Lonely Lights: 9 Michigan Beacons on Lake Superior Islands

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This story is part of our series on Lake Superior lighthouses.

The recipe for a Lake Superior offshore light keeper was relatively simple: To a job requiring 24-hour-a-day dedication, add periods of intense hard labor, sprinkle with stretches of mind-numbing boredom, toss in some of the most desolate and inhospitable locations found anywhere, and stir in a large portion of the most treacherous waters to be found on the face of the earth.

As such, those possessing the necessary ingredients to succeed as island lighthouse keepers were a unique breed, as unique as the light stations at which they served. For these offshore stations marked some of the most dangerous threats to navigation found anywhere, and the stories of their operation and maintenance speak volumes about the dedicated people who worked them. Come meet them and their islands.…

Manitou Island

Establishment of Lake Superior’s offshore lights mirrored the opening up of maritime commerce across the lake. With the discovery of rich copper deposits on the shores of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the 1840s, there was a significant increase in the volume of vessels rounding Keweenaw Point to service the mines of Copper Harbor and Eagle River. Lying about two miles off the tip of the point, Manitou Island lay directly in the mariner’s path, forcing vessels to either tightly hug the shore between the island and the peninsula or swing out beyond the island itself.

The planned opening of the Soo Locks for 1855 made it clear that a light was needed on Manitou to mark the island. To that end, a simple 60-foot rubble stone tower with detached dwelling was erected there in 1849. Although the station’s Lewis lamps were upgraded to a Fourth Order Fresnel lens in 1856, the materials and craftsmanship at the station left much to be desired and after only 20 years, the buildings were in severe need of repair.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, copper and iron ore shipments coming out of Lake Superior became critical to the war effort, and the old rubble stone tower on Manitou was replaced with a state-of-the-art skeletal iron tower in 1862. With the addition of a steam-powered fog signal in 1871, a second assistant was added to the station’s roster … and with three headstrong men living in such close proximity, it is easy to understand how interpersonal problems might arise.

However, First Assistant Henry Ferguson appears to have taken his animosity toward Keeper Reuben Hart to the extreme when on May 19, 1882, he refused to come to Hart’s assistance as the keeper encountered trouble approaching the island in his boat in rough water. The refusal cost Hart his life.

After the loss of Keeper Hart, Gull Rock Keeper James Corgan was dispatched to take over at the station. He summarized the incident in the station’s log:

“They made a pusillanimous attempt to get the LH boat out of the boat house, but Fergeson (sic) 1st Asst. refused to assist Gustafson 2nd Asst. to get her more than partially out of the house, saying they could not go to him, saying they could not handle the boat although begged by Gustafson to make an attempt to save the life of their principal. But he would not. He allowed him to drift past and away from them, imploring them by signs to come to him. He was so close that the two assts. ran out onto the rocks in an attempt to throw him a rope. They saw him over two hours afterwards when lighting the lamp still clinging to the upper most fragment of the boat and floating and drifting toward the Canadian shore.”

While Hart’s body was never recovered, both assistants were removed from their positions.

In recent history, the Manitou Light Station was transferred to the Keweenaw Land Trust via the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act in June 2004 and the group hopes to stabilize the station for future generations to enjoy.

Rock Harbor

While the American Fur Company established a fishing headquarters at Rock Harbor in 1837, it would not be until the mid-1840s that large numbers of white men would descend on Isle Royale after the discovery of rich veins of copper on the island. By 1847, more than a dozen mining companies were working the island. With thriving villages springing up around the mines, an increasing number of vessels began arriving to deliver supplies and transport the copper to the Soo, where the cargoes were unloaded and carried around the rapids to be loaded on waiting vessels for transportation to the southern lakes. Sometimes the boats also were “portaged.”

With the opening of the lock at the Soo expected to increase vessel traffic in the area, Congress appropriated $5,000 in 1853 to establish a light similar to the one built at Manitou Island four years earlier to serve vessels threading their way through the rocky harbor entrance. A site was chosen at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale and construction began the following year, but the light would not be exhibited until 1856.

Costs of island mining proved to be overly expensive, the last mine ceased operation in 1858, and the decision was made to abandon the Rock Harbor light. After extinguishing the light and locking the station doors on August 1, 1859, Rock Harbor Keeper Francis Bomassa boarded a boat and bade farewell to both the light and to lighthouse service, leaving the structure to face the ravages of time and the elements.

