For centuries, women lighthouse keepers maintained critical coastal lights across the United States, performing the same demanding duties as their male counterparts while rarely appearing in the historical record. In the 19th century, it became one of the first non-clerical federal jobs open to women.
This season, Southold Historical Museum is turning to the people who once kept watch over the nation’s waters. Its Winter Lecture Series, beginning later this month at the Ann Currie-Bell House Gallery on the Maple Lane campus, will explore lighthouse keeping, maritime language and the generations of women whose work guided sailors safely home.
While nearly all of the women were overlooked during their lifetime and in historic records, there were celebrated exceptions.
In the 1860s and 1870s, there was no greater rock star lady lighthouse keeper in America than Ida Lewis at Lime Rock Light in Rhode Island’s Newport Harbor. She is said to have rescued four men whose boat capsized in 1854. She was 12.
Lewis (pictured in the illustration above) rowed into winter storms wearing a Victorian dress, shawl and boots, hauling drowning sailors into her boat while male sailors stayed ashore, according to Newport Daily News reports preserved by the U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s office. During her most famous rescue in an 1869 blizzard, she pulled two soldiers from the freezing water after their boat overturned.
Tourists began visiting Newport just to watch her row. Newspapers described her muscles and strangers mailed gifts and marriage proposals. Mark Twain is said to have called her “the bravest woman in America.” The tiny rock where she lived became a sightseeing stop because people wanted to see “the woman who rows through storms.”
Ships would fire guns toward the lighthouse when in trouble, knowing she would come. When she died in 1911, every vessel in Newport Harbor lowered its flag to half-staff, an honor typically reserved for statesmen. In 1924, Rhode Island officials changed the name of Lime Rock Lighthouse to the Ida Lewis Lighthouse.
Yet most of the nation’s female lighthouse keepers never got their due. Like Stella Prince.
Among the last civilian keepers of the Horton Point Lighthouse in the early 20th century, as lighthouse service gradually shifted from individual families to federal management, Prince lived a solitary life in a tower on an isolated bluff — polishing the lens, winding clocks, maintaining the oil and later kerosene light, and forever watching the weather.
“We’ve done lectures about her in the past, but there’s a lot more to tell,” said the museum’s executive director, Darren St. George. He said Prince’s story represents something broader.
“She’s not an anomaly. This is a common occurrence of having women involved in maritime — taking care of lighthouses, and we wanted to see what we could learn.”
The series opens Thursday, Feb. 26, at 1 p.m. with author Mary Korpi presenting “Stella Prince…Her Story Continues.” Korpi’s research into female lighthouse keepers expands on the legacy of Prince and others whose work often went unrecognized. Her fictionalized narrative about Prince, The Lady Lighthouse Keeper, was published in 2022.
A winter of lighthouse stories
On March 26 at 1 p.m., author Cynthia Barrett presents “Three Sheets to the Wind: Nautical Origins of Everyday Expressions,” tracing how the vocabulary of ships and sailors became part of modern English. Well-worn expressions like “loose cannon,” “know the ropes,” “pooped” and, of course, “between the devil and the deep blue seas” all rose out of maritime life. So did “slush fund,” “turning a blind eye,” “the bitter end” and “happy hour.”
Hannah Thomas of Plymouth, Massachusetts is believed to have been the first female lighthouse keeper in the U.S., taking over in 1776 after her husband, John Thomas, was killed fighting in the American Revolution. She carried whale oil up the tower every night and was partially paid in grazing rights for livestock.
The final program, held on April 16 at 1 p.m., features Sally Snowman, considered the last official lighthouse keeper in the United States, alongside historian Jeremy D’Entremont of the U.S. Lighthouse Society. Their presentation, “Women Who Kept the Lights, 1776-2023,” spans nearly 250 years of maritime service.
All lectures are free and held at the Ann Currie-Bell House Gallery, 55200 Main Road in Southold, unless otherwise noted.
Looking ahead to the semiquincentennial
This summer, the museum will play a major role in local celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.
St. George said the centerpiece will be what organizers are calling “America’s birthday party,” scheduled for July 11 at the Maple Lane campus.
The event will feature Revolutionary War reenactments by the New York Third Regiment, bread-baking demonstrations using a portable hearth and a historically researched colonial-era cake prepared by culinary historian Diane Schwindt of Stirring Up History.
Schwindt has spent nearly a year developing the recipe — even commissioning a custom mold to produce a period-appropriate cake large enough for the celebration.
The festivities will begin the day before with a July 10 lecture by museum curator and Southold Town historian Amy Folk, examining the town’s role in the American Revolution.
St. George said the goal is both educational and communal.
“I just want to have something fun for families,” he said. “We’re going to learn, we’re going to have a great time, but we understand what a birthday party entails — and let’s bring that something that we can all celebrate together.”
Founded in 1964, Southold Historical Museum preserves the history of one of New York state’s earliest English settlements. The organization maintains several historic structures on its Maple Lane campus and operates the Horton Point Lighthouse Nautical Museum overlooking Long Island Sound.