Bald Eagle on Egg Rock Lighthouse
by Jack Schultz
Title
Bald Eagle on Egg Rock Lighthouse
Artist
Jack Schultz
Medium
Photograph
Description
Egg Rock, a tiny island in Frenchman Bay, was first mentioned by that name in the American Neptune before the American Revolution. The rocky outpost, which was also known for a time as Gull Island, was named for the proliferation of seabirds’ nests and eggs found there.
Because of the growing seasonal ferry traffic to Bar Harbor, Congress appropriated $15,000 for a light station on Egg Rock in June 1874. There was some delay in procuring title to the island, and the station was constructed during the following year. The 1875 annual report of the Lighthouse Board mentioned the difficulty in landing materials at the exposed location.
The lighthouse went into service on November 1, 1875. It consisted of a short, square brick tower on the center of a one-story wooden keeper’s dwelling. The lantern originally held a fifth-order Fresnel lens showing a fixed red light.
The first keeper, Ambrose H. Wasgatt, a Bar Harbor native who was wounded twice in the Civil War, remained at the station for a decade. He experienced a major storm less than five months after the light went into service.
On March 25, 1876, a great gale flooded the dwelling and smashed its windows, moved the fog bell tower 30 feet, and swept away a fuel shed. Wasgatt noted in the station’s log that day that the island was “swept of anything movable.” It was nearly a week before supplies arrived at the station from Bar Harbor. Less than a year later, on January 11, 1877, Wasgatt wrote in the log that another storm “washed down” the bell tower and sent the seas “striking heavy” against the dwelling.
After similar damage in a December 1887 storm, a new skeletal bell tower was securely bolted to the rock. Keeper Amaziah R. Small described the 1887 gale: “Sea breaking all over the Rock, breaking the side of Bell Tower. . . . Out house and hen house and in fact everything moveable was washed away.”
Uploaded
October 12th, 2012
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