As demand increased for metals during the Civil War, miners again returned to Isle Royale. A cry then went out in the maritime community to re-establish a light on the island, though action would be a long time in coming. It wasn’t until 1873 that there was a thorough examination of the abandoned Rock Harbor light, and a work crew arrived at the station the following year. After considerable repairs, the old light was re-activated August 5, 1874.

But even before the second activation, a fateful repetition of a short-lived history was unfolding for this light. Copper prices had plummeted with the end of the Civil War in 1865, marking the beginning of a slow end for Isle Royale’s second mining boom. With establishment of a new Isle Royale light on Menagerie Island in October 1875, the Rock Harbor light’s days were again numbered. Four years later, the light was extinguished for the final time on October 4, 1879, and the station was again left to the ravages of time. Today, though, it is maintained as part of Isle Royale National Park.

Menagerie Island

Realizing that the Rock Harbor Light served only local traffic passing close to the harbor, the Lighthouse Board recommended a $20,000 appropriation for construction of a new lighthouse in the area in 1872. After receiving a Congressional appropriation for the station’s construction the following year, the board decided in 1874 to locate the new station on Menagerie Island, the most easterly of the group of small islands that lay across the opening into Siskiwit Bay.

The lighthouse tender Dahlia arrived off Menagerie Island in the spring of 1875 and unloaded a working party and materials. While the working party busied itself building temporary living quarters, dock and blasting the foundations for the tower and dwelling, Dahlia set sail for Jacobsville, Michigan, to load stone quarried over the winter. After unloading the stone at the building site, the tender departed, leaving the working party to continue construction.

During that summer, the 61-foot sandstone stone tower and dwelling were erected, and the lantern outfitted with a fixed white Fourth Order Fresnel lens. On completion, the tower was whitewashed and the lantern and gallery painted black to serve as a more effective sighting mark during the day. William Stevens was appointed as acting keeper for the station, with his wife appointed as acting first assistant. The couple arrived on the island and moved their worldly belongings into the new dwelling in time to exhibit the new light for the first time on the evening of October 19, 1875.

Perhaps Menagerie Island’s most famous keeper is John H. Malone, who arranged to have his brother James appointed as his assistant. While life on Menagerie Island was far from luxurious, it must have suited John and his wife well, as they would end up staying on the island a remarkable 32 years, raising 12 children in the process on the barren island. Although a number of sources have reported that Menagerie Island received its name for Malone’s “menagerie” of children or of the many animals that they kept, this is pure fancy. Official government documents reporting on the site chosen for the station in 1872 made specific reference to “Menagerie Island,” well before the Malones’ arrival there in August 1878, but it’s unknown from where the name actually originated.

The Malones were a resourceful group, planting a small garden in the sparse soil, in which they successfully grew lettuce and radishes. They also maintained a potato patch on nearby Wright Island, and frequent mention was made in Malone’s logbook of fishing, trapping, hunting rabbits and ducks and collecting seagull eggs. While seagull eggs might sound unappetizing to today’s tastes, they apparently constituted a considerable part of the family’s diet. They also appear to have represented trading value with the outside world, as Malone’s log entry for June 1, 1887, stated he had “collected 1,478 gull eggs to date – 32 eggs blowed-out to supply vessel crew.”

While most of Lake Superior’s offshore keepers were taken to and from their stations by lighthouse tenders at either end of the navigation season, Malone was left to his own devices to make his way to the island, a journey that frequently took remarkable dedication, as was the case in 1889, when he made the following opening entry in his station log:

“April 30, 1889. Arrived at this station today, had quite a hard trip. Left Duluth April 22nd per Steamer Ossogridge. Layed-over Two Harbors due to nor’easter. Left Two Harbors on 23rd for Grand Marais. Stayed till 25th. Snowed 4 inches. Left Grand Marais 25th, arrived at Washington Harbor 8:20 AM on 26th. Left Washington Harbor 11:30 per Bower tug, and arrived at Tobin’s Harbor at 6:20 PM. Left Tobin’s Harbor 10:20 AM the 27th, and arrived at Wright’s Island abreast of lighthouse. Stayed until 2:10 PM April 30th. 6 inches snow fell. Arrived at crib at 3:20 in tail end of gale. Water had dropped 14 inches. We got our provisions and selves all wet. Had to buy a boat at Tobin’s Harbor as water too low to launch lighthouse boat. We found station dry and in good shape. Lighted the lamp.”

