Lighthouse Design and Construction

During the nineteenth century the design of Great Lakes lights slowly evolved. Until 1870 the most common design was to build a keeper's dwelling and place the light either on the dwelling's roof or on a relatively small square tower attached to the dwelling. In the 1870's, in order to raise lights to a higher focal plane, conical brick towers, usually between eighty to one hundred feet in height, began to be constructed. In the 1890s steel framed towers began to replace the older generation of brick structures.

Between 1870 and 1910 engineers also began to face challenges created by building lights on isolated islands, reefs, and shoals that posed significant hazards to passing ships. These remote lights, usually built on underwater cribs, often replaced lightships, which was the only practical way originally available to warn sailors away from dangerous underwater rock formations. Ships, however, proved difficult to maintain. They could not be put in place until after the start of navigation season and often had to be removed before the season's end. Worse, regardless of the type of anchors used lightships could be blown off their expected location in severe storms, making them a potential liability in the worst weather when captains would depend on the charted location of these lights to measure their own ship's distance from dangerous rocks.

In 1925, 433 major lights existed on the lakes, ten lightships were still operational, 129 fog signals were maintained, as were about 1,000 buoys. Of these 1,771 navigational aids, in 1925 only about 160 stations had resident keepers. Even at this early date, the vast majority of navigational aids had been automated. By 1925 virtually all of the Great Lakes lighthouses that today exist had been constructed.

In 1925 ten lightships were stationed on the lakes, however twenty years later only one ship, the Huron, was still in service. The Huron would remained stationed off Corsica Shoals in Lake Huron until 1970, when this last active lightship on the lakes was decommissioned. Automation also slowly changed the face of navigational aids.

The keeper's residence, the tower, and all the other buildings and structures that were constructed at a light station existed to make visible and maintain one piece of equipment, the light itself.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, generally used a lighting system designed by Captain Winslow Lewis. The Lewis apparatus used a lightly silvered parabolic shaped reflector to amplify the light created by an Argand lamp that burned whale oil. In the field, the reflector in the Lewis apparatus warped very quickly and the lightly silvered surface was quickly abraded away by the tripoli powder, an abrasive of the day commonly used to clean brass, that was used to clean it. The result was that lights quickly grew dim and were of minimal help to sailors.

A far superior apparatus was introduced by French physicist Augustin Fresnel in 1822. The Fresnel lens used a series of glass prisms that surrounded the light source in a lenticular (double convex) configuration. Looking a bit like a beehive the result was a bright, single beam of light that was far superior to anything else available in its day. Fresnel lens were classified into six "orders" based on the focal length of the lens, however seven sizes of light actually existed because a "third and a half" order lens was made. The largest, a first order lens, had a focal length of 36 inches, a lens diameter of six feet, and stood nearly twelve feet tall. In contrast a sixth order lens had a focal length of only 5.9 inches, a diameter of under one foot and was about two feet in height. Fresnel

The French and English quickly adopted this new lens for their lights and demonstrated the Fresnel lens superiority. Pleasanton, however, who had become close friends with Lewis and relied on him for technical advice, stubbornly refused to install the Fresnel lens in American lighthouses despite its obvious superiority. In 1851 Pleasanton oversaw over 300 lights nationwide of which only three had Fresnel lens, each installed because of direct congressional action.

In 1852, the Fresnel lens became the preferred lighting apparatus in American lighthouses. By the late nineteenth century the Fresnel lens was in service throughout the Great Lakes. No first order lens was ever installed on the lakes, leaving the five second order lens placed on the lakes the brightest to be lit. By the 1920's Fresnel lens began to slowly give way to other forms of lighting apparatus, however as late as 1986 about one hundred Fresnel lens were still in use on the lakes.

A variety of different lights replaced the Fresnel lens. Lenses similar to those used on train engines were often used as range lights.

Self-contained lens-lantern lights, that relied on electricity for power, also were developed, and over time became the new standard light for light houses and other illuminated navigational aids.

About the time that the Fresnel lens first began to appear on the Great Lakes new lamps were also being placed in service to replace the Argand lamp. Several lamps were used but all shared similar designs, using from one to four concentric wicks, depending upon the amount of light desired. Because of the near extinction of the sperm whale, new fuels were also required. In the late 1850s the lights were fueled with colza (rapeseed) oil. This decision, however quickly proved impractical as the oil was manufactured from a rarely grown plant.

