Digest>Archives> June 2008

Samuel Cavanor At Ram Island, 1883-1913

By Jeremy D’Entremont

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This photo of the walkway to the lighthouse at ...

Ram Island Light Station, at the entrance to Maine’s Boothbay Harbor, was established on November 5, 1883. The first keeper-at a yearly salary of $540-was Samuel John Cavanor, a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who had served as an assistant keeper on Seguin Island.

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Three crewmen from the buoy tender Iris, circa ...

Before he became a lighthouse keeper, Cavanor was on the crew of the lighthouse tender Iris when a buoy raised by a derrick swung and crushed his left leg, which had to be amputated at the knee. In an article written in 1900, lighthouse service machinist William K. Larkin Jr. recalled Cavanor as the most active keeper on the Maine coast, pegleg or not.

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Keeper Samuel Cavanor with two of the light ...

Cavanor lived on Ram Island with his wife, May (Youngery), and their five daughters, who attended school in Boothbay. During Cavanor’s first winter on the island, a fierce hailstorm broke the lantern glass and briefly extinguished the light. Cavanor spent the rest of the night in the lantern, blocking the broken panes with newspaper and making sure the light stayed lit.

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Keeper Samuel Cavanor and the Ram Island Light ...

That was the first of many battles Cavanor waged with the elements; a storm carried away the station’s boat in February 1885, and the fog bell’s weight box was swept away by a storm in February 1898. The island’s three trees all blew down in a November 1900 gale.

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Mary (May) Cavanor, Samuel’s wife, is at the far ...

Wrecks were commonplace near Ram Island, despite the lighthouse. Cavanor recorded in his log in December 1884 that the schooner Mineola was a “totle rack” when it went ashore at Squirrel Island, about a mile to the west. The schooner Garland was wrecked at the Hypocrites in 1885, and hardly a year went by without at least one shipping disaster in the vicinity.

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This photo of the keeper’s house on Ram Island ...

In late January 1903, during a heavy gale, the schooner Harriet W. Babson ran ashore at Ram Island, smashing through the walkway that connected the tower to the island. Cavanor couldn’t access the lighthouse after the accident, so it remained dark for several nights until temporary repairs could be carried out. The walkway was eventually rebuilt.

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The Cavanors began serving fish dinners in this ...

May Cavanor started serving fish dinners at a restaurant on Fisherman Island in 1904. The Cavanors bought a house in Boothbay Harbor, and Samuel was planning to retire there because of heart trouble when he died suddenly in April 1913, eight days short of his 62nd birthday. Keeper Dan Stevens of the Monhegan station was visiting with Cavanor, and he phoned the authorities with the bad news. A substitute keeper, Capt. O. G. Reed, was soon sent to the island.

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Ram Island Light Station is now cared for by the ...

In an obituary in the Boothbay Register, Cavanor was described as a “big hearted, cheerful man” and a “friend to all in need.” According to the newspaper, “Probably no family in this vicinity were more attached to each other living all those years together on the little island.”

This story appeared in the June 2008 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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