Those who wish to see the island today pass it on the Isle Royale ferry ride from Grand Portage, Minnesota.

Passage Island

The Lighthouse Board had recommended the establishment of a light on Passage Island, one of the Isle Royale lights, as early as 1871, but its creation became a bargaining tool before it became reality. The board had been unsuccessfully attempting to convince the Canadian government to build a light to mark Colchester Reef in the Canadian waters of Lake Erie, east of the Detroit River entrance. Realizing that the planned light on Passage Island would be of extreme advantage to Canadian maritime interests, Congress took the opportunity to apply some additional pressure on its Canadian counterparts by proposing that the $18,000 needed to light Passage Island would be contingent on completion of a light at Colchester Reef by the Canadians.

After the Canadians placed a lightship on Colchester Reef, the lighthouse tender Warrington delivered a working party and materials at Passage Island in 1881 and work began at the site with the clearing of the grounds and construction of temporary dwellings for the crew. Plans for the Passage Island Station called for a virtual duplicate of the Norman Gothic-style structure being built at Sand Island in the Apostle Islands that same year. With a buttressed base 9-feet, 4-inches square, the tower transitioned to an octagonal plan above the second floor level. Capped with a decagonal iron housing and a fixed red Fourth Order Fresnel lens, the light was exhibited for the first time on the night of July 1, 1882.

While the station was originally equipped with a 1,500-pound fog bell operated by a clockwork striking mechanism, a corrugated iron-clad fog signal building equipped with duplicate steam-operated, 10-inch whistles was erected beside the diminutive lighthouse in 1884. That first year was relatively easy for the station’s keepers since the fog whistles only operated a total of 74 hours. The next year, however, they shoveled 35 tons of coal into the hungry boilers to keep the whistles screaming for 755 hours.

The station was automated on December 20, 1978, with the installation of solar-powered electric bulb within the Fourth Order Fresnel lens. In 1989, the Fresnel lens was removed, and replaced by a 190 mm acrylic optic, and the lens was transported to the Portage Coast Guard Station in Michigan, where it was placed on display in the station’s lobby. While the Passage Island Light station still serves as an active aid to navigation, it has been incorporated into Isle Royale National Park.

Rock of Ages

As Duluth grew to pre-eminence as Lake Superior’s major port, a growing number of captains chose to chart their course along the northern shore in order to avoid the lake’s violent storms, rather than chance the uncertain and changeable conditions of open water. With Rock of Ages lurking directly in the path of vessels choosing this course off the southern end of Isle Royale, a cry arose in the maritime community for the establishment of a light on the Rock.

It took two separate appropriations in 1905 and 1906 for Congress approved establishment of the station with the understanding that construction costs could not exceed $100,000. Plans for the new tower borrowed heavily from then state-of-the-art construction methods used in skyscrapers, with a central structural steel skeleton supporting masonry tower floors and walls. The station was considered important enough that it was designed to accept one of only five Second Order Fresnel lenses to be established on all the Great Lakes.

Work began at the Rock in 1908, and by the end of that navigation season the brickwork and masonry were complete, the main deck fitted-out and the lantern installed. With the glazing of the lantern complete, a temporary fixed red Third Order Fresnel lens was installed and a single 6-inch air-operated fog siren placed into operation on the night of October 22. Work resumed early in 1909, and by the end of August all of the station’s interior work was complete and painted, the pier surface paved, a chain railing installed around the outer perimeter of the pier and a permanent 11- by 24-foot landing crib erected. Manufacture of the Second Order lens was completed in early 1910 and after delivery to the station by the lighthouse tender Amaranth in early September, it was exhibited for the first time on the night of September 15, 1910.

Life at the Rock settled into a regular routine. With four keepers assigned to the station, a regular rotating schedule was established under which one keeper was scheduled for a week’s leave every month. Free time at the station was spent in reading, playing cards or fishing around the Rock. Some of the crew even built small cottages on Isle Royale, where they could spend time with their wives and sweethearts when on leave.

