Month: July 2025

Instructions to the Keepers of Light Houses within the US   -1835 Stephen Pleasanton, 5^th Auditor of the Treasury

The first of 9 obligations:

“You are to light the lamps every evening at sun-setting, and keep them continually burning, bright and clear, till sun-rising.”

In January 1856, fourteen-year-old Abbie Burgess famously kept the Matinicus Rock Light burning for a month after her father left the island for re-supplies that had failed to arrive the previous September. Through a gale that kept her father from returning and that eventually destroyed the Keeper’s quarters, she, 3 younger sisters, and invalid mother sheltered in one of the two light towers. Throughout the ordeal, which repeated the following year for 3 weeks, Abbie made sure the light stayed on.

Much less heroic than Abbie, when I noticed Seguin’s light out, I simply texted Chris at FOSIL who contacted the Coast Guard. It was disorienting and a bit worrisome to be at a lighthouse that went dark on my watch. You don’t really want to be the one on duty when the 168-year-old light goes out. But even during these dark nights, there was plenty of light. The stars shone brighter with the milky way cutting across the sky and the tuna boat floodlights punctuated the water on the near horizon- floating like fallen stars on the water.

Happily, Colton and Sean, two young US Coast Guard personnel came up the hill with their work kits and began to trouble shoot. Po, of course, supervised and followed them everywhere. Knowledgeable and affable, the service members conducted a thorough check of all systems: solar, the light itself, and the foghorn. The pair concluded some of the solar storage batteries were no longer up to the task and would need replacement. They re-aligned the existing battery array and promised to return with new parts. The light, thank goodness, is back on every night.

With the light attended to, it was possible to relax and return to enjoying the ever-changing light of the sky. Perched so high up, Seguin offers big sky vistas more often associated with being out west or on mountain tops. Storm fronts, sunsets, and a rainbow just out-front make the sameness of Seguin different every day.

This week the North Trail got some overdue attention, and the main path seems to have widened every Wednesday when I return from town.

Visitors log- We had four Lighthouse aficionados overnight at the house last week who livened up our evening and shared their generous company and sumptuous food. Also, Mike and Theresa Haggett made it out Saturday. Mike is the great-grandson of Herbert Spinney (1862-1943), long time Seguin Keeper and naturalist.  Mike was a wealth of information about Spinney’s professional and civic contributions. Herb, as he was known by neighbors and colleagues, worked both for the ‘coast service’ and later the State Agriculture Department. An avid birder, he donated to the state his collection of over 200 specimens of taxidermy, shells, and wood. His image was featured in the FOSIL newsletter last spring.

The light at night, fewer foggy days, and increased warmth are a trifecta of July goodness. Let’s hope this trend continues in the coming weeks.

To read more about: Abbie Burgess: Women Who Kept the Lights by Mary Louise Clifford and J. Candace Clifford and, one of many children’s books, Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie by Peter and Connie Roop.

To read more about Herbert Linden Spinney: a google search with find a grave.com or visit his Georgetown grave site

When my children were small, my old father told me, “Kids like very small and very big things.” This has been a week of very big things.

From the house porch I spied a minke whale loitering for a long time among the lobster pots southeast of the island. It’s long black back and fin rose and fell serenely sliding through the water. The creature spouted periodically spraying a white mist a few feet into the air that contrasted with the cobalt blue. Each reappearance after it had submerged was as exciting as the first glimpse. A lobsterman cut his engines and lingered in the area letting curiosity trump commerce for a time. 

This week also marked the first sightings of enormous yachts of a different order of magnitude. Bright white wakes trailed the motors and massive carbon fiber sails made spotting the boats easy even after they passed Damariscove for Mohegan and beyond. The ‘small’ cruise ship that travels between Portland, Bar Harbor, and Bangor passes like clockwork heading first north and then south.

A tremendous warning sound at the mouth of the Kennebec announced the passage of the Bath-built Harvey C Barnum, Jr- an Arleigh Burke Aegis ship on its virgin sea trial. As it slipped by, I thought about the enormous amount of education, effort, and craftsmanship that went into building such a formidable ship. Its gray hulk dwarfed the now familiar landscape before eventually disappearing into the fog.

Last, we experienced a massive thunderstorm that you could see coming from the southwest for miles. The gathering clouds followed the contour of the coast and finally unleashed a deluge.

An extensive crew from Maine Island Trail Association came out last Wednesday and cleared beneath the tramway. Many thanks for their Herculean efforts.

Big moments for island visitors include: the worldly Genevieve’s special request to celebrate her 20th birthday on Seguin, 9-year-old Clancy’s time with his granddad as his father checked the moorings, and Andy and Grace, Bowdoin students specializing in colonial history and lighthouses, making it out for a perfect day with haze free views from the tower.

For all the continuity of Seguin- the trail work, tours, and domestic tasks- the island still offers new and big surprises.

We’ve had a lot of white weather this week. Visibility swings from nothing, to seeing the water, to nothing again. The billowing white damp gets old yet eliminating the scenery invites listening. I’m no birder, but with Merlin I can parse the chirps from the whistles and the honks from the caws. While walking down the steep main path in the morning, you hear the cat birds and sparrows fill the bushes with chatter. At the beach the Canadian geese intone their nasal honks while splashing their wings and the ospreys taunt with forlorn whistles above. The gold finches and warblers, streaks of brilliant yellow against the mist shrouded bushes, trill and, well, warble. Behind it all is the roll of the waves coming in on Cobblestone Beach and the occasional, unfortunate popping crack when you step on one of the bitty amber snails that dot the way. The foghorn has been activated a few times by passing sailors and bleats dolefully without the two toned bass baritone of the old days. The metal snap hooks clang against the flagpole with an unnatural ping. The bell buoy sounds in the distance. Lobster boats rumble, stop, and rumble again. Nothin’ to see here Bub, but plenty to take in.

