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With the growth in maritime traffic through Michigan’s Straits of Mackinac after the opening of the Sault Locks, a coast light between Waugoshance and McGulpin Point was needed and the Lighthouse Board recommended that $14,000 be appropriated for the construction of a light at St. Helena Island’s southeast point in its 1867 annual report. Congress, however, chose to turn a deaf ear to the Board’s request and subsequent reiterations until June 10, 1872 when the requested funds were finally appropriated.
Eleventh District Engineer Orlando M. Poe reacted quickly, selecting a three-acre reservation on the island and advertising contracts for the necessary materials and construction labor. Construction began on the island in September of 1872 and continued until November 9, when conditions became too cold for the mortar to set properly. At the close of the 1872 season, all foundation work was complete to the first floor level, including the limestone base of the tower and covered way, and the basement on which the keeper’s dwelling would be erected. The work party returned to the island on May 9 of the following year and resumed construction. Over the following month, the double-walled brick tower slowly rose as the masons carefully laid course on course of red brick. At its completion, the tower was capped with a decagonal cast iron lantern, with the impressive structure standing sixty-five feet from the foundation to the center of the Third and a Half Order lens. The tower was attached to the brick keeper’s dwelling by means of a covered way, also constructed of red brick.
The dwelling featured a parlor, kitchen, office, and bedroom on the first floor, and four bedrooms on the second floor. A summer kitchen attached to the rear of the dwelling at grade level and a privy located approximately 30 feet behind the summer kitchen completed the station’s complement of structures. By June 30, the entire station was complete with the exception of some minor finish work and the delivery of the Fresnel lens from Paris. Thus, the body of the work party left the island to move onto other projects, leaving only a small crew of four men to finish up. Thomas P. Dunn was appointed as the station’s first keeper, and reported for duty at the station on July 29 to set about moving in his household goods and assisting the four workmen in putting the finishing details to his new station. District Lampist Henry Crump arrived on the island with the new fixed red Third and a Half Order Fresnel lens in August, and set about installing the cast iron base and assembling the lens components. With all work at the station completed, Keeper Dunn officially exhibited the new station’s light for the first time on the evening of September 20, 1873.
Dunn continued to serve as the station’s keeper until 1875, when he swapped assignments with Charles Lousigneau, keeper at McGulpin Point. While not common, there were a number of such instances of “station swapping,” with the Detroit office of the Light House Establishment apparently willing to facilitate such win-win assignment changes. Few physical changes were made at the station, and Lousigneau continued to serve as the station’s keeper until May 30, 1888 when he resigned from lighthouse service. Evidently, Lousigneau’s resignation was a surprise to the Detroit office, since no keeper is listed at the station until July 7th, when Charles Marshall, the First Assistant at Waugoshance Light, was transferred to St. Helena as Acting Keeper. After four years living in the confines of Waugoshance, the island must have seemed huge to Marshall, and he evidently did an admirable job at the station since he was permanently appointed to the position of Keeper on July 6, 1892.
In May of 1895, the lighthouse tender Amaranth anchored off St. Helena and unloaded a work crew and building materials for a number of improvements at the station. Through May and June the crew constructed a new boathouse and landing crib with 140 foot long boat ways, and installed 200 feet of concrete sidewalk. The Amaranth returned the following month, and unloaded bricks and iron work for the construction of a 360 gallon capacity brick oil storage shed. The following year, the lighthouse tender Warrington arrived at St. Helena with a work party to rebuild the wharf at St. Helena Harbor and establish a stone crushing plant on shore to prepare stone for a major repair project being undertaken at Waugoshance Shoal Light. As part of this project, a huge 100 foot by 90 foot timber crib was built on the island and towed out to Waugoshance Shoal, where it was sunk in place and filled with crushed limestone from the island. The harbor at St. Helena continued to serve as the land base for the project through its completion in October, whereupon the equipment was reloaded on the Warrington, and returned to the Detroit Lighthouse Depot.
While alone at the lighthouse on a hot and sunny August morning in 1900, Marshall began the annual ritual of whitewashing the tower. Seated on a boatswain’s chair suspended from the gallery, he had painted to a level of around 45 feet above the ground when he somehow found the control rope with which he could lower or raise the chair to be beyond his reach. Stuck in this position in the searing sun, Marshall waved as fishermen passed the island only to have them wave back, assuming he was just making a neighborly gesture. Badly sunburned and barely conscious, Marshall lashed himself to the chair so as not to fall, and awaited the cold of night. Noticing the light was not shining, a passing steam tug pulled into the station to investigate, and after discovering the keeper’s predicament and condition, lowered him to the ground and took him to the nearest doctor in Mackinaw City. Because of enduring illness resulting from the incident, Keeper Marshall was transferred to a less strenuous assignment as assistant at Old Mackinac Point Light Station. Sadly, he never recovered from the ordeal, and, with failing speech and memory, was admitted to the State Mental Institution in Traverse City by his brother in 1902, where he passed away alone in 1926.