In the summer of 1939, the lighthouse tender Amaranth was dispatched to the Rock to replace one of the station’s air compressors with a new unit. Anchored a safe distance from the light, a steel scow was lowered from the deck, the new compressor lowered to its deck, and the scow towed to the lighthouse by the tender’s launch. From there, the station’s steam winch was used to lift the new compressor onto the station’s main deck, and the old compressor in turn lowered onto the scow.

The launch was in the process of returning to Amaranth, but as the scow approached the tender, it became clear that it was making a little too much headway. The scow smashed into the tender’s massive hull. Inertia caused the heavy compressor to slide across the scow’s smooth deck and the sudden load shift caused the scow to upend. While a couple of deckhands managed to jump from the scow to the deck of the tender at the last second, deckhand Robert “Sonny” Bergmarker was less fortunate, ending up with his lower body crushed between the scow and the tender’s hull. Crewmen quickly hoisted Bergmarker aboard the tender, where first aid was administered. It was clear, however, that Bergmarker needed real medical attention as soon as possible if he was to stand a chance of survival.

Quickly hoisting the scow and launch onto the tender’s deck, Amaranth Captain Patrick O’Donnell ordered a full head of steam, and the venerable tender headed for the nearest hospital in Houghton, Michigan. While the tender’s coal passers worked at a feverish pitch to get their shipmate to the hospital as quickly as possible, Bergmarker sadly died before they could make Houghton.

In 1985, the Second Order Fresnel lens was removed from the station to be replaced with a solar-powered 300 mm acrylic optic. The majestic lens was transported to the Windigo Ranger Station on Isle Royale, where it remains displayed to this day.

Now this historic light can be seen from ferries coming to the park or specific lighthouse cruises. Automated, it remains an active aid to navigation.  

Huron Island

In 1860, newspaper coverage of the grounding of the steamer Arctic on the easternmost of the Huron Islands brought the danger of the islands to public attention, although good Captain F.S. Miller did manage to get his cargo of passengers and cattle safely to shore.

Succumbing to political pressure, Congress appropriated $17,000 to establish a station on the islands on July 26, 1866. A survey party from the Lighthouse Service out of Detroit selected West Huron island, the westernmost of the chain as the best location for the new station. Basically nothing more than an outcropping of convoluted solid granite rock with deep fissures and chasms, the highest point on the island, some 163 feet above lake level, was selected as the location for the lighthouse itself. The same design for the station was used as that concurrently being erected at Granite Island – a design that would be repeated at a number of Lake Superior stations over the next decade.

Built of granite blocks quarried from the islands themselves, the 1 1/2-story structure featured an integrated square tower 39 feet in height, centered atop of which an octagonal cast-iron lantern housed a Third-and-a-half-Order Fresnel lens, lit for the first time on October 20, 1868. With the area frequently shrouded in fog, a steam-powered 10-inch locomotive fog signal was subsequently added to the station roster some 1,700 feet from the lighthouse in 1881.

As inhospitable as the island appears, a number of families called the station home. Keeper James Collins accepted a transfer to Huron Island from Manitou Island in 1935. With five children in tow, the light station did not have enough beds for all the kids. The youngest boys, Clayton and Jim, spent the first year in McMillan, Michigan, with their grandmother until the new assistant keeper’s building was completed the following year. Also that year, John Campbell accepted a transfer to the island as first assistant, and arrived from Grassy Island in the Detroit River, bringing with him his wife and two children, Dick and Helen. There were now seven young children on the island, and while their mothers and fathers toiled to keep the station in tip-top condition, the seven youngsters were free to roam, fish and build forts and rafts.

When Jim and Clayton Collins were interviewed in 2004 by Sandra Planisek of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, the brothers had fond memories of their time on the island. Clayton observed that the experience “taught us much. Nature. Patience. To sacrifice. To be careful. You didn’t want to be stubbing your toe and falling on your knees. There was nothing but rock out there. You don’t land on anything soft. It taught you so much.”

Today, the Huron Islands are owned by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service and are part of the Huron Islands Wilderness Area. Consisting of a total of 147 acres, the eight islands serve as a protected habitat for a wide variety of birds. The easternmost island in the Huron chain is known to this day as Cattle Island, in memory of the cattle from the Arctic that were marooned there in 1860.

