Digest>Archives> May 1996

Lost in the pages of time

Maine family was most famous keeper at California light

By Timothy Harrison

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The Santa Barbara Lighthouse before it was ...

Santa Barbara Lighthouse destroyed by earthquake.

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Julia Williams at age 80, Keeper of the Santa ...
Photo by: Courtesy of Santa Barbara Historical Society

Soon after the beginning of California's historic gold rush, Albert Johnson Williams of Waterville, Maine left the "Downeast State" in search of adventure and fortune. On his way to California he spent six months in Panama where he made $5000 in the hotel business, a lot of money for that time.

His wife Julia, who also claimed to be a "Mainiac," but was actually from Campobello Island, Canada, followed him two years later. Her journey to the gold rush state was much harder, she spent much of the time on horseback crossing the Isthmus of Panama with her child being carried on the back of one of the natives. She arrived in San Francisco in 1853.

They lived for a couple of years in San Francisco, where Mr. Williams was able to save a sizable amount of money from some wise business investments.

Being a war veteran he decided that applying for a job as a lightkeeper would be an honest reward for his military duty. He was appointed keeper, and arrived in Santa Barbara in 1856 along with the stonemasons and carpenters who were hired to build the lighthouse. A small boat brought them to the shore and he carried his pregnant wife and children through the surf to land.

This being a remote area with few inhabitants they settled for the only shelter they could find, a small adobe, where, as his son later wrote "if the wind blew, one must close the shutters on the holes that served as windows and light the candles, and where food must be kept jealously covered lest it be enriched with the inhabitants of the rotten rafters."

Eventually, they found more suitable housing while the lighthouse was being built. Local Indians were used for the unskilled manual labor.

. . . the man being found dead

When the lighthouse was ready to be lived in Williams moved his family from town. There was no road leading to the lighthouse from town. Williams' son, Bion, wrote in later years about the move - "Although there was not a structure of any kind to bar the way, and they were free to choose their road where ever they pleased to go, still moving was not such a simple matter after all. For the human freight was secured the services of a coachman and coach, both a little wobbly and somewhat uncertain as to where they would finally bring up. The trip was safely made however, but the driver, no doubt elated by his success and something else, forgot about discretion being the better part and took a short cut home with the result that towards dusk the sheriff and a detachment of mounted police appeared on the scene vowing dire vengeance if he were not produced on the instant, dead or alive. This condition was fulfilled later on, the man being found dead-drunk under a tree half way home."

Although Mr. Williams was the keeper, he was rarely at the lighthouse, preferring instead to hold another job in town and leaving most of the work at the lighthouse up to his wife.

The only source for water was from the cistern which held rain water. The only problem was it hardly ever rained. Julia would have to saddle up the old horse, take the baby in her arms and with the two little girls following, travel a mile to the spring for water and return with buckets slung over the saddle. This was also the same method used for securing fire wood. When he was seven years old, Bion Williams was assigned this job and recalled in later years being thrown from the horse and water buckets went flying everywhere.

In Christmas of 1857, Mrs. Williams held a Christmas dinner for all 30 Americans living in town and after dinner the first game ever of baseball was played in Santa Barbara.

. . . a man showed up with official paperwork

After serving in the position of Keeper for four years, a new man showed up with official paperwork which declared him as the new keeper. Williams had never been notified he was being fired or transferred, but packed up his family's belongings at once and moved out to a ranch house he had been building and was nearly completed anyway.

The new keeper didn't like the job and after a short time, quit in distaste. Mr. Williams was told that the paperwork appointing a replacement keeper was in error and he was asked to take the position of Keeper again. However, he was a proud man, his dignity had been tarnished and he said he would never go back. However, until a new keeper was found he had one of his hire help go to the light each night and light it.

Mrs. Williams wanted the job . . .

The station then had several other keepers, none who stayed very long. But, Mrs. Williams wanted the job and went after it, figuring she had always done most of the work anyway while her husband was keeper. In February 1865, she got her wish and was officially appointed the Keeper of the Santa Barbara Lighthouse, becoming the second female lighthouse keeper in California's history.

Albert Williams died in 1882 at the age of 57, but Julia kept her job as Keeper.

For 40 years Julia Williams was never away from the lighthouse at night, except for twice in 1899 when her two boys got married.

But it was her work at the lighthouse that did her in. In 1905 at the age of 80, while performing her duties at the lighthouse, she fell and severely injured her hip. Being unable to perform her duties she was forced to resign. In those days with no social security, government pension or even disability pay she wound up in a nursing home and was penniless. Her children paid for her care.

During her tenure as keeper, she had become famous all over California, thanks to some ingenious magazine and newspaper stories and was known throughout the state as the "Lighthouse Lady." Her death in 1911 brought bold headlines and lengthy obituaries in newspapers across the region.

Julia Williams was replaced by another female, Caroline Morse who served at the station until 1911.

In 1913 Harley Weeks, at the time the Keeper at Point Conception Light, was transferred to the Santa Barbara Light. He died only a few years after getting the job and another female, his wife assumed the title, which was later given to his son Albert.

On June 28, 1925 the Weeks family had some relatives over to visit and they spent the night. Since there was not enough room for everybody, Albert decided to sleep in one of the out buildings. At 6:45 in the morning of the next day, June 29, a violent series of earthquakes shook the area.

Albert rushed out and into the damaged lighthouse and nearly single handedly pulled everybody from the building. Within seconds after rescuing the last person out, the entire structure groaned, moaned, and vibrated, and the tower and lantern roof collapsed, crashing through the roof demolishing the entire station.

The lighthouse was never rebuilt. However, the town of Santa Barbara remembers the lighthouse with streets named Lighthouse Road and Camino de la Luz meaning Street of Light.

This story appeared in the May 1996 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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