Episodes

Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse The Annapolis Maritime Museum and Park, or AMM, is devoted to teaching people about the area’s maritime heritage and Chesapeake Bay ecology through exhibits, programs, and events. The museum is also the starting point for public tours of Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, a national historic landmark. Interviewed in this episode are Alice Estrada, the president and CEO of the Annapolis Maritime Museum and Park, and Bill Cogar, who is the curator of collections. Aboard ...

Ida Lewis This is an edited version of an interview first heard in episode 48 in February 2020. The guest is author Lenore Skomal. Ida Lewis was possibly the most famous lighthouse keeper in American history. She was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1842. She became the official keeper at Lime Rock in Newport Harbor in 1879 and held the position for 32 years. Officially, Ida Lewis is credited with 18 lives saved. She became a celebrated national heroine. Writer Lenore Skomal is the winner of ...

Sea Girt Lighthouse Before Sea Girt Light was established in 1896, there was a long stretch of more than 38 miles with no lighthouses on the New Jersey coast from the Navesink Twin Lights south to Barnegat Light. In addition to helping coastal maritime traffic, the lighthouse served to aid mariners entering Sea Girt Inlet and Wreck Pond. The design of Sea Girt Lighthouse is unusual for the New Jersey coast. It consists of a square, red brick tower rising 44 feet and attached to a keeper’s dwelli...

Terry Rowden This is an edited version of an interview that originally appeared in Light Hearted episode 25 in September 2019. Terry Rowden, a native of Michigan, served as a keeper at Little River Light Station in Cutler, Maine, for the U.S. Coast Guard from 1968 to 1970. Almost four decades later, when the Friends of Little River Lighthouse was founded as a chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation, Terry became a volunteer. For ten years, he has been the resident caretaker on the island. ...

Cape May Lighthouse, New Jersey. USLHS photo by James Hill. Cape May Lighthouse stands at the southern tip of the state of New Jersey, on the north side of the entrance to Delaware Bay. The first lighthouse on the site was built in 1823, and the second in 1847. The locations of the first two lighthouses are now underwater. The extant 157-foot brick lighthouse began service in 1859. The property is owned by the State of New Jersey and leased to the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities...

This installment features highlights from an interview that was originally recorded in March 2019. Matt Rosenberg is a high school English teacher and also the seasonal caretaker and modern day keeper of the famous Cape Neddick Light Station in York, better known as the Nubble Light. Nubble Light Station, York, Maine The light station is owned by the Town of York and is managed by the town’s Parks and Recreation department. Around 500,000 thousand people each year come to Sohier Park in York to...

Drum Point Lighthouse Cove Point Lighthouse The exhibits at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland, focus on maritime heritage and the natural history of the Chesapeake Bay. On the museum grounds is Drum Point Lighthouse, a cottage-style screw-pile structure that was originally located on the Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Patuxent River. The lighthouse was moved to its new home at the museum in 1975. The museum is also the steward for Cove Point Lighthouse, several miles to the ...

This is an edited version of an interview first recorded in 2019 and appearing in Light Hearted episode 26. Eric Jay Dolin is the author of 14 books and dozens of articles on American history. The book that’s discussed in this interview is the acclaimed Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse, published in 2016. C. Douglas Kroll, in Sea History Magazine, wrote of Brilliant Beacons: “A must-read for anyone interested in lighthouses or America’s maritime history…This history of Am...

Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse Located in the inner harbor of Baltimore, Maryland, Historic Ships IN Baltimore celebrates more than 200 years of Maryland’s naval and maritime history. The site’s attractions include the sloop-of-war Constellation, the last sail-only warship designed and built by the United States Navy. Among the other highlights are the USS Torsk, a Navy submarine commissioned in 1944, and the 1936 U.S. Coast Guard Cutter 37. Lightship Chesapeake For lighthouse and lightship buffs ...

Borden Flats Lighthouse in Fall River, Massachusetts, was bought in 2011 by Nick Korstad under the guidelines of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, and Nick fixed it up and opened it up to the public for overnight stays. In 2018, it was bought by Kevin Ferias, who has continued to operate it as a very successful B&B. It’s now for sale, which is discussed in this interview. East Point Lighthouse began service in 1849 and is the second oldest lighthouse in New Jersey. The Maurice ...

Sandy Hook Light Station, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The lighthouse that stands at the end of the long spit of land known as Sandy Hook, on the approach to New York Harbor, began service in 1764, making it the oldest standing lighthouse tower in the United States. The octagonal rubblestone tower stands 103 feet tall. Tom Hoffman The light remains active, with the Fresnel lens still in place. Ownership was transferred to the National Park Service in 1996, and the lighthouse is now part of the ...

Horton Point Lighthouse, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont Horton Point Lighthouse is on the north side of eastern Long Island, New York, in the area known as the North Fork. The granite and brick building consists of a two floor keeper’s dwelling attached to a square, 59-foot-tall lighthouse tower. The building was nearly demolished after World War II, but the Southold Historical Society and the Southold Park District commission stepped in to save it. Today, the lighthouse is a popular tourist attrac...

