Digest>Archives> May 2001

The Longest Helm

Unaka Benjamin Jennette — Keeper, U.S. Lighthouse Service

Comments?    


You can see an enlarged version of this picture by clicking here.
>> Click to enlarge <<
Lighthouse Keeper Unaka Jennette is shown here ...

The majority of this story was taken from excerpts from a manuscript, “Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, as I Knew It,” written by Rany B. Jennette, a proud son, and transcribed by his wife Lynn Jennette. Unable to join the United States Lighthouse Service, Rany kept alive the Jennettes’ lighthouse legacy by telling his stories “Life at the Lighthouse” as a National Park Service ranger for fourteen years. Unaka and Miss Sudie would have been proud of his contribution.

You can see an enlarged version of this picture by clicking here.
>> Click to enlarge <<
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Keeper Unaka Jennette’s ...

Also contributing were Rany’s sisters, Myrtle (Jennette) Gibbs, Dorcas (Jennette) Anderson, Ramona (Jennette) Provo, and Mr. Raymond Basnett.

You can see an enlarged version of this picture by clicking here.
>> Click to enlarge <<
Rany Jennette is shown here in his National Park ...

Unaka Benjamin Jennette was the last keeper for two lights at Cape Hatteras. As principal (primary) keeper at the Cape Hatteras Light Station, he served from 1919-1936. When the striped tower was darkened due to the threat of erosion, he then tended the skeleton tower in Buxton Woods from 1936-39. His twenty-year tenure as principal keeper was the longest of all keepers on record at Cape Hatteras.

You can see an enlarged version of this picture by clicking here.
>> Click to enlarge <<
Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse, North Carolina where ...

Descended from a long line of Jennett(e) keepers, this family’s name has always been associated with lighthouse keeping at Cape Hatteras from the beginning. For it was a sixth generation ancestor, Christian Jennett, widow of Joseph, who sold the first four acres of land used for the first lighthouse at Cape Hatteras to the U.S. Government in 1798. She sold the land on behalf of her four minor children for a sum of fifty dollars. The ninety-five-foot-tall sandstone tower was built in 1802 and first lighted in 1803. Additionally, Unaka himself signed a warranty deed in 1936, which ceded to the U.S. government the land for the replacement skeleton tower constructed when the 1872 tower was discontinued. Thus, records of the Jennett family and the Cape Hatteras lighthouse lands extend for 138 years.

Unaka joined the Lighthouse Service in 1904 as a deckhand on a buoy tender. In 1909 he was promoted to Quarter Master and transferred to Diamond Shoals Lightship. In 1911 he was promoted to Master and served as Captain on the thirty-five-foot Channel Lightship and the Lighthouse Tender Maple. In 1913, he became Master of the Diamond Shoals Relief Lightship. In 1918, he was Captain of the Tender Jasmine and in 1919 he was given the prized assignment as principal keeper at Cape Hatteras.

He married Jennie Louana Scarborough “Miss Sudie” in 1911. She was born in Kinnakeet (Avon) on 7 April 1890, the daughter of Richard and Rebecca Midgett Scarborough. Unaka and Miss Sudie had seven children: Almy (1913-1985), Vivian (1916-1999), Myrtle (1919), Rany (1921), Olive (1923-1996), Dorcas (1927), and Ramona (1929). All but Almy and Vivian were born in the principal keeper’s quarters at Cape Hatteras.

Unaka was called “Captain Naka,” “Capt. Akey,” or “Cap’n.” A member of a well-known family to all the community, he was respected by everyone. When asked to describe their father, Vivian, Myrtle, Rany, Dorcas, and Ramona began their comments on the Jennette family with a unanimous, “He was the best Daddy anybody could have.”

Miss Sudie, as she was affectionately called, was a wonderful Christian woman. She was very active in the Buxton Methodist Church. About her mother, Myrtle stated, “Mama was a very sweet person. She was very reserved and only saw good in people.” Miss Sudie read her Bible every day and often played favorite hymns on the piano. Mornings in the Jennette household started with everyone at the breakfast table with Mama reading a passage from scripture and Daddy praying.”