In the 1860s preheated lard oil had become the most common fuel used in lighthouses. Preheating, however, was difficult and required keepers to somehow keep the oil warm as it was brought from a stove to the light. The development of the incandescent oil vapor lamp allowed the board in 1877 to adopt kerosene as the primary fuel for lights, and by 1889 incandescent oil vapor lamps fueled by kerosene were used in almost all the lights on the Great Lakes.

As early as 1886 experiments were conducted using electricity. It would not be until the twentieth century, however, when the electric power distribution grid became widespread and reliable portable electric generators were readily available, that electricity would become the common way to illuminate lighthouses. In 1925 sixty-eight major and forty-five minor Great Lakes lights, or about one-quarter of the total in service, used electrical power. By the early 1940s virtually all the lights on the lakes were powered by electricity.

The use of electricity also greatly facilitated the automation of the lights. As early as 1916 a device was introduced that could automatically replace a burned-out incandescent light bulb. Coupled with electrically run timers that turned the lights on and off, it became increasingly possible to run lighthouses with only an occasional visit for servicing and maintenance. Automation eventually replaced keepers. Today all the lights on the lakes are maintained through occasional visits by Coast Guard maintenance crews.

United States Lighthouses

The construction and repair of all lighthouses is in charge of officers of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army, who are assigned to duty in the various lighthouse districts of the country. Officers of this corps are also assigned to the charge of various public works, such as the improvement of rivers and harbors, the construction of canals, or the survey of rivers and lakes, and often the same officer has charge of a lighthouse district and various river and harbor works.

Since the year 1860 and up to 1883, there has been appropriated to this district by Congress, for the erection of lighthouses, the establishment of fog-signals, and the repair and preservation of lighthouses and buildings connected therewith, the sum of $3,246,387, and of this amount $3,040,840 has been expended. A large sum of money was also expended prior to 1860.

The main portion of the work of construction is done by contract, and the yearly disbursements reach an average of $750,000.

The office of lighthouse engineer was established at Detroit in 1852. The following officers have been in charge: Lieutenant Lorenzo Sitgreaves, December 21, 1852, to December 11, 1856; Lieutenant William F. Smith, December 11, 1856, to November 3, 1859; Captain A. W. Whipple, November 3, 1859, to August 30, 1861 ; Captain George G. Meade, a short time in 1861 ; Lieutenant-Colonel James D. Graham, August 30, 1861, to April 20, 1864; Lieutenant-Colonel William F. Raynolds, April 20. 1864, to April 14, 1870; Major J. B. Wheeler, May 15, 1869, to March, 1870; Major O. M. Poe, April 14, 1870, to May 1, 1873 ; Major G. Weitzel, May 1, 1873, to May 1, 1878 ; Captain A. Mackenzie, May 1, 1878, to October 1, 1878 ; from February 18, 1874, to May 4, 1875, the work on Lake Michigan was in command of Major H. M. Robert; Major G. Weitzel, October 1, 1878, to August 1, 1882; Captain C. E. L. B. Davis, August 1, 1882, to

In 1880 there were fifteen lighthouse districts in the United States. Detroit was included in the eleventh district, which embraced all aids to navigation on the northern and northwestern lakes above Grassy Island Lighthouse, Detroit River; including Lakes St. Clair, Huron, Michigan, and Superior. It is the largest district in the country in the extent of its shore line, and the second largest in its number of lighthouses. In 1883 there were one hundred and thirty-nine lighthouses and nineteen steam fog-signals in operation within its limits. The district was one of the first twelve established under Act of August 31, 1852, by the Lighthouse Board. In May, 1869, it was divided by including Lake Michigan and Green Bay in a separate district, designated as the "Eleventh Lighthouse District (Lake Michigan)." The remainder was known as the "Eleventh Lighthouse District (except Lake Michigan)." In March, 1870, the two parts were reunited. In 1874 59 it was divided in the same manner as before, and in 1875 the districts were again consolidated.

