Digest>Archives> Sep/Oct 2014

Up to any Emergency at Beavertail Light

By Cheryl Vislay

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Originally built in 1749, Beavertail Lighthouse is Rhode Island‘s first lighthouse and the third oldest lighthouse in the United States. The current tower was built in 1856 and is located on Beavertail Point on Conanicut Island. Beavertail, a peninsula shaped like a beaver with its “tail” at the southernmost point, is attached to Jamestown by a narrow strip of sandbar which runs around Mackerel Cove.

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Silas Gardner Shaw became lighthouse keeper at Beavertail Lighthouse in 1858 and family legend says he took the Treasury job at the lighthouse to avoid fighting his brother, Henry Muchmore Shaw, a North Carolina congressman turned Confederate Colonel during the Civil War. Henry debated the “Kansas Question” in Congress that same year. Their father, John Allen Shaw, who was in the West Indies trade out of Newport, lost ships and his livelihood to the British in the War of 1812 and the family headed south for a chance at a better life. When Silas was just six years old, his mother died and he was sent back to Newport to live with relatives while Henry and another brother remained in North Carolina with their father. Ironically, Colonel Henry M Shaw, commander at Roanoke Island, was captured by General Ambrose Burnside leading Rhode Island forces. Colonel Shaw was released and was eventually killed in a skirmish at Batchelder’s Creek while preparing to battle Burnside once again, this time at New Bern.

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Beavertail Lighthouse, Rhode Island. (Lighthouse ...

From 1858 to 1862, Silas Gardner Shaw was paid $350 per annum. In 1862 he left and was replaced by Peter Lee who famously came by boat from Jamestown with his cow in the bow, his horse astern, and his family and furniture in between. Lee lasted for about a year, and Silas came back to the lighthouse from 1863 to 1869 at $650 per annum; his wife, Ann Neal Goddard Shaw, became his seventh and last assistant from 1864 to 1869 at $400 per annum, thereby tripling their income. This extra income may be the reason so many photos of the family exist today. Silas and Ann had nine children, and Emily Ann, their eldest, was about 8 years old when she arrived at Beavertail. Four of her siblings were born at the lighthouse; they are George Henry- 1852, Newport; Ann Eliza (Lile)-1853, Newport; Mary Florence-1856, Newport; Josephine Augusta-1858, Newport; John Allen-1860, Beavertail; Joseph Rodney-1862, Beavertail; Edward Vose Goddard-1863, Beavertail; and Silas Gardner Shaw Jr.-1865, Beavertail. All survived to adulthood with the exception of Edward, who died of diphtheria in October of 1877 at age 14. It’s likely that Ann, with nine children to care for, was assistant keeper in name only, and that her older children carried out many of the tasks that needed to be performed at the lighthouse on a 24/7 basis-often from dusk until well past dawn. Lights were to be displayed “punctually at sunset and kept lighted at full intensity until sunrise.” The prism lens needed to be cleaned and polished, wicks had to be trimmed and lit, and lamp fuel had to be carried to the top of the lighthouse tower. Besides the actual tending of the light, there was general maintenance needed on the buildings year round, but the most important aspect of being the lighthouse keeper was keeping people safe, especially during an emergency.

Lena Clarke, the founding president of the Jamestown Historical Society, received a letter from one of Silas’ daughters describing life at Beavertail lighthouse:

“When we first went there was just a light, a barn and a stone wall around the government property. We soon had a henhouse, a sty (kept white), a flower garden, trellis with climbing roses, and a large vegetable garden. . . I often heard my father tell about a vessel going on the rocks south of the light and how the men came ashore carrying pails of cider and rolling pins, part of the cargo. . . In a severe storm, when another craft was grounded, one of the crew made his way ashore, carrying a heavy sea chest on his back, and the wind was so strong it blew him down on the rocks. . . Whenever my father heard a noise in the night, he always took his gaff hook and lantern and went along the shore to try to find out what it was. One night he saved five or six men whose yawl had washed on the rocks, and brought them to the light to remain during the night.”

Passed down in the family is the story that Silas was to ring a loud bell if there was an emergency. The bell was to call distant neighbors (there weren’t many) to help rescue sailors whose ships had wrecked on the rocks near the lighthouse. This story may be a variation of the one told to Lena Clarke, as it ends with Silas saving five or six sailors all by himself. The story goes “Late one night Silas heard a ruckus and knew that a ship had wrecked. He had his wife and assistant, Ann, ring the bell. She rang and rang the bell, but nobody came! He had to save the sailors all by himself.”

The following is a true story and is a portion of the book Random Scenes for Nancy; published by my great grandmother, Emily Dunham Hall (daughter of Emily Ann Shaw,) in 1938 about her grandparents, lighthouse keepers Silas Gardner and Ann Shaw (she called them Fardi and Munny.)

“Oh, Munny! And are we going to have lobsters, too?”

“Who said lobsters?”

“Nobody, but there’s the lobster kettle on the stove!”

“So ‘tis, I wonder how it got there? ‘Bubble, bubble, toil an’ trouble, witches brew an’ cauldron bubble’—the old witch herself must have put that on the stove! There now, the water’s ‘most hot.”

“And now you have time to tell me just one more story, about Fardi sewing up Uncle Joey’s head!”

“My pities, that puts me in mind of Father! An’ he’ll be here directly, an’ you makin’ me late—well, one time, I forget whether it was evenin’ or mornin’, anyway it was arfter a storm an’ the big waves was washin’ right up onto the road, clear up to the old house, an’ that set up high on a cliff, you know, an’ the causeway at Mackerel Cove was under water, so you couldn’t get anywheres without a bo’t.

“I disremember what Father was about, but like as not he was makin’ his bo’t farst, so it wouldn’t wash away—he’d just come in from Bonnet Point with a mess of tautog—an’ Joseph was playin’ around on the wet rocks, when all to once he slipped an’ fell, right on top of his head, right onto a jagged rock, cuttin’ a great gash so his brains bulged out. Father see him about the time I did, an’ he run an’ picked him up, quick, before a big wave should come an’ wash him away. “An’ he brought him in, white as a ghost— they was both white—an’ I thought the boy was dead, an’ I guess Father saw that I wasn’t far from it, myself, for he said, ‘Buck up, now, Mother, no time to drivel, get me a silver spoon, a big needle, some white thread, an’ that bottle of rum on the closet shelf! Step lively, an’ don’t fret, we’ll fix Joey in a minute.’

“So I managed to get the things he wanted, an’ he put Joey, still unconscious, on the kitchen table, an’ he took the silver spoon an’ pressed those brains back just as gentle as a woman, an’ a sight steadier than I could have, anyway. An’ then he took the needle an’ linen thread an’ dipped them in the rum, an’ he sewed that scalp up, six stitches he took. Then he washed the wound all off with salt water, an’ Joseph come out all right! But Father was white as a ghost, an’ had to have a little noggin of rum, to steady himself, but he come out right as reason, too, in a few minutes.

Because the lighthouse keeper and his family are often isolated, the keeper must be quick on his feet and up to any emergency to ensure the safety of the general public and, at times, even his own family.

About the author: Cheryl Gillette Vislay is originally from Queens, New York and currently lives in Mint Hill, North Carolina with her husband Steve, 10 year old son Sean, two horses and three cats. She has been researching her family’s history for about five years and is currently working on updating and republishing her great grandmother’s book. She is a member of the Winthrop Society and is the Assistant Historian and Recording Secretary for the Society of Mayflower Descendants, Charlotte, NC chapter.

This story appeared in the Sep/Oct 2014 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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