As with many of the other island lights mentioned here, it is still an active aid to navigation thanks to automation of its beacon. In 1999, the Huron Island Lighthouse Preservation Association formed to help protect it.

Gull Rock

Lying directly in the passage between Keweenaw Point and Manitou Island, a number of rocky outcroppings peppered the area, the most dangerous of which was Gull Rock, half a mile off the shore of Manitou. Just 250 feet in length and less than 100 feet in width, Gull Rock stood less than 12 feet above the water under the calmest conditions, becoming virtually invisible in the gray darkness of stormy days when vessels were most likely to seek refuge in the passage.

Since a construction crew was already scheduled to be in the area in 1867 erecting identical lights on Huron and Granite Islands, the district engineer determined that the cost of the light on Gull Rock could be significantly reduced if the same design and construction crew were employed in building the light on Gull Rock. Construction began with the laying of a stone foundation upon which the 1 1/2-story Cream City brick keeper’s dwelling slowly took shape. The attached tower was capped with a prefabricated octagonal lantern housing a fixed red Fourth Order Fresnel lens at a focal plane of 50 feet. A brick privy, a boat landing and a series of connecting concrete sidewalks completed the sparse station’s complement of structures. Thomas Jackson was appointed as the station’s first keeper and, after arriving at the station, exhibited the light for the first time on the night of November 1, 1867.

1913 was a particularly eventful year at Gull Rock, when on June 25 an acetylene lighting system was installed in the Fourth Order lens. Equipped with a sun valve that automatically turned the light on at dusk and extinguished it after dawn, the characteristic of the light was also changed from fixed red to a red flashing every three seconds. Installation of large acetylene tanks allowed the light to operate untended for long periods. With a resident keeper no longer necessary, maintenance of the light was turned over to the keepers of the Manitou Island light, and Gull Rock was basically abandoned. On November 8, 1913, in a driving gale, the 450-foot steel-hulled freighter L.C. Waldo, fully loaded with iron ore, was driven ashore on Gull Rock. The Copper Harbor lifesaving service crew struggled heroically for four days and successfully rescued all of its crew members. Although it was quickly declared a total loss, Waldo was later removed and rebuilt and was sold into Canadian ownership. The vessel subsequently moved into international trade and ended up sinking near Portofino, Italy, while under tow to a scrap yard in LaSpezia.

Today, the Gull Rock Light still guides mariners through the passage, its illumination provided by a solar-powered, 12-volt DC 250 mm acrylic optic. From outside, the building appears to be in relatively good condition, but the bricks are spalling badly and the interior floors have largely collapsed. A group of concerned citizens hopes to stabilize the station so that it will last for future generations to enjoy.

Granite Island

Local Native Americans had neither reason nor desire to go to Na-Be-Quon Island (perhaps meaning “ship” or “vessel”). The small island was barren save for a few currants and raspberries that managed to gain a foothold in cracks between the rocks. With the discovery of iron ore in the area around 1840, Marquette was fast becoming one of the busiest ports in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Located roughly 12 miles northeast of Marquette, the island represented a major threat to vessels making passage to and from the harbor. On March 2, 1867, Congress appropriated $20,000 for construction of a lighthouse on the island. In 1868, a virtual twin of the lighthouse erected on Huron Island took shape at the center of Granite Island.

While located a relatively short distance from land, the distance may as well have been a thousand miles, as rough seas combined with extremely difficult landing conditions made virtually every trip to Marquette a life-threatening adventure. In fact, Keeper James Wheatley’s son, William, drowned in a squall in 1898 on his way to the island. In the fall of 1903, Wheatley’s assistant John McMartin launched the station boat to set out for Marquette when a wave capsized the boat, tossing McMartin into the water. Wheatley could only stand and watch in horror as the waves pounded his assistant against the rocks of the island, eventually to disappear and drown. Regardless of such hardships and heartache, somehow the life suited Wheatley, as he became the station’s longest serving keeper, serving on the island for 30 years from 1885 to 1915, when he retired from lighthouse service at the age of 83.

In the fall of 1939, the fog bell and furnishings were removed, and acetylene tanks were installed in a steel-sided shed by the tower, automating the light.