Despite the limited sun, the grass continues to grow, and the bushes continue to encroach on the paths. In response, Peter, Steve, and Chris continue to mow, hack, and haul. Po has busied himself snapping at house flies who never see him coming as they emit their persistent buzz. Special thanks this week go to Small Point’s Becca and Shawn who saved the day after I left the set of car keys on the island and needed to get to town for groceries.

It seems only the intrepid visited this week: a Southport couple took engagement photos, folks motored down from Merrymeeting Bay on a last family trip before their oldest heads to college, and a married pair revisited their ‘old favorite’ before one of them begins an arduous medical treatment. Perhaps Seguin’s real magnetic anomaly is that it keeps pulling folks back at important moments in life.

………..

To continue enjoying the sounds around you, download Cornell’s Merlin app for bird identification, listen to old “Bert and I” stories on vinyl or YouTube for Downeast humor and edification, or listen to the NY Metropolitan Opera or Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of conductor Yannick Nézet-Seguin for restoration.

“Smell that!” The Houston sailor stopped in her tracks amid the expanse of white and lavender clover covering the camping field. “That’s the smell of my childhood!”

The sweetness of the clover patches blends with the sea air and the bright pink roses emerging everywhere now on the island. Add to it the aroma of my 75-year-old EB White library book, the metal of the lighthouse staircase, and the museum shop -reminiscent of every old-Maine grandma’s house- and you have the smell of Seguin. Proust had his madeleines dipped in tea conjuring memories, but here, it is the flowers, the cut grass, the constant wind and breakers, and the isolation that stops time for folks. “I’ve come here every year since I was a baby”, “I used to bring Coast Guard guys out for shift changes.” “This is the spot I always come to; I’ll let others go to Boothbay.”

For the first time this week, we had overnight guests other than campers. David Zapatka labored through the evening to take stunning photos on behalf of the United States Lighthouse Society (correction made). The images are part of his nocturnal series documenting the country’s lighthouses and starry skies. In addition to David, volunteer Sarah from Kodiak, Alaska and Nashville, who labored all day with Steve, decided to stay the night. My daughter Quilla and two colleagues made it out of their Boston basement laboratory, where they study the neuroscience of emotions and memory, to first help David with his gear and then to swim, talk, and take in the beauty. All the young women were undeterred by the 53-degree water temps and bravely dove into the cove both the evening they arrived and the next day after sunrise just before their departure. As much as solitude characterizes the island, sharing the space with others who are taking in its beauty made for a dearer memory.

Aside from volunteers Sarah, Steve, Fred, Tom and Chris and transportation thanks to Dave and his grandson Liam, we had visitors from Chesapeake Bay sailing north to Greenland and more locally from Friendship, Stockton Springs, Phippsburg, and Bay Point to name just a few. Children filled the tower more than once with bellowing echoes and purposeful step counting. One youngster generously offered to stay the summer and help us out. Twenty-somethings lay on the grass delighted to be out of big cities where the climbing mercury makes life harder than it should be. Peter and I moved enormous brush piles to try to obscure them, and Peter is reveling in the new electric weed whacker that hums like a dragonfly through the grass. Rumor has it that Po encountered a seal who was his swimming doppelgänger. I continue my attempt to stave off aging with walks up and down the flowering hill and chats with our temporary neighbors. One doesn’t even need to stop the smell the roses- here, they come to you.

While the east coast baked in oppressive heat, we remained cool on the top of the hill. Sweater weather continues for the most part punctuated with days of rain and relative cold. The trails have been tended to and the lawn mown again. Roses, yarrow, buttercups, and clover are abundant and the last of the blue flags have wilted. Wednesday brought able FOSIL volunteers Steve and Fred to help with windows and the ubiquitous sumac.

Days with heavy rain gave us time to read more about how Augustin-Jean Fresnel’s support for the French Royalists led to the engineer’s government job loss and eventual house arrest. While house bound, Fresnel’s brother, who supervised a stretch of lighthouses, lamented the lights’ inability to cast their light any great distance. Augustin Fresnel found the way to amplify the light with prisms and constructed his theory about light waves. The line from Napoleon to Einstein moves through Fresnel and French politics. I also had the chance to dig into Maine author Ruth Moore’s novel The Weir and historical fiction A Fair Wind Home.  Moore vividly captures island life on Maine’s coast, and, at the height of her popularity in the mid-20thC, was described as “the Faulkner of New England.” The New York Times wrote, “It is doubtful if any American writer has ever done a better job of communicating a people, their talk, their thoughts, their geography, and their way of life.”

A visit from the Bowdoin was fun as one of my former students and her crewmates bound up the hill with great enthusiasm and good cheer. They were fresh from being the lead boat in the Boothbay parade of boats and were eager for the perspective gained from the top of the light.

Of special note, a hearty young man swam out to the island with his family boating close behind. He seemed no worse for wear and, though drenched, took in the scenery.

Last, Chris brought out Jim and Kyle from JB Leslie to look over the light’s ironwork. They have restored lights up and down the coast and came with knowledge, stories, and deep experience.

All is ship-shape and ready for visitors to enjoy Seguin’s charm once good weather becomes a little more consistent.