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Nearly 40 years ago, two historic photo albums containing over a hundred images were donated to the Clatsop County Historical Society in Astoria, Oregon. Within the albums’ pages were photos of a lighthouse keeper in uniform and three lighthouses: West Point, Burrows Island, and Point Wilson, all in Washington.
Only a couple of photos of people were identified by just a first name. None of the lighthouse photos had any labeling at all, save one photo of a young woman that said, “Aug 3, 1909 wedding day” and another photo of a keeper’s house had “Home Burrows Island Lighthouse Anacortes Wash” written across the top.
After digging through genealogical records, historic documents, lighthouse keeper lists, and tracing extended family relationships, we were finally able to identify the keeper as William J. Thomas, who had served at those three lighthouses from 1903-1925. The young woman was William’s daughter Ann, who was an official assistant keeper to William at Burrows Island Lighthouse from 1909 to 1911.
Ann married twice and never had any children, so upon her death in 1977, the albums were passed on to her second husband’s relatives. Unfortunately, no family stories of William or Ann exist, and though the distant relatives did not find the images in the albums compelling enough to keep, their worth to us is priceless as a visual history of snippets in time at these lighthouses and of keepers who lived there a century ago. We hope you enjoy these newly rediscovered photos as much as we do. (All photos courtesy of the Clatsop County Historical Society.)
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2020 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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