The lighthouse complex was notably different in the early 1900’s with several outbuildings and penned areas for animals. Each of three keepers, the principal and two assistants, had a storehouse for feed, paint, and other supplies. There were outdoor privies that were described as “three-holers - large, medium and small just like the three bears.” There were also coal bins, which were divided into three compartments and three cisterns, one for each family. Rainwater was collected in the cisterns from runoff into roof eaves, which was then piped into the clean storage tanks as a source of fresh water for the families’ consumption. The lawns were green with grass and clover and kept neatly trimmed at all times. There was a large, deep pond surrounded by sedge with long sword-shaped leaves, cattails, and lily pads. The pond and sedge areas were alive with wildlife including ducks, turtles, fish, and cottonmouth moccasins! A wire fence supported by reinforced concrete posts surrounded the dwellings. A fence divided the principal and double keepers houses, and a large concrete walk ran from each house to the lighthouse. Just beyond the pond, there were garages, pens for hogs and chickens, and a vegetable garden. A car “track,” dotted with small hills, yaupon, and scrub oaks, led to Buxton Village and beyond. The area where the Comfort Inn is located today was once called the “Head of the Sedge.”

Dorcas recalled, “All of the lighthouse families were large and we never wanted for children to play with, and I remember Uncle Bill, Assistant Keeper William E. Quidley, who would dress up on Halloween and scare everyone. We called him ‘Old Man Bill Spriggins’.”

Myrtle noted her best friend was Myrtle Casey, Assistant Keeper James O. Casey’s daughter. “They called her ‘big Myrtle’ and me ‘little Myrtle.’ Olive’s best friend was Melita Midgett, Assistant Keeper John E. Midgett’s daughter, who was a cousin, and Rany’s best friend was Murray Casey.”

Rany stated, “Dr. Folb, a young Pharmacist’s Mate at the Naval radio station, along with ‘Miss Rovena,’ a midwife, took care of most of our severe illnesses and performed many miraculous wonders with their limited skills and ‘modern’ medicines. ‘Doc’ Folb will always be remembered by folks along the Outer Banks- we always considered him as one of us as long as he lived. He died at age ninety-four.”

Dorcas and Ramona were quite young while the Jennettes lived at the lighthouse, but Myrtle recalled vividly the night Ramona was born. “Mother asked Mrs. Edna (Casey) Gray to take us to the movies- I think she knew that the baby was coming. Mr. Gaskill showed movies weekly at the schoolhouse and that night’s feature was ‘Ramona.’ And sure enough, while we were gone, the baby was born. Mama had planned to name the baby Ruby, but Ms. Edna asked if she could name her, and that’s how she became Ramona.”

Rany remembered when the addition was built on the principal keepers quarters about 1927. The Lighthouse Service sent a work party from Lazzereto Depot in Baltimore on a buoy tender. Behind the tender, they towed a house barge and anchored it in Cape Channel, which became the crew’s living quarters. “W. F. Lynch, the foreman, lived with us. He and my father had been friends for a long time. He would tell us all about snipe hunting at night, and we just had to go. So one night he said he would take a friend and me. We were about ten years old. We took two bags and a flashlight and walked the surf to the old Tower Hill, where the ruins of the 1803 lighthouse were. He said, ‘Boys, you lie down one on each side of the bag and hold it open. Place the light beside the bag and let it shine down the beach. I will walk down the beach and scare up some snipe; they will see the light and run toward it. When they get close to the bag, close it real fast.’ We waited for hours until we got tired and disgusted and walked back home. The old folks got a big kick out of the joke, but we were too wise to ever go again.”

