The Move
In 1933 the Lighthouse Service decommissioned the Colchester Reef Lighthouse after the automatic electric beacon made the hand-operated system obsolete. Over the years the light suffered damage from ice floes and gradually fell into disrepair. Nineteen years later, in 1952, it was put up for auction and sold for $50, to be dismantled for timber. After this sale, Vermont historian Ralph Nading Hill ferried Electra Webb to the now-derelict lighthouse. Entranced, she persuaded the buyers to sell it for $1300 and substitute building materials. Webb purchased the lighthouse and had it moved to the museum grounds in the fall. Undaunted by the hazards involved, her veteran crew catalogued each piece of the building before moving the heavy beams, stairways, doors, and windows to reconstruct the building on museum grounds.
The Coast Guard donated the lens, fog bell, and striking mechanism, and in 2006 assisted with the mounting of a modern solar-powered beacon in the lantern, allowing the beacon to be lit for the first time since its decommissioning. With the house removed, a modern steel tower was mounted on the pier.
Read more about this topic: Colchester Reef Light
Famous quotes related to the move:
“So close is the bond between man and woman that you can not raise one without lifting the other. The world can not move ahead without woman’s sharing in the movement, and to help give a right impetus to that movement is woman’s highest privilege.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)