, a lighthouse enthusiast and philanthropist with enough assets to fund a thorough restoration of the tower. Captain Sumner H. Cobbett and some of his crew from the North Scituate Coast Guard Station set off in a rowboat in pursuit of the leaky dory and were finally able to rescue the men, who were exhausted and suffering badly from exposure. Rwanda. Undaunted, Captain Alexander began anew. When no interested party was found to assume ownership, Minots Ledge Lighthouse was placed on the auction block on June 25, 2014. Breakwaters, River Lights, Channel, Small Islands in Sounds. Pigeon Point Lighthouse, Pescadero, California. The lighthouse is privately owned. Sitting at a table just steps away from where Hillary Clinton recently appeared at a fundraiser, Sager said hes driven by a counterintuitive impulse: a kind of altruistic selfishness. Im not nearly so optimistic about the ones that are remote and inaccessible to the public, many of which will eventually face demolition by neglect., Many land-based lighthouses and the soil around them are contaminated with lead paint that must be remediated before someone saves them. The Graves project may be the most elaborate and celebrated lighthouse restoration in history. I sincerely hope Sally will play a role in its next chapter, says Waller of his longtime neighbor. The towers powerful second-order Fresnel lens, produced in France by Sautter et Compagnie, went into service on January 1, 1855. The GSA says theyre a symbol of the strength and longevity of our countrys trading practices and communal spirit. In less governmenty terms theyre markers of a kind of simplicity and purposeful adventure, which is now all but obsolete. The US General Services Administration put the lighthouse up for auction in 2014. }Customer Service. Icy Minot Ledge Lighthouse. Located at 61-1/2 Water Street near Independent Street in downtown Newburyport, about 0.4 mile (650 m) east of US 1. One exception is the countrys actual last official lightkeeper still working for the Coast Guard: Her name is Sally Snowman, and her job and second home, Boston Light, are in jeopardy. Not wanting to see the lens returned to the Coast Guard, the Greater York Region Chamber of Commerce held a raffle that generated $2,000, enough to pay the premium for two years. Indeed life inside the lighthouse did prove precarious. Morris, his wife, their two-year-old son, and two coastguardsmen sought refuge in a small, sturdy structure, and a helicopter was dispatched to drop food to them after the waves subsided. The worst storm that struck the island during Keeper Williams lengthy tenure began on January 31, 1898 and was described by Williams in a letter to The Portsmouth Herald. Crossing back over the bridge, we make our way up: five spiral clangy metal flights; past a bunk room, the keepers quarters, and a third-floor kitchen; and to the lantern room.