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Judi and Tom Kearney of Ambler, PA have donated a vintage buoy light to Cutler’s Friends of Little River Lighthouse. In accepting the gift from the Kearney’s, cochairman of the group, Tim Harrison said, “This is a wonderful donation that we hope will eventually go on display at the lighthouse, with other artifacts we have, to be viewed and appreciated by everyone.”
The buoy lantern is engraved with the letters USCG that was done from a mold at the time it was manufactured in a style that has not been used for many years, said Judi. She went on to say, “As modern aids to navigation developed, older style buoys, such as this one, were simply discarded.”
In making the donation, Judi Kearney said, “I’ve known Tim Harrison for about 15 years and have followed his preservation efforts at numerous lighthouse projects throughout the United States and he’s one of the few people I trust when making an artifact donation, knowing that he will make every effort to have it properly displayed for public viewing and educational purposes.”
The Kearney’s made the presentation to Harrison while attending the recent International ‘Lights Across the Border’ Lighthouse Challenge that was held August 9 in Washington County, Maine and Campobello Island, Canada. The couple have been securing lighthouse artifacts for nearly 25 years in an attempt to keep them out of private collections so that they may go to museums for the public’s benefit.
In the past, the Kearney’s donated many rare U.S. Lighthouse Service and Coast Guard artifacts to Harrison for Museum of Lighthouse History, a museum that Harrison founded, on behalf of the American Lighthouse Foundation. The Museum of Lighthouse History was merged in June of 2007 with the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland, Maine that was founded by Harrison’s friend, the late Ken Black. The Maine Lighthouse Museum has the largest collection of lighthouse artifacts of any museum in the United States.
The Friends of Little River Lighthouse, a chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation, took over the care of the Little River Lighthouse in November of 2007 after a six-year restoration project by volunteers of the American Lighthouse Foundation, which Harrison co-founded and was president of from 1994 through 2007.
This story appeared in the
October 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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