George Legatt, who had served as First Assistant at Old Mackinac Point Light Station for the previous year took over as keeper of the St. Helena Light. Unfortunately, Legatt did not last long on St. Helena, as he drowned the following June, once again leaving the island without a keeper. Captain Joseph Fountain, who had eighteen years of service under his belt at a number of island lighthouse in Lake Michigan including South Fox and Skillagallee, transferred in as the fifth St. Helena Island keeper on July 1, 1901.
While stations without fog signals were historically manned by a single keeper, the decision was made to add an assistant lighthouse keeper at St. Helena in 1909. Thus, during that summer, a small one-room cottage was constructed approximately ten feet south of the privy, and on October 21, Louis J. Beloungea was transferred from Squaw Island where he had been serving for two years as 2nd Assistant at that station. The assistant keeper’s cottage basically served only as sleeping quarters for Beloungea, since he ate his meals in the main dwelling with Keeper Fountain and his family. As can be well imagined, the location of the small dwelling a mere eight feet from the privy created a less than desirable situation, and perhaps contributed to the fact four assistant keepers transferred out of the position in as many years. Finally, the situation was rectified in 1915 when the dwelling was relocated to an area approximately one hundred feet to the north of the oil house.
The light was automated through the installation of an acetylene powered lamp in 1922. Equipped with a sun valve, the lamp was set up to automatically turn on in the cool of evening, and extinguish itself with the warmth of day. Thus, with a keeper no longer necessary, Wallace Hall accepted a transfer as keeper of the Little Point Sable Light on June 30, 1922. The station was boarded up, and responsibility for maintenance of the light transferred to the Old Mackinac Point light keepers, who took their boat to the island whenever trouble with the light was reported by passing vessels. Without the constant attention and care of a full-time keeper, the station’s buildings deteriorated, with proximity to St. Ignace and Mackinaw City leaving the station open to vandalism.
By the 1980s the station was in extremely poor condition. Everything of any value had been stripped from the structures, all the windows, doors, banisters, and much of the floor had been broken up, with vandals going so far as to start a fire on the second floor which burned through the ceiling below and onto the kitchen floor. Vandalism of the boat house and assistant keeper’s dwelling were so advanced that, fearing the structures might collapse, the Coast Guard demolished them to reduce their liability. At some time thereafter, someone broke down the south wall of the oil house, removing over 1,000 bricks and leaving two gaping holes in the side of the structure. As a final insult, rabbit hunters used the oil house ventilator for target practice. The condition of the station was so bad that the Coast Guard was considering demolishing everything which remained standing with the exception of the tower and its 300 mm acrylic optic, when a miracle occurred in the Straits of Mackinac.
The Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association (GLLKA) was searching for a flagship restoration project, and seeing the potential in the station that was invisible to most, the Association’s President, Dick Moehl gathered together a band of dedicated volunteers interested in saving the station. In 1986, the Association obtained a thirty-year license to the three-acre reservation and station buildings, and began planning the daunting task of restoring the light station. Two years later, the station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Realizing that restoration would take an immense amount of manpower, Dick contacted the Boy Scouts of America and arranged to receive the assistance of two troops from Ann Arbor and Calumet.
Every summer since 1989, Boy Scouts and GLLKA volunteers have arrived on the island to continue the restoration. As a result of such broad-based community involvement, the effort has been rewarded with numerous national and state awards and grants to assist with the restoration. After ten years of hard work on the island, the group was close to being eliminated as a potential owner of the station when U.S. Representative Bart Stupak stepped forward and intervened in 1997 and sponsored legislation through which the station’s buildings and reservation were transferred directly to GLLKA via a quitclaim deed as part of the Coast Guard Authorization Bill.
In September 2001, the Little Traverse Conservancy purchased the entire the remainder of the island to serve as a nature preserve, ensuring that the island will remain open to the public, but free of development, helping to ensure the long term survival of the light station.
With immeasurable assistance from Ann Arbor Boy Scout Troop 4, restoration of the St. Helena Light Station is virtually complete. The dwelling, tower, privy, oil house, relocated assistant keeper’s dwelling, and boathouse have all been restored or rebuilt, and this year Troop 4 has begun rebuilding the original assistant keeper’s dwelling next to the fully restored, but no longer active, privy. Numerous educational and outreach programs are held on the island each year with the goal of creating a new generation of lighthouse preservationists, in the hope that the work of restoring and maintaining this beautiful and special place will continue for generations to come.
However, the work at St. Helena will never be complete. Exposed as it is to the ravages of harsh Michigan winters on the open lake, repair, repainting, and replacement are an ongoing necessity. Anyone interested in helping in the effort with donations of money, supplies, or volunteer labor is urged to email GLLKA at info@gllka.com or call them at 231-436-5580.
This story appeared in the
Sep/Oct 2012 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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