The lighthouse would occasionally need a complete paint job. This was usually supervised by the lighthouse working party with some local help that the keeper could hire. On one occasion, Rany remembered there were three or four local boys in their late teens or early twenties who were working in the paint box, which was hanging from the deck rail on the side of the lighthouse. “My father was using his car to raise and lower the platform by attaching the lead rope in the pulley system to the rear bumper of his car. He noticed the boys were acting in a strange manner and doing pretty sloppy work. He suspected meal tea or white lightening might be the cause, so he took matters into his own hands. He got into his car, released the brake, started the motor, put the car in reverse, and backed up a few feet. The sudden drop had quite a sobering effect on his young workers, and the job was properly done from then on!”

A good friend, Raymond Basnett, recalled a time after Unaka Jennette had retired. “The Coast Guard had awarded a contract to paint the lighthouse to a local man, William Finnegan, in 1946. He hired me and Cap’n ‘Naka to help him.” When asked how they did it, Raymond chuckled and said, “Well we had a box which was about five feet wide and ten or twelve feet long, and we hung that with a block and tackle to the top of the light at the lantern room level. It had lines running down from there to the ground where we had a truck. The right rear wheel of the truck was jacked up, the tire removed, and a hub put on it. That’s what we used for a pulley. The rope ran around that and that’s how we would pull the box up and down. Cap’n Nakey was the lineman on the hub and the rope would run around the hub and he would pull on it and that would raise the tackle to raise the box up or let it down- whichever way we wanted to go. We’d use the guidelines on the sides to pull ourselves around the lighthouse. If we wanted to go to the right, we’d pull to the right. You’d be surprised how far that thing would go. Finnegan and I were in the box doing the painting, and Unaka would let us down and we would go around again. Someway, somehow, we finally painted it and did a good job! It took about two weeks. As I recall, we painted the white first and then the black.”

Continuing, Raymond can laugh today about this dangerous job. “We were painting one day, and I would say we were about half way down, and we had to move up or down, I forget which way we were going now. Cap’n Unaka was down on the ground and he missed the turn on the hub and lost it- he lost control of it, and here we started to fall, and we were hollerin’ at him! And he was hollerin’ at us! And he was hanging on the line and burned his hands all up and he finally had to turn her loose as he was going up in the air as we were coming down. I suppose he got off the ground maybe six or seven feet, something like that, and he decided to turn loose. When he turned loose, he fell, and so did we, box and all. We came on down the side of the lighthouse and hit the stone ring, you know that thing that goes around the bottom of the lighthouse, and bounced around for a while. The box turned on its side and threw us out on the ground. We finally regained our senses and knew we were alright, but that Unaka had burned his hands right bad. That was quite an experience and nobody was hurt seriously. After it was all over we laughed, but coming down there I didn’t laugh! I think we called it a day after that, then came back the next day and fixed the locks and fixed the rope and everything and got started again.”

In later years when Rany was a National Park Service ranger at the lighthouse he loved for visitors to ask him a favorite question, “How did they paint the lighthouse?” Rany replied with a straight face, “Oh it was real easy, first they would paint the whole tower white. Next, after it dried, they would paint one vertical black stripe down the middle. Then my father would go to the top, take a large wrench and give it a three-quarter twist.” Rany got a big charge out of that story and continued to tell it often. The best part was that many of the people would actually believe him!

Recalling the time spent with his father, Rany said, “Many times I climbed the lighthouse with my father and helped with the routine maintenance, I shined lots of brass. My fondest memory at the top of the lighthouse was going out on deck, looking through the huge spyglasses, or binoculars, and observing ships passing - so close you could see crew members on the ships.”

The good times and further memories of life for the Jennettes at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse came to an abrupt end during August 1933. Rany sadly recalled, “My family left this home, never to return again. My father moved us into Buxton to my grandfather’s house after a severe hurricane hit the island. You will understand this when you see the report written by my father on August 25, 1933.”

Two days after a huge hurricane hit Hatteras Island, indeed the entire East Coast, and caused extreme damage, Keeper Jennette urgently requested the help of the U.S. Lighthouse Service for the second time.

