Episodes

Joseph Smith as Augustin Fresnel at Montauk Lighthouse, New York, in 2018. Photo by Donna Dimino. Joseph Smith has been a theatrical performer based in New York City since 1995. He decided to take his love of acting and his love of history and to bring them together as a performing artist of living history. His passion is to create excitement and curiosity about history by giving voice to stories that celebrate the human spirit. Joseph Smith as Augustin Fresnel (Photo courtesy Of Leon Gurinsky,...

Fred Mikkelsen speaking at a symposium in Kittery, Maine, in 2016.. Frederick Mikkelsen was a Coast Guard light keeper at Conimicut Lighthouse in Rhode Island circa 1958 to 1961. The cast-iron “sparkplug” style lighthouse was built at the mouth of the Providence River in 1883. Conimicut was the one of the last lighthouses in the nation to be converted to electricity. The light was automated and the resident keepers were reassigned in 1963. On September 29, 2004, a ceremony was held to announce t...

East Point Lighthouse, U.S. Lighthouse Society archive East Point Lighthouse began service in September 1849. It’s a type of building known as a Cape Cod-style lighthouse, because a number of them were build on Cape Cod in the early 1800s. It consists of a lantern on the roof of a two-story keeper’s dwelling. The light was automated in 1911 with the use of an acetylene gas system. The light was darkened due to World War II, and it was subsequently discontinued. Then, in the 1950s, the property w...

Ernie DeRaps at Monhegan Lighthouse in 2007. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. This is a special edition of Light Hearted, featuring an extended interview with a former lighthouse keeper. Ernie DeRaps, a native Mainer, spent several years in the 1950s and ‘60s as a Coast Guard lighthouse keeper at four Maine lighthouses – Monhegan, Fort Point, Heron Neck, and Browns Head. After retirement he took up painting at the age of 80. Ernie is now in his early 90s, and he has completed portraits of all 6...

St. Marks Light Station in April 2018; U.S. Lighthouse Society photo by Jeff Gales. St. Marks is a small city on Florida’s gulf coast that’s part of the Tallahassee metropolitan area. It was founded by the Spanish in the 1600s. St. Marks became an important port of entry for the prosperous planting region of Middle Florida and South Georgia. A light station at St, Marks, Florida’s second, began service in 1831. The light was automated in 1960. In the year 2000, although the Fresnel lens remaine...

Don Terras, seen through the Fresnel lens in the Grosse Point Lighthouse. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Grosse Point Lighthouse, located at the southern end of Lake Michigan in Evanston, Illinois, was established in 1873 as the primary lighthouse marking the approach to Chicago. The lighthouse tower stands 113 feet tall and is constructed of Cream City brick encased in concrete. Still in use in the lantern is the original second-order Fresnel lens, manufactured by the Henry-Lepaute Company of Par...

Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, U.S. Lighthouse Society photo. Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse is probably the best-known lighthouse in Maryland, and it has many distinctions. It’s the last surviving screwpile lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay, and it’s one of the few lighthouses in the United States to be designated a National Historic Landmark. It’s weathered many storms but it’s now in need of help. John Potvin, left, presents a check for $20,000 for the preservation of Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse...

Sakonnet Point Lighthouse under restoration; photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Featured in this episode of Light Hearted is an interview with Scott Brown, president of Friends of Sakonnet Lighthouse. In 1882, Congress appropriated $20,000 for a lighthouse on Little Cormorant Rock at the entrance to Rhode Island’s Sakonnet River, near Little Compton. Sakonnet Point Lighthouse is a typical offshore “sparkplug” lighthouse of its period. The hurricanes of 1938 and 1954 damaged the structure, and the last...

Black Rock Harbor (Fayerweather Island) Lighthouse in September 2019. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. With its harbor at the mouth of the Pequonnock River, Bridgeport, Connecticut, became a center of trade, shipbuilding, and whaling. This episode of Light Hearted features two interviews related to the history of lighthouses in the vicinity of Bridgeport, with Bruce Williams and Phil Blagys. Bridgeport Harbor Lighthouse, destroyed by fire in 1953. National Archives image 26-LG-11-22. Captain’s Cove...

In 1864 the Elbow Reef Light Station went into service at Hope Town, a small settlement on Elbow Cay, one of the barrier islands off Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. The lens and rotation equipment, made in the early 1900s by Chance Brothers of Birmingham, England, is still in place today. The fuel is kerosene and the lens rotates on a mercury float. The keeper on duty has to wind up the weights that rotate the lens every two hours. Bahamian Lighthouses have been operated by the Port Departme...

The Flying Santa passes Boston Light, 1947 (Friends of Flying Santa) Capt. William Wincapaw (Friends of Flying Santa) The Flying Santa tradition goes back to December 25, 1929, when a floatplane pilot, William Wincapaw of Friendship, Maine, loaded his plane with a dozen packages. He flew to lighthouses around the Midcoast Maine area and dropped the modest gifts for lighthouse families as a way of showing his appreciation for the work they were doing. In the mid-1930s, Edward Rowe Snow, a school...