In the latest chapter of the Granite Island story, Ishpeming-raised Scott Holman, now a resident of Freeland, Michigan, submitted the highest bid of $86,000 for the island when it was put up for auction by the General Services Administration in 1999. Holman, a longtime explorer of Great Lakes shipwrecks, has since reputedly spent more than $1 million at Granite Island in converting the venerable station into a modern summer home for him and his wife, Martine. The light is no longer maintained as an aid to navigation.

Stannard Rock

Imagine Captain Charles C. Stannard’s surprise in 1835 when he was suddenly confronted by a previously uncharted rock protruding from the water while piloting his John Jacob Astor about 50 miles north of Marquette. Known for many years thereafter as “Stannard’s Rock,” the name was changed to Stannard Rock when an iron daymark was erected on the rock in 1866.

After successfully erecting a test crib on the rock in 1868 to ascertain if a permanent structure could withstand fall storms and winter ice, work began on a permanent lighthouse on Stannard Rock under the direction of Captain John A. Bailey, who had previously supervised the construction of the light at Spectacle Reef in Lake Huron. After the top of the rock was blasted and chiseled flat and smooth, huge dressed granite stones were delivered by barge from the Marblehead Quarry on Lake Erie. Weighing up to 30 tons apiece, these stones were hoisted from the barge and into position on the rock to a height of 33 courses (or layers) during July and August of 1881.

Over the following year, the immense granite structure took form and was capped by a Second Order Fresnel lens manufactured by Parisian lens makers Henry-Lepaute at a cost of $25,000. Featuring 12 bull’s-eyes and an equal number of upper and lower catadioptric prisms, the entire lens assembly weighed-in at almost two tons. With construction complete at a cost of $305,000, the lens stood at an impressive focal plane of 102 feet above lake level. Principal Keeper John Pasque climbed the tower stairs to exhibit the light for the first time on the appropriately patriotic evening of July 4, 1882.

Officially designated a “stag station” – indicating that no women or families were tolerated – over the ensuing years, the station became known to its Keepers as “Stranded Rock,” a name that was by no means meant as a term of endearment. It took a special kind of man to work in such isolation and confined conditions, and to this end most assignments to such remote outposts were of short duration. In fact, many found the conditions intolerable. One keeper was removed after he threatened to jump in the water and swim for shore, and a Coast Guard seaman was rumored to have been removed from the rock in a straitjacket. However, such isolation must have sat well with at least two of the keepers. Louis Wilks served as keeper at the station from 1936 to 1953, and Elmer A. Sorumen served as first assistant from 1934 to 1954.

Keeper service at Stannard Rock ended with a tragedy. On June 18, 1961, Coast Guard Engineman William A. Maxwell was working in the engine room when 2,000 gallons of gasoline exploded. With the tower acting as a chimney, the blast shot up through the stairway from the engine room to the galley, knocking electrician’s mate Daniels and Seaman Richard A. Horne across the room in which they were working and throwing Seaman Walter E. Scobie from his rack three decks above. Racing down the stairs, they managed to grab two jackets, a tarp and two cans of beans. Then the three crewmen had to huddle together on the north side of the tower opposite the burning engine room with the tarpaulin serving as their only cover.

Since this was the first time that the light had been extinguished in its 79 of years existence, the three men were certain that rescue would come quickly. Certainly the missing light would be reported by a passing freighter. However, there would be no rescue until two days later on June 20 when the Coast Guard cutter Woodrush arrived at the station on its regular bimonthly supply trip.

The vessel’s crew quickly set about extinguishing the fire, and Woodrush left the light and set sail for Houghton, where Daniels was admitted to the hospital. The station was automated immediately thereafter.

Like the light at Stannard Rock, all of the lighthouses described here, except Granite Island and Rock Harbor, still serve as active aids to navigation. Dedicated keepers no longer tend these lighthouses, but long remembered should be the selfless contribution that they and their families made to the opening and to the safety of Lake Superior maritime commerce.  

This is lighthouse historian and photographer Terry Pepper’s first story for Lake Superior Magazine. He serves on the board of directors for the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association and maintains an informative website dedicated to western Great Lakes lighthouses at www.terrypepper.com.