1000-Word excerpt from book Monhegan Island and Its Lighthouse by Thomas W. Taylor
On March 29, 1861, Joseph F. Humphrey succeeded Handley as Keeper of the Monhegan Island Lighthouse. Humphrey came with his wife, Betsy G. Morrow Humphrey, and eleven children (one daughter had died in the 1850's). In a little more than two weeks, the Civil War started at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Two of Keeper Humphrey's sons, Albert H. and Edward A., were just barely of military age, and before long, they enlisted in the cause of the Union. They were among fifteen people from Monhegan Island who served in the Civil War. In December, Keeper Humphrey became ill, and on December 5, 1861, he died. His widow, Betsy Humphrey, with the help of her son, Harrison, who later became the village blacksmith, and Assistant Keeper Elisha B. Davis, bravely took over the running of the lighthouse.
In April, 1862, as it did in a number of similar cases, the Light-House Board formally appointed Betsy Humphrey keeper of the Monhegan Island Lighthouse. The Board did this in recognition of the fact that Mrs. Humphrey had often assisted her husband with the running of the light and knew all of the idiosyncrasies of the light and also as a compensation for the loss of her husband. The Board would pay her $820 per year.
Throughout the Civil War, even when Confederate raiders sank several vessels just off-shore from Monhegan, Betsy Humphrey maintained her post and kept the lamp lighted. In 1864, Betsy Humphrey received bad news. Her son, Albert, who had enlisted at seventeen, had been killed on Southern soil. Son Edward was wounded and disabled and soon came home to help with the work at the lighthouse as much as he was able. Even when a money-strapped federal government reduced her salary to $700 per year, Betsy Humphrey would continue as keeper, serving for eighteen years before retiring in 1880.
During the Civil War years, the Yankee whaling fleet had been virtually destroyed, making sperm whale oil extremely expensive. In 1865, at the close of the war, lard oil supplanted the old whale oil at the Monhegan Island Lighthouse. Another consequence of the Civil War was that during it, appropriations for regular maintenance of the light stations could not be obtained, and thus, there was much deterioration of the nation's light Stations, including at the Monhegan Island Light Station. In the years immediately following the Civil War, a lot of deferred maintenance had be done to catch up.
The Annual Reports of the Light-House Board record the major improvements and other work which was done at the Monhegan Island Light Station after the war. Interestingly, the name was spelled "Manheigin" for most of the reports until the present spelling was adopted in 1875. The 1868 Report (which came out in September of that year) stated that during the year previous, a lot of work had been done at the light station. The exterior walls of the stone keeper's dwelling were repointed and painted. The roofs of the dwelling, the work room, and the covered walkway to the lighthouse were all shingled with wooden shakes. The interior plaster in the dwelling was repaired, new glass was set in place where needed, and the floors were painted. A cistern pump, fixtures for cooking and a new cooking stove was provided. The wood-shed floor was partially renewed.
In the lighthouse itself, a lantern stove was provided, the lens revolving machinery was cleaned, and the lamps were repaired. A new set of jack screws for the lens were made. These jack screws would allow the lens to be lifted slightly off the revolving carriage so that the chariot wheels and guide wheels that turned the lens could be removed to be cleaned and receive their weekly lubrication.
Work also went on at the fog signal station where the exterior of that dwelling was repainted, the bell tongue was rehung, the top of the bell tower was resheathed and painted, the deck was sheathed and painted, and water conductors (drains) were supplied. New doors and steps were made, the privy was repaired, and a new sill was put under the cellar floor. This is a lot of work, and it probably was done by one or more of the working parties which would periodically come out to the light stations to perform major restoration and maintenance work, far beyond what was expected of the keepers themselves.
In 1869, the lens revolving machinery was once again cleaned, new glass was set into the lantern, a new lantern ventilator was installed at the top of the dome, and a new lantern stove was supplied. The report stated that the Monhegan Island Light Station was now In good condition.
Mrs. Humphrey kept the required Light Station Journal, for which we have extant entries starting with July 1, 1872. In the Journal, Mrs. Humphrey recorded the daily activities of the light station. She was, in fact, so meticulous in this that on January 9, 1874, the District Inspector asked her not to use the journal as a daily log book but merely use it for recording the most important events at the station, such as bad weather, and the orders she had received. In 1875, she recorded that the Lighthouse Board had decreed that from then on, all cook stoves at the light stations were to last at least five years and that any damage to them during the first five years had to be repaired at the keeper's expense.
In 1873, perhaps in consideration of the large size of Mrs. Humphrey's family, the Light-House Board began considering building a new frame section on the keeper's dwelling at the Monhegan Island Light Station as the old stone house was in a very dilapidated state, despite the repairs and renovations of 1868. On June 23, 1874, Congress appropriated $5,000 for the construction of the new frame section on the dwelling. The next spring the new two-story frame section was built as an addition to the old stone house along with a new covered walkway which connected the dwelling with the tower.
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