“Report to Superintendent of Light Houses, Baltimore, Maryland

Subject: Report of damage done by storm of August 22.

Sir:

I beg leave to submit herewith-detailed report of the damage done by the recent storm of the 22nd inst. I wired you hastily on the morning of the 23rd, but have heard nothing from the office since that time. This was by far the highest sea tide recorded since I have been at Cape Hatteras. Two store houses and garages were washed down. Three toilets washed down. Floor bursted up in one room of 2nd asst. quarters. Screening on keepers dwelling destroyed. Furniture in keepers dwelling badly damaged. Sand banked around oil house up to oil tank. Tide came through windows recently cut in oil house and flooded the house with water and sand. Sea water at present is standing even with porch floor. All cisterns filled with sea water, a crew having to bring water from neighborhood. Beach changed and wasted badly, bank of beach extending on a level from keepers fence. Plaster in 1st. asst. parlor fallen in. I advise that someone from the office be sent down to look over the situation and make a general survey of the damages and changes made by the storm. The entire reservation is completely submerged, and I have been forced to move my family away from the station. Respectfully, (signed) U.B. Jennette, Keeper”

Keeper Jennette received the following reply:

“Response from Office, Superintendent of Lighthouses, Baltimore, Maryland, August 28, 1933.

Copy to Commissioner of Lighthouses, Washington, D.C., with information that party with equipment will arrive at this station on the 29th to electrify tower. Condition of station will be inspected and report submitted as soon as practicable. Signed Superintendent of Lighthouses, Luther Hopkins [sic]”

Recalling this trying time, Rany stated, “A second, more severe storm hit Hatteras Island three week’s later and brought even larger seas ashore. The area was still flooded from the first storm and was unable to handle any more. The torrents of waters, which flooded into the house, up-righted the large oak dining table my father had nailed to the front door. The entire first floor of the house was flooded. Anything that had not been damaged by the first hurricane was now completely destroyed since there was virtually no recovery time between the two. Since the houses were deemed uninhabitable, even after electrification of the houses in 1934, the keepers and their families never returned to this complex.”

In 1939, the U.S. Lighthouse Service was merged with the U.S. Coast Guard. All personnel of the old Lighthouse Service were given a choice to join the Coast Guard or to remain a civilian employee until they retired. Neither choice was to the benefit of the older keepers with many years of experience. Joining the Coast Guard meant loss of seniority in rank and lower pay; however, the only alternative was for a keeper to remain with the old Lighthouse Service and be subject to a transfer to a more remote and less important lighthouse. In North Carolina, many keepers were transferred to the sound lights; although these lights were once important to vessels carrying passengers and cargo to ports of business, they were beyond their heyday in 1939. Like approximately half of the veteran keepers, Unaka chose to remain with the old Lighthouse Service and he was transferred to Roanoke Marshes screw-pile lighthouse near Wanchese. He remained there until he retired in 1943. Unaka’s children Rany and Myrtle remembered their father as a very proud man and that he refused to put on a sailor suit.

Rany concluded, “My father enjoyed twenty-two years of retirement before he passed away in 1965 at the age of eighty-three. He was never in ill health. He was highly respected by everyone on Hatteras Island. He was a kind-hearted and mild-mannered man and always gave a hand wherever needed. He was a good husband, father and neighbor. One of his old shipmates, in his eighties, came up to me after my father’s funeral and said, ‘That was the finest man and shipmate I ever knew.’ What more can be said?”

This story appeared in the May 2001 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.

All contents copyright © 1995-2024 by Lighthouse Digest®, Inc. No story, photograph, or any other item on this website may be reprinted or reproduced without the express permission of Lighthouse Digest. For contact information, click here.


Subscribe
to Lighthouse Digest



USLHS Marker Fund


Lighthouse History
Research Institute


Shop Online












Subscribe   Contact Us   About Us   Copyright Foghorn Publishing, 1994- 2024   Lighthouse Facts     Lighthouse History