Under early laws, the lighthouses were subject to supervision by the collector of customs, with an occasional inspection by a naval officer detailed for that purpose. The office of lighthouse inspector was created by Act of August 31, 1852, and since that date officers of the United States Navy have been assigned to the duty of inspection. It is their duty to see that lighthouses are kept in order and that keepers discharge their duties properly, and to attend to the furnishing of the supplies for the various stations. The inspector has charge of the placing of the nearly two hundred buoys on the shoal or dangerous places in the district. All of the larger and second-class buoys are brought to the supply depot at Detroit, at the close of every season, and replaced as soon as the ice will permit. The inspector is provided with a vessel of from three hundred to four hundred tons, named the Dahlia, with a crew of seven officers and fifteen workmen and sailors; and during the season goes from place to place, distributing supplies for the lighthouses and steam fog-signals. The main portion of the supplies are obtained from the depot of supplies at Staten Island, N. Y., where articles of a uniform and unvarying standard are kept. Such articles as oil, coal, soap, brooms, and other necessities for which there is no regulation standard, are bought at Detroit. A large supply and storage depot, owned by the Government, is located in the rear of the Marine Hospital. The office is located on the northeast corner of Griswold and Larned Streets, and the office force, in addition to the inspector and assistant inspector, consisted of one clerk, two copyists, and one messenger.

The first lighthouse built in the district was erected at Fort Gratiot in 1825. In 1883 there were five lighthouses and signal lights for the river, four of them provided by the United States, and one on Bois Blanc Island by the Canadian Government. The first lighthouse at the mouth of the river was provided for by Act of Congress of March 31, 1819.

The lights on the line of the river are located and described as follows: Windmill Point Lighthouse is at the foot of Lake St. Clair. It is a fixed white light, varied with red flashes, with an interval of one minute and thirty seconds between flashes. It is visible thirteen miles. The tower is fifty-one feet high from base to light, and was built in 1838 and rebuilt in 1875. Both it and the dwelling of the keeper are of brick, whitewashed. The light marks the entrance to the Detroit River, and is in the Eleventh Lighthouse District,

On October 18, 1880, the City Council voted to give a small piece of land on the southeast corner of Belle Isle to the Government, and during 1881 and 1882 a brick lighthouse was erected upon the site donated, at a cost of $16,000. It shows a light of the fourth order, with fixed red light; the lantern is forty-two feet above the level of the river, and was first lighted on May 15, 1882. It is visible twelve and three quarter miles.

The rest of the American lights on the river are in the Tenth Lighthouse District, and the next in order is the Grassy Island light. It is a steady white light, and is visible eleven and one half miles. The tower is twenty-nine feet high, and is placed on top of the frame dwelling of the keeper, which is built on piles and whitewashed. It was erected in 1849, rebuilt in 1857, and refitted in 1867.

The next lighthouse is named Mama Juda, and is on the shoals or island of the same name. The building is similar to that on Grassy Island, and the tower is thirty-four feet high. It was built in 1849 and rebuilt in 1866.

The Canadian light on Bois Blanc Island is a fixed white light, on a round stone lighthouse, on the south point of the island, and is fifty-six feet above high water. It was first lighted in 1837.

In 1883 there were six buoys marking shoals or obstructions in the river above the city. They were located between the wreck of the Nile, off the southwest end of Belle Isle, and the lighthouse on Windmill Point.

In the same year there were one hundred and thirteen principal and forty-four assistant lighthouse keepers in the Eleventh District, the principal keepers having from $500 to $800 per year, and the assistants from $390 to $500. Original appointments are made by the Secretary of the Treasury on nomination of the collector of customs. It is the duty of the lighthouse keepers to keep their lights burning from sunset to sunrise during the season of navigation, and, indeed, so long as vessels move in their locality, or whenever a light is needed or would be of probable service.

Up to January 1, 1881, the salaries of the keepers were paid by the collector of customs; since that date they have been paid by the lighthouse inspector. They amount to about $80,000 yearly. The other expenses amount to about $40,000.

In order to give notice of dangerous places in foggy weather there are three syren fog-trumpets and eleven ten-inch locomotive steam-whistles in the district; these are supervised by the keepers of lighthouses near by. A lighthouse with two ten-inch steam fog-signals is now in process of construction at the mouth of the Detroit River. It is located on the forty-second degree of latitude, is built in twenty-two feet of water, and is 35,600 feet distant from the Gibraltar lighthouse. It is estimated to cost $60,000, and will be known as the Detroit River Light. The tower will be fifty - two feet high, with a light of the fourth order.

The inspectors have been: 1854-1861, Commander G. H.Scott; 1861, Commander J. B. Marchand; 1862-1866, Commodore W. H. Gardner; 1866- 1869, Captain T. H. Stevens; 1869, Commodore J. P. McKinstry; 1870-1873, Commodore A. Murray; 1873-1876, Captain W. P. McCann ; 1876, Commander Fred Rodgers; 1876 to October, 1881, Commander I. N. Miller; October, 1881, to October, 1883, Commander J. C. Watson; October, 1883- Commander Francis A. Cook.