The Minot Ledge Lighthouse

My father lost his life on that lighthouse. I stare at it every day and my loathing of it – and of the engineers who had built when died – grows. It consumes me. His death left my mother and me in penury. We live hand to mouth, doing whatever we can to get by.

That damned structure had already been swept twice from the rock ledge on which it was being built by storms in the summer of 1847. Clearly, the construction was wanting. Work recommenced in 1848 with the placement of nine iron piles drilled into the rock and braces between them at intervals, except at the lower part of the tower. A cast-iron spider, or capping, was secured to the top of this piling. There was no stone surround, just open pilings and braces. The keeper’s quarters were erected on top of this, and then a 16-sided lantern room at the very top.

I talked to both the first keeper of the light, Isaac Dunham, and the second, Captain John Bennet, who both believe the light was not safe and had asked for it to be strengthened. Nothing was done.  In March of 1851, a terrible storm set the tower to pitching and swaying and after that the braces were tightened. Early during yet another storm in April, Captain Bennett departed for the mainland leaving my father and another man to keep the bell ringing and the lamps burning. As the winds blew and the waves pounded, the central support snapped so only an outside pilings held up the lantern tower. Then the pilings broke and the tower bent over, and the huge tower plunged into the raging sea.

My father’s body washed up on Nantasket beach the next day.

A new, stone tower took five years to build, and keepers finally lit the light in August of 1860.

During the intervening years, my mother and I sought recompense from the builders, the engineers, the local government, and then the federal government. She and my father, being Portuguese, apparently weren’t worth listening to. She died in my arms of consumption a few months ago.

Today the sea is calm, and I’ve taken a row boat from Cohasset. I’m sorry I took it and I hope God will forgive me. It’s not a long row to the lighthouse, just a mile, and I manage the soft waves well. I tie the boat to the bottom of the ladder leading up to the door halfway up. Then I begin the climb, rung by rung, remembering with each step memories of my father – his smile when he swung me around, then throwing me in the air, the stories he told of Portugal after an evening meal of alheira de mirandela, a meal of Portuguese sausage and bread. We could never afford to make a meal like that after he died.

Finally, exhausted, I reach the door. The light keepers are probably awaiting me above. I turn and face the sea. I will join my father.

I selected this picture in response to a challenge from Dan Antion to find an interesting door and write a story about it .