Gay Head Light - Early History

Early History

The Gay Head Light was the first lighthouse constructed on Martha's Vineyard. This lighthouse was authorized in 1798 by the United States Congress during the Presidency of John Adams. This authorization was to help facilitate safe passage for shipping traffic through the hazardous Vineyard Sound between the Gay Head clay cliffs and the Elizabeth Islands. In the area westerly of the clay cliffs is the infamous Devil's Bridge, which is composed of a submerged shoal and rock formation.

In 1799 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts deeded two acres and four rods to the Federal Government for the purpose of building a lighthouse overlooking the clay cliffs and Devil's Bridge. During the same year, President John Adams approved a contract with Martin Lincoln of Hingham, Massachusetts, to build a 47-foot octagonal wooden lighthouse tower (including light room); a 17 x 26-foot keeper's house, and various outbuildings. This wooden octagonal lighthouse is illustrated in the c1800 woodcut shown below left. Charles Edward Banks, who published "The history of Martha's Vineyard" in 1911 wrote, "This wooden tower lasted sixty years, and the site of it, nearer the brow of the cliffs than the present one, can be seen yet in a circular elevation of the soil."

Ebenezer Skiff was appointed by Congress as the Principal Keeper of the first Gay Head Lighthouse in 1799. Skiff was also the first European to live in the town of Gay Head, which was populated by members of the Wampanoag Tribe. On 18 November 1799, Ebenezer Skiff ignited the spider lamp inside the tower's lighting room, officially illuminating the light for the first time as an aide to navigation. The light was projected from lamp wicks fueled by sperm whale oil. Spider lamps were the principal source of light in U.S. lighthouses in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They consisted of a pan of oil with a wick system that was first used in Boston Light in 1790. Spider lamps were known to produce fumes that burned the Keeper's eyes. The first Gay Head Light "...was a white flash, was produced by fourteen lamps burning sperm oil, and it is part of tradition of the place that there was quite as much smoke as flame resulting from the combustion of this illuminant. The Keeper was often obliged to wear a veil while in the tower, and the cleansing of the smudge on the glass lantern was no small part of his job." Ebenezer Skiff's original salary as Principal Keeper in 1799 was $200 per year.

Circa 1838, a new 10 parabolic lens was installed and the lantern was lowered 14 feet (4m) to get the light under the fog. The lighting room was lowered again the same year by 3 feet (1m) during a major rebuilding of the lantern and deck. Between 1799 and 1838, the Keeper's house and other outbuildings were improved. One significant improvement was the installation of a Benjamin Franklin pointed tip lightning rod on top of the lighthouse. Benjamin Franklin appreciated the value of lighthouses to society and is quoted as saying, "Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." Lightning strikes to the Gay Head Light are physically documented by the cracked cast iron lightning rod ball displayed on the grounds of today's Martha's Vineyard Museum. The changes to the Gay Head Light; its buildings and grounds, and the presence of the lightning rod are clearly illustrated in the 1839 woodcut print shown lower right. In 1844, the octagonal wooden light tower was moved back 75 feet from the eroding clay cliffs by John Mayhew of Edgartown at a cost of $386.87. By the early 1850s the tower was in disrepair and again threatened by the eroding clay cliffs. In 1852, the Federal Lighthouse Board issued a 760-page report stating that Gay Head Lighthouse was “not second to any on the eastern coast, and should be fitted, without delay, with a first-order illuminating apparatus.” In 1854, Congress approved $30,000 for the construction of a new brick tower to fit a first-order Fresnel lens, and a new keeper's residence also made of brick. As a result, the existing 51 feet tall conical brick tower was started in 1854 and lit in 1856. The bricks used to construct the light were composed of clay harvested from the nearby cliffs or the nearby Chilmark Brick Works. It was equipped with a whale oil fired first-order Fresnel lens standing about 12 feet (4m) tall; weighing several tons (tonnes); and containing 1,009 hand-made crystal prisms. Shortly before overseas shipment from France and installation above the Gay Head Light in 1856, the Fresnel Lens was exhibited at the World's Fair in Paris where it won a Gold Medal. At the time of installation, Gay Head was listed as one of the most important lighthouse locations in the United States. Therefore, it deservedly became one of the first lighthouses in the United States to receive a first-order Fresnel lens. After installation, the Gay Head Light received considerable publicity. This resulted in many tourists visiting the light via steamship and other transport systems of the period.

