Just north beyond Long Sands Beach from York Harbor, the Cape Neddick area had been the scene of many shipwrecks prior 1874. Because of these wrecks Savage Rock, or the Nubble as locals call it, an island just 100 yards off the cape came to host one of the United States’ most famous lighthouses. An image so human that it was selected to be carried into space. The Cape Neddick Light Station, or the Nubble Light, was a manned station from 1879 until 1987 when the lighthouses operation was automated. Though the island is not open to visitors, nearly 500,000 people a year come to photograph it from across the channel in Sohier Park.
Originally named Savage Rock, because the English explorer Bartholomew
Gosnold first meet a group of Natives, which he deemed as savages, on the
island in May of 1602.
1 Though many wrecks had occurred near the island, the wreck
of the
Isidore in 1842 was the most
well-known. The
Isidore sailed out of
Kennebunk, ME on November 30, 1842 on a planned trip to New Orleans. Sailing
its first voyage, the ship’s crew of fifteen were all lost. The captain,
Captain Foss and the crew were from Kennebunk. One of two vessels that were
lost in the region that night, pieces of
The
Isidore came ashore on Cape Neddick.
2
Congress
earmarked fifteen thousand dollars for the establishment of a lighthouse on
Savage Rock in 1874. Purchasing the island in 1879 cost the Coast Guard fifteen
hundred dollars. Over ten thousand dollars was spent to complete the
construction.3 The completed lighthouse tower is only 41 feet high, however,
the elevation is enhanced by the height of Nubble island. Other structures are
a keepers house, a storage shed, a boat house, and a generator/ oil house.4
With an annual
salary of $500 Brackett Lewis, the first light keeper at Nubble Light, began
his nineteen year stint.5 Many of the Lighthouse’s keepers provide interesting
study. One keeper in the early 1900’s brought visitors to the island and his
wife provided tours. The trip and the tour cost each visitor a total of 15
cents. When their tourism business interfered with lighthouse operations, the
two were relieved of their duties. In 1967, light keeper David Winchester sent
his seven-year-old son to school by means of a trolley over the channel. His
son Rickie sat in a bucket attached to the lighthouse’s wire rope supply-line
and was pulled back and forth, as he went to and returned from school. A
picture of Rickie Winchester setting in the trolley bucket as it rolled over
the channel made its way into newspapers across the country. The Coast Guard
requested that David stop using the trolley to transport his son.6
When administrators of the Voyager II space craft launched on a
mission to look for life beyond earth they decided to send three earthly images
on the ship, images that reflect the earth and human life on earth, the Nubble
Light was one of the images selected. The other images were the Great Wall of
China and the Grand Canyon.6 Nubble Light’s last keeper left in 1987 when
lighthouse operations were automated. York secured ownership of the lighthouse
in 1998.71. “Legendary Lighthouses”, Great Lighthouses Maine, PBS.org , accessed April 18, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/legendarylighthouses/html/mainegl.html
2. “Melancholy Shipwreck”, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York), December 5, 1842, p. 2, Newspapers.com, downloaded April 18, 2015, http://www.newspapers.com/image/50303298
3. Despres, Debbie, “Nubble Lighthouse/ Facts and Trivia”, YankeeMagizine.com, 2013, accessed April 18, 2015, http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/travel/nubble-lighthouse#_
4. McElroy, Ethan, “Nubble Lighthouse”, Northeast Architecture, 2015, accessed April 18, 2015, http://www.nearchitecture.com/buildings/me/nubble_lighthouse.html
5. Despres, Debbie, “Nubble Lighthouse/ Facts and Trivia”, YankeeMagizine.com, 2013, accessed April 18, 2015, http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/travel/nubble-lighthouse#_
6. “Legendary Lighthouses”, Great Lighthouses Maine, PBS.org , accessed April 18, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/legendarylighthouses/html/mainegl.html
7. McElroy, Ethan, “Nubble Lighthouse”, Northeast Architecture, 2015, accessed April 18, 2015, http://www.nearchitecture.com/buildings/me/nubble_lighthouse.html
