Dutch Island Light - Additional History

Additional History

Dutch Island is located in the West Passage of Narragansett Bay between Jamestown and Saunderstown, RI. Originally it was called “Quetenis” by the Narragansett Indians who sold it to the Dutch West Indian Company about 1636. The Dutch from New Amsterdam (later New York) used the island as a safe place to trade their goods to the Indians for meat, fish and furs. Later the English settlers of Rhode Island used the island to graze sheep.

For many years it was fortified to protect the West Passage from sea invasion. It is not known whether this included the Revolutionary war era when the Conanicut Battery was activated further south on the western shore of Conanicut (Jamestown) Island. Dutch Island was later heavily fortified with massive concrete gun emplacements. These were started with large granite store structures near the southern end of the island during the Civil War. In the late 19th century there was a battery of 15-inch Rodman guns (25-ton cannon which used a 50-pound charge of black powder to fire a 300-pound cannon ball as far as 3 miles (4.8 km)) on the point at the southern end of the island.

In the late 1890s the Army established Fort Greble on Dutch Island. Fort Greble was an Endicott era coastal fortification which featured long range rifled artillery pieces and could house as many as 495 officers and men. Fort Greble was an active post until 1924 and was used for National Guard training up to World War II.

In 1825, the U.S. Government bought 6 acres (24,000 m2) on the southern tip of the island with the purpose of establishing a “light station”. The first tower was built in 1826 using native stone from the island. It was 30 feet (9.1 m) tall. One of the first keepers was Robert Dennis, whose father had fought in the Revolution and who was also present at the “Boston Tea Party”. Dennis was 78 years old when he became keeper and apparently remained keeper until he was well into his nineties. His son, Robert, took his position when his father died.

According to Jeremy D’Entremont, (a member of the American Lighthouse Foundation and the first Board of Directors of the Dutch Island Lighthouse Society), the lighthouse and keeper’s house were described in the mid-19th century as “the worst construction of any in the state”, and the lantern was described as “wretched”.

In 1857, the old tower and the Keeper’s House were demolished and replaced by the present 42-foot (13 m) brick tower and a four-room Keeper’s House. The basic structure of this tower was described in 2007 as still being “very sound”. The cost of these two structures in the 1850s was $4,000, and included a “fourth-order” Fresnel lens and a fixed white light. In 1878, a fog bell was installed on the west side of the tower to be activated by a clockwork mechanism.

In 1924, a flashing red kerosene light was installed, the lens for which was rotated by “…a very big weight on pulleys, “ recalls a local resident.

Keepers:

• William Dennis (1827–1843)
• Robert H. Weeden (1843–1844)
• William P. Babcock (1844–1846)
• Robert Dennis (1846–1853)
• Benjamin Congdon (1853–1859)
• M. M. Trundy (1859–1865).

John Paul was one of the last Keepers (1929–1931) and his son Louis remembered that this father kept a vegetable garden and a flock of ducks. He said that the fishing off the rocks was “excellent” and that his father would catch “…a bushel of blackfish before breakfast.” He would buy a whole side of beef in Jamestown or Saunderstown, salt it thoroughly and keep if for prolonged use.

In 1947, the light was automated and lit by electricity, as a flashing red beacon. The military left the Island and in 1950 the Keeper’s House was demolished because of vandalism and because toadstools and moss were growing in the house.

In 1972, the Coast Guard proposed discontinuing the light altogether. This was followed by at least 40-50 letters of protest written to the RI Dept. of Natural Resources and to the Coast Guard. As a result of the Coast Guard not only retained the light but even increased its intensity. Extensive vandalism, however, continued and again the proposition to discontinue the light was made in 1977. This time it was discontinued and was replaced by a flashing red buoy off the tip of the Island in 1979.