Jim Pope The jagged ledge known as Whaleback lurks menacingly on the northeast side of the entrance to the Piscataqua River. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the Piscataqua, was established as an important port for shipbuilding and trade before the American Revolution, and wrecks occurred around the ledges at mouth of the river with sickening regularity. The first lighthouse built on the ledge in 1830 was poorly built, but it lasted 42 years and has been cited as the first successful wave-swept lig...

Pigeon Point Light Station in April 2015. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Pigeon Point Lighthouse is tied for the tallest lighthouse tower in California at 115 feet, and it’s a favorite of sightseers and photographers. In September of this year, California State Parks officials announced that more than $9 million in state funding will go to the lighthouse for a major renovation that will take place over the next two years. Joe Rogers (courtesy of Joe Rogers, Pigeon Point Light Station State Histor...

This is a special edition of Light Hearted, devoted to a discussion of the movie The Lighthouse. The Lighthouse is directed and produced by Robert Eggers, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Max Eggers. Shot in black-and-white, the film follows two lighthouse keepers (portrayed by Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) who start to lose their sanity when a storm hits the remote island on which they are stationed. Although the exact setting and time period is not specified, it is apparently ...

Sam Reid at the Wood Island Lifesaving Station (courtesy of Sam Reid) This podcast is devoted to lighthouses and lightships, but today’s episode takes a slight detour to a related subject. The U.S. Lifesaving Service is sometimes referred to as a sister service to the Lighthouse Service. Wood Island is a small island about a quarter of a mile inside the mouth of the Piscataqua River in Kittery, Maine. In the late 1800s, a quarantine hospital was located on the island. A lifesaving station was b...

Lightship Chesapeake (U.S. Lighthouse Society photo) The first lightship in the United States was established at Chesapeake Bay in 1820, and the total number in the U.S. peaked in 1909 with 56 locations marked. From 1820 until 1983, there were 179 lightships built for the U.S. government. The official use of lightships for navigation in the United States ended in 1985. It’s estimated that there are 15 United States lightships left in existence today. Some are in museums and others are in private...

Sally Snowman in her early days in the Coast Guard Auxilary next to the second-order Fresnel lens at Boston Light. Photo by Jay Thomson. In part two of Jeremy D’Entremont’s two-part interview with Sally Snowman, keeper of Boston Light Station on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, Sally discusses Sammy the Boston Light Dog, subject of a children’s book that Sally wrote. Sally and Jeremy then share some of the ghost stories of America’s oldest light station. Boston Light Station, photo by J...

Sally Snowman (U.S. Postal Service photo by Dan Afzal) In 1989, the U.S. Coast Guard was planning for Boston Light on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor to be the last light station in the United States to be automated and destaffed. Instead, Congress mandated that the station be operated and staffed permanently by the Coast Guard. In 2003, the active duty Coast Guard personnel that had been assigned to the island were relocated to meet the needs of Homeland Security, and Sally Snowman was...

Point San Luis Lighthouse; photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Jack San Filippo In this episode, host Jeremy D’Entremont interviews Jack San Filippo, program manager for the Point San Luis Lighthouse on the central California coast. The Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers, a dedicated group of preservationists established in 1995, have brought the building back to life as one of the prettiest lighthouses on California’s central coast. Emily Maitland Fish (USLHS archives) Jeremy and co-host Cindy Johnso...

Burnt Coat Harbor Light Station, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont In this episode host Jeremy D’Entremont interviews Eric and Fran Chetwynd of the Swans Island Lighthouse Committee in Maine about the restoration of the 1872 Burnt Coat Harbor Lighthouse. The still-active automated light is still maintained by Coast Guard aids to navigation personnel, while the light station became the property of the Town of Swans Island in 1994. The second floor of the keeper’s house is available for rent. The island...

Eric Jay Dolin This episode is hosted by Jeremy D’Entremont and Cindy Johnson, and the featured interview is the award-winning maritime historian Eric Jay Dolin. Eric has written thirteen books and more than 60 articles on American history. His books include Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America, which won a number of awards and was selected as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Providence Journal; Fur, Fortune, and Empire: T...

Terry Rowden (photo by Jeremy D’Entremont) The featured interview in this episode is Terry Rowden, a native of Michigan. Bob Trapani, Jr., executive director of the American Lighthouse Foundation, joined Light Hearted host Jeremy D’Entremont to take part in this interview, which was recorded inside the keeper’s house at Little River Light Station. Terry Rowden served as a keeper at Little River Light Station in Cutler, Maine, for the U.S. Coast Guard from 1968 to 1970. It was then that he met a...

Tom Tag (left) accepting a Holland Award from American Lighthouse Council president Don Terras in 2011. The award is named for the historian Francis Ross Holland, Jr., who received the initial Distinguished Service Award that was to henceforth carry his name. The featured interview in this episode is with Tom Tag, who is the technical advisor for the U.S. Lighthouse Society. Tom’s passion for the history of lighthouse optics has made him the premier American authority on the history and technolo...

Chris Mills In this episode, host Jeremy D’Entremont interviews Canadian author and former lighthouse keeper Chris Mills. Chris is originally from Ontario, but he has lived most of his life in Nova Scotia. He built his first lighthouse when he was six years old, and landed his first three-week job as a relief assistant on Cross Island, near Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, at the age of 24. Between 1989 and 1997, Chris worked as a light keeper at 11 different light stations in three provinces on both the...