ON CAPE COD——
Is the Second Most
Powerful Beacon on
the Atlantic Coast
The second most powerful beacon on the Atlantic coast is located on the far end of Cape Cod. Highland Light is situated near the edge of a high bluff on the ocean side of North Truro. Its nightly beam, revolving and flashing to all points of the compass, has guided mariners for almost 150 years.
The champ of all beacons on this coast is Neversink Light, at Sandy Hook.
Countless summer visitors would look over Highland Light in peacetime, but now, of course, visitors are barred. They came from every state in the union and from foreign places, for this faithful landmark has always been a standard attraction for the Cape Cod sightseer. Chief Boatswain’s Mate William Joseph, who has been in charge of the light for a long while, recalls they asked some odd questions. For example:
“Is the light lit in the wintertime?”
“Do you stay here year ’round?”
“Does the fog start up the foghorn?”
“Why do you keep ‘blankets’ on the lenses in the daytime?”
“Does the tide ever come over the banking (the edge of the banking is a mere 140 feet above the shoreline)?”
“Did you ever help catch rum-runners with the light?”
“How do you keep awake all night long?”
COVER LENSES TO PREVENT FIRES
But, the lightkeeper, his assistants and their womenfolk take it all in stride with cheerful patience.
The mighty lenses are covered up in daytime, but not with “blankets”. The lightkeeper gives the reason for this: “Every morning we put a linen covering over the lenses and over that a covering of starched linen. There is no covering on the north side of the light because the sun doesn’t hit there.
“The coverings are necessary to protect surrounding property. The lighthouse lenses, if they were left uncovered, would set afire a building 25 feet away, or anything else that would burn.”
There have been numerous other lamps before the present electrically operated one, with its $30,000 French glassworks and four revolving bullseyes. The original light, established in 1797, was stationary and burned whale oil in wick lamps, much like the old-fashioned sitting room lamp. The light has always stood on the present site.
Ashore the great beacon is always referred to as Highland Light. “But,” remarks the keeper, “if you were lost out there and tried to locate Highland Light on the chart, you’d be plum out o’ luck. The official name is Cape Cod Light and that’s the name all the mariners go by.”
Highland Light has cast its flash over many a dramatic event in its long lifetime. Almost within its shadow, the first piece of wreckage that revealed the fate of the Steamer Portland—New England’s most appalling sea tragedy to this day—was washed ashore in the terrible gale of November, 1898. Countless rescues by the breeches buoy, and the foundering of old-time sailing ships were witnessed there. Mighty gales, 75 to 80 miles an hour, have belabored the lighthouse, but it has breasted them all.
A MARKER FOR ZEPPELIN
The German Zeppelin, burned at Lakehurst, N. J., made a practice of pointing its course directly over Highland Light on its return trips to Germany.
The light has one implacable enemy—fog. When the heavy vapor banks roll in, the beam is practically invisible. In a real thick fog not even the glow of the lamp can be seen by one standing at the base of the tower.
Many visitors, noting the close proximity of the lighthouse to the edge of the shore embankment, have inquired whether there is danger the sea will some day undermine Highland Light. Keeper Joseph has never worried about this. When, in 1796, the Government purchased the tract of land for the erection of the lighthouse, the reservation comprised ten acres. Storms and pounding surf have swept six acres of the original site into the sea.