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Wickford, Rhode Island has a small but well-protected harbor and once was an important center for trade, shipbuilding and fishing. A village of the town of North Kingstown, the community today is best known for its quaint 200-year-old homes and shops, and for its annual Arts Festival attended by nearly 100,000 people every July.
Wickford has also been home to two fascinating lighthouses. The combined life of the active lights was a little less than a cenury, and only the older of the two survives.
Built for $3,000 in 1831 at the entrance to Wickford Harbor, Poplar Point Light remained in use for only 49 years. It was an octagonal wooden tower attached to the roof of the keeper’s dwelling.
In 1882 Poplar Point Light was replaced by a new Wickford Harbor Lighthouse, 200 yards offshore. Wickford Harbor Lighthouse was built on Old Gay Rock at the entrance to Wickford Harbor. Poplar Point Lighthouse was sold for about $4,000 to Albert R. Sherman in 1894 and has remained in private hands ever since. The tower remains in excellent condition, making it Rhode Island’s oldest unrebuilt lighthouse tower in its original location. In addition, the tower is the oldest existing wooden lighthouse in America.
The new light went into service the same day that Poplar Point Light was extinguished, November 1, 1882. The wooden lighthouse tower, 52 feet above sea level, was attached to a beautiful Victorian eight-room dwelling. It had a fifth order Fresnel lens that exhibited a fixed white light. The station also had a fog bell.
There were only three keepers of Wickford Light in its history. They were Henry F. Sherman (1882-1886), Nathaniel Dodge (1886-1893) and Edmund Andrews (1893-1930).
Keeper Edmund (his name was often recorded as Edward) Andrews was born in 1868 in Providence, Rhode Island. Andrews was the son of an English carpenter and an Irish woman.
Andrews went to sea aboard the George W. Darrison out of Block Island, Rhode Island, and by 1891 he was working as an assistant lighthouse keeper on Whale Rock Light, a dangerous and remote beacon at the entrance to the Narragansett Bay. While in that position Andrews married Lillian A. Sprague, age 17, of Block Island.
Andrews eventually became head keeper at Whale Rock. Edmund and Lillian had one child when they moved to the Wickford Lighthouse in 1893, and three more children were born at the light station during their years there. Life could not have been easy for the growing family living on the small offshore station with virtually no land surrounding the lighthouse.
Keeper Andrews was recognized for the rescue of a drowning man in 1898, and a 1905 inspection showed the station in “excellent order.” There were to be some rough times, however.
In 1907 Andrews was accused of stealing a neighbor’s chickens (he was later cleared), and was reprimanded for housing his brother-in-law and a friend at the station. The keeper pointed out in his defense that he had been ill and that his wife’s brother was there to row the family’s children ashore to school each day. The friend who had been staying at the lighthouse was a keeper of Block Island North Light. Andrews was told that he would be allowed to have another person at the station when he was ill, but not the persons named in the complaint.
In 1909 Keeper Andrews was offered a transfer to Eaton’s Neck Light on Long Island, New York. He turned down this transfer, saying, “I would like to have a land station where there is no vapor lamp or an assistant keeper, not too far out of Rhode Island.” His request was never granted. Keeper Andrews spent the rest of his long Lighthouse Service career at Wickford Harbor Light.
In 1918 Keeper Andrews was reprimanded for the subpar condition of the station, but no action was taken as officials recognized that the keeper’s wife had been ill. It appears that the situation had improved by 1927, when Andrews was again commended for the excellent condition of station. By 1930 Andrews was disabled by a combination of medical conditions and requested a retirement with a pension. He retired after 40 years of service in 1930, the same year the Wickford Harbor Lighthouse was discontinued and destroyed.
A medical exam recorded that Andrews had been suffering from heart disease, rheumatism, and a nervous tremor, among other ailments. Keeper Edmund Andrews died in Massachusetts at the Chelsea Naval Hospital in 1939, the year the Lighthouse Service was taken over by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Today, the old caisson that once was the base of the lighthouse still stands, topped by a day beacon. Its importance as an aid to navigation is now slight, but it is perhaps best thought of a memorial to a faithful keeper. Edmund Andrews’ 37 years of service at one light station, especially an offshore one like Wickford Harbor Light, is worthy of remembrance and respect.
This story appeared in the
January 2002 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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