The early 1850s transport of the Fresnel Lens and its supporting apparatus from the docks in Edgartown to the clay cliffs was reported in a reflective story published in the Vineyard Gazette on June 26, 1970: "...It took eight yoke of oxen to transport the heavy iron railing for the catwalks...but it took 40 yoke of oxen to moe the 60 frames of glass prisms and the multitudinous collection of machinery necessary to operate the new light. The finely balanced lantern weighed over a ton all told. It must have been a slow ponderous procession that traveled the 20 some odd miles of hard packed dirt and sandy island roads from the Edgartown wharf to the clay cliffs..." Further attesting to the condition of Gay Head roads in the early 1800s, is Martha's Vineyard historian Charles Edward Banks' research published in 1911, ....on the Indian lands there are no made roads, and for the most part only horse paths." This condition existed for about fifty *years more, when a continuation of the county road from the Chilmark line to the lighthouse was laid out. Its construction was without design and unscientific, and soon became a continuous sand rut for lack of repairs. In 1870, when the town was incorporated, the act provided that the county commissioners should forthwith "proceed to lay out and construct a road from Chilmark to the lighthouse on Gay Head, and may appropriate such sum from the funds of the county as may be necessary to defray the expense of the same." It was further provided that it should be maintained for five years by the state. This legislation resulted in the construction of the present and only public highway in the town, which since 1875 has been a town charge."

What this and other early island stories about the Gay Head Light fail to document is the quarry source and transport of the heavy brownstone system that sits atop the brick structure to support the lighting room and its extended balcony. As well, it remains a mystery as to how the early lighthouse builders lifted and emplaced the huge, custom-carved brownstone pieces, as well as the Fresnel Lens itself and its heavy cast iron operating apparatus and the internal staircase with its cast-iron landings.

In 1874, the Gay Head Light was changed from flashing white to "three whites and one red" to differentiate the light from other lights along the East Coast. This was a major change that required the manufacture and installation of red, hand-made prisms of precise engineering specifications. The illuminator of the Fresnel was a lamp with five concentric wicks, the largest being five inches in diameter. The light consumed about two quarts of oil an hour, or about seven and a half gallons on the longest nights. The Gay Head Light was converted from whale oil to kerosene oil operation in 1885. Gay Head was one of the last towns in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to receive electricity in the early 1950s. Shortly after the town received electricity, the Fresnel lens was replaced in 1952 by a high-intensity electrified Carlisle & Finch DCB-224 aero beacon. This beacon was custom-made for the Gay Head Light as a double-tiered cannon beacon to maintain the historic signal of "three whites and one red".

When the original Fresnel lens was dismantled in 1952, it was transferred to Edgartown and mounted on top of a one-story brick structure with a glass lantern house enclosure at the Martha's Vineyard Museum in Edgartown, Massachusetts. Charles W. Vanderhoop, who served as the light's Principal Keeper from 1920 to 1933, had the honor of lighting the Fresnel lens at its new location during a dedication ceremony. In 1988, the high-intensity electrified beacon Carlisle & Finch DCB-224 aero beacon was replaced with a single-tiered double cannon high-intensity DCB-224 beacon. With the 1988 installation of the DCB-224 lens, the Gay Head Light's distinctively historic signal of "three whites and one red" was changed to "one white and one red." Ownership of the double-tiered Carlisle & Finch DCB-224 aero beacon was transferred by the United States Coast Guard to Vineyard Environmental Research, Institute, whose board member, Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr., along with VERI President, William Waterway Marks, presented the light on a loan basis for public display at the Martha's Vineyard Museum.