Dianne Ballon Located in the historic shipbuilding city of Bath, Maine, the Maine Maritime Museum includes exhibits dedicated to the past, present, and future of Maine’s storied waterways. For lighthouse buffs, there’s an exhibit called “Into the Lantern: A Lighthouse Experience.” Opening this past February, the exhibit “Lost and Found: Sounds of the Maine Coast” is a collaboration between sound artist Dianne Ballon and the Maine Maritime Museum. Dianne Ballon (left) and Catherine Cyr recording...

Sally and Wayne Wheeler This is part two of a two part interview with Wayne and Sally Wheeler, recorded in Washington state in March 2024. Wayne is a former Coast Guard officer who founded the U.S. Lighthouse Society in San Francisco in 1984, and he is now the president emeritus of the Society. The idea for the formation of the Society blossomed when Wayne became the chief of the Aids to Navigation Branch for northern California. Most of the inquiries the Coast Guard’s public affairs staff was ...

Wayne Wheeler in 1983 The name Wayne Wheeler has become synonymous with lighthouse preservation and education. He’s one of the pioneers of the lighthouse preservation movement and one of the foremost experts on lighthouse history in the U.S. A 1962 graduate of Syracuse University, Wayne spent 23 years in the Coast Guard in the aids to navigation field. In the early 1980s, when he was the chief of the Coast Guard’s aids to navigation branch in northern California, questions involving lighthouses ...

Edward Peppitt is the southeast England representative for the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, or ALK, and he produces and hosts a podcast called Keeping Watch. He’s also a fundraising ambassador for Shift MS, a charity aimed at keeping multiple sclerosis sufferers as active as possible. Ed Peppitt at Happisburgh Lighthouse in England. Ed has written a new book called The Beacon Bike. It tells the incredible story of his 3,500-mile bicycle ride to explore the lighthouses around the coast of ...

Gene Davis with a fourth-order Fresnel lens from New Dungeness Lighthouse, Washington. The Coast Guard Museum Northwest, located on an active Coast Guard base on the waterfront in Seattle, Washington, opened in 1976. The museum serves as a showcase for some of the Coast Guard’s most important stories, lessons, and accomplishments, and the museum’s extensive archives are available to researchers. Inside the Coast Guard Museum Northwest. The guest in this episode, Gene Davis, was the planning of...

Tony Ashdon (left) with Light Hearted host Jeremy D’Entremont. Photo by John Lopez The guest in this episode, Tony Ashdon, spent 22 years in the Coast Guard including some time as a lighthouse keeper. Tony spent some years on an aids to navigation team that serviced lighthouses and other aids in District One, in the northeastern U.S. He was also part of an inspection team for a while. He spent a few years as the keeper of the old Deer Island Light in Boston Harbor, a spark plug type lighthouse ...

The podcast “The Lighthouse Lowdown” was launched in 2022 by two residents of Kansas City, Missouri, Emily Straight and Vince Bailey. To date they have published almost 50 episodes, covering history, spooky stories, and all the “things that make lighthouses cooler than your average tower.” Emily Straight and Vince Bailey at Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse in North Carolina Emily is a nautical-loving, lighthouse enthusiast who is excited to spread the word of wicked sea sentinel stories. She is a ch...

Harbor Beach Lighthouse, Michigan (USLHS archives) The Michigan Lighthouse Alliance (MLA), founded in 2003, encompasses more than 50 preservation groups and lighthouse stakeholders from around the state of Michigan. The purpose of the Alliance is to advocate for the preservation of the historic aids to navigation on the Great Lakes. The MLA holds a conference every two years, and this year’s will be April 21st to 23rd in Port Huron, Michigan. Buzz Hoerr Our guest in this episode, Buzz Hoerr, is...

This is an edited version of an interview that was featured in Light Hearted episode 44 in January 2020. Joseph Smith has been a theatrical performer based in New York City since 1995. His passion is to create excitement and curiosity about history by giving voice to stories that celebrate the human spirit. He has written and performed a portrayal of Augustin Fresnel, the inventor of the Fresnel lens that revolutionized lighthouse lighting. It is a portrayal of one man’s fascination with “findi...

Hereford Inlet Lighthouse (courtesy photo) Hereford Inlet, a break in the barrier islands along the east side of Cape May, New Jersey, was used by whalers as far back as the 17th century. Shifting sands and a strong current made the inlet dangerous for mariners. As coastal shipping and the use of the inlet increased, funds for a lighthouse were appropriated in 1872. A wood frame combined keeper’s house and lighthouse began service in 1874. The beautiful Victorian design was the work of the Light...

We’ve produced almost 300 episodes of the podcast Light Hearted in the past five years. Most of the interviews we’ve done have been a half hour to an hour. We realize that listening to an hour-long podcast is not something everyone wants to do, so we’re introducing something we call Light Hearted Lite. In this new series, some favorite interviews from the past five years have been edited down to around 10 to 20 minutes. We’ll still keep posting the longer episodes as well. For this first editio...

Dani and Guin doing what they love There are three segments in this episode. First, 11-year-old Guinevere Porter and her best friend Dani, Kentucky residents, talk about their visits to some beautiful and very tall lighthouses in Georgia, Florida, and elsewhere. As they correctly point out, we need kids to get interested in lighthouses. They will be the ones caring for them in the future, and also, visiting and climbing them is fun! A U.S. Lighthouse Service Chelsea clock In the second segment,...