West Chop Light - First Lightkeeper

First Lightkeeper

Captain James Shaw West (1777–1859), the first lightkeeper, was born December 11, 1777 in Tisbury, Massachusetts, the eldest son of Captain Jeruel West and Deborah Shaw of Frog Alley, Tisbury. He was married to Charlotte Hammond (1781–1849) of Falmouth, Massachusetts. West was listed in the records first as a "mariner" and later as a "pilot." He and his wife first lived in the area of the "Neck" of West Chop which is now Hatch Road.

Shortly after the erection of the first West Chop Light in 1817, they sold this property and presumably moved into the lightkeeper's dwelling adjacent to the lighthouse. (In 1842, they purchased a 30-acre (120,000 m2) lot known as the "Point Lot" which surrounded the lighthouse property.) West was the lightkeeper of the West Chop Light for thirty years. During his term as lightkeeper, West oversaw the installation of new lamps in 1829, and in 1846 the lighthouse was rebuilt and moved away from the eroding bluffs, and a new dwelling built. (The old dwelling was given to his youngest son Gustavus and moved to Music Street, West Tisbury.)

In late 1847, West bought a home across the street from the Methodist Church in Holmes Hole and the following year retired from his position as lightkeeper and moved to their new home in town. West was about sixty years old upon his retirement. His wife Charlotte died the following year, in 1849. Later records call West variously a "mariner" and a "gentleman." "James Shaw West" was listed as a licensed inn-holder in Holmes Hole and ran the "County House," but it is unclear whether this was lightkeeper James or his eldest son, James Junior. In 1859 James Senior died of "palsy" at the age of 81. His children included Captain Abner West (co-inventor of the Holmes & West Harpoon) and Captain David Porter West (1814–1886) (a whaling captain and a scholar of Japan in the 1850s.)