know i love to talk about sequenom and the reason i love to talk about so graham is that i grew up looking at it as something on the horizon that was unattainable it was mysterious and then i grew up to and get to know the place and then get to know the lighthouse keepers and become fascinated and then go into the coast guard with a specific hope that i could come back to cygwin and through good fortune i did as a coast guard enlisted man and spent a short tour duty out here before going on to do other things and the whole experience has been memory maker that i've treasured up my whole life and i love coming back to my home here in maine and coming out to going whenever i can even though it is more difficult with time because i'm not as limber as i used to be so here i am and i'm with this summer one of a couple half of a couple who is vol duty which is probably the most special kind of a cation you could possibly imagine out here two miles off the coast of maine in what is the most unique lighthouse on the entire coast of maine people don't realize this but it history and its location and its service all make it very very unique it's its was one of the first lighthouses commissioned in the state of maine it was commissioned by president george washington about the same time that portland head light was also commissioned and the original light which was on a wooden tower didn't stand very long it's very very brutal and storms out here and it was the first tower was then replaced by a rubble stone and other words whatever stone they could find on the beaches and that stood for a number of years but it too failed and so an eight hundred fifty seven in anticipation of a incorporating a brand new technology in light keeping they commissioned to the federal government commission the tower that stands here today which was cut from main granite and granite hauled out assembled to create a really really magnificent structure strong enough to support the first order for no lens made in france the largest lens of its type and manufactured during that period by the lens makers and paris and this tells you a lot about the importance of this light that it deserved having this magnificent assembly it's all nine feet tall and six feet in diameter and and can be seen technically twenty miles to save it you can see it a lot farther than that if you've got a tall mast on your ship and can send a small boy up to the top and what most people don't realize is that lighthouse of this sort when it was built during the high day of sale it was this sort of the light was here to warn the tran oceanic sailing ships that they were getting close to land after crossing from europe and it was not a welcoming lights that would call you went to a harbor because there is no good harbor here for big rig ships like portland portland had light was welcoming light to tell you where the entrance was to a harbor that was large and you could sail into sailing into the mouth of the kennebec river here to find  anchorage was could only be done by very experienced sea captains and or are with the aid of pilots river pilots and it was certainly nothing that square rig ships would ever attempt under any circumstance in the dark of night was our final destination as through the years of course it is become also a coastal light that people use when they are trying to traversing the coast east to west most people think north t south but we are more of an east to west bias here and it has had a long service very long service when steamboats first came into service it was in fact a welcoming light to enter the k  summer picking up ice and carrying it all up and down the atlantic seaboard and into the caribbean so this is been a busy place it's an important lighthouse the brick keeper's house that's here now it was also making fifty seven and has weathered a lot better than the earlier structures which are wooden and it was where i was the building that i lived in as a light keeper where the oil lanterns which were the original source of light had been replaced by electricity in the fifty's and generators had been installed an enormous fuel tanks to hold the oil to run the generators and we were responsible for keeping those generators running and to do a start up the air compressors the diesel driven air compressors to run the great old by a phone fog signals it was the tail end of a really really interesting history and it was a big change when not long after i left in one thousand nine hundred sixty seven it was converted to an automated station and the coast guard no longer would staff it and it remained empty until it passed into private hands that is a story in and of itself i would just say that the people who live just a short from here who heard that it was empty negotiated privately  separately with the coast guard to take a stewardship relationship and negotiated prior to the institution of the main oil lights  program which later facilitated this kind of transfer much more much more easily and more nonprofit organization has benefited from it but the original transaction here it's a grin was unique at the time and it represented and have very ambitious and forward looking effort by a small group of people in georgetown as a result of that they got a lease didn't cost many money but it had a lot of obligations associated with it take care of the place and the coast guard continued to mean will maintain the light and they had run the coast guard run an underwater cable out here to provide the electricity and to provide electricity for the new state of the art fog signals so the that those the beginning of this becoming more of a museum and less of what we would have called in the coast guard a working station that tradition was begun twenty six years ago by the friends of sir going and has endured unbroken since that time and resulted ultimately when the maine lights program was instituted by the federal government it resulted in the friends of sick when actually becoming the owners of the whole island of the structures here except for what the coast guard retained for the maintenance of the light and as a result of their early stewardship both the lens has been saved and maintained and and repaired and is the last remaining first class first order for no lands on the east coast that is being used for navigation not just as a museum piece but for its original purpose it's still being used in the lighthouse in which it was installed and as such very is a unique feature all by itself but we also have this marvelous location that allows the light to stand one hundred eighty feet into the sky to be seen farther than any other light on the coast of main and also the in the marvelous history associated with a time when they island was converted to steam to blow the steam whistle for the fog that required getting coal up on t island and that is when the tramway was built that is used to haul coal to the engine house to generate first aim and also to make it easier to heat the house in the winter time and  haul provisions and so forth up from down below and change the experience of sleeping or waking up in the morning the sun rising in the east and see the sun setting in the west it's a magnificent feeling that goes to the soul and the longer i've been here the more i pick up the aura of the family headed on before us to live here three hundred sixty five days a year where you here just for the summer we do go to the grocery store for a full day had to grow it and gra g animals and farm and it was a hard life that saved lives and it's an incredible feeling when you sleep and it's an honor to be a lighthouse keeper with the friends  world apart third and magnificent experiences that i had while i was here and for which i feel as marius said particularly fortunate to have enjoyed during my tour of duty here ok this building is where we live it's the original keepers house it was built in eight hundred fifty seven my husband and i is the temporary keepers live on the left hand side the right hand side is the museum and up stairs is guess quarters for your bed and breakfast guest who booked to stay over night the scaffolding here is temporary all the renovations done on these buildings have to be in keeping with  the original materials that we used an eight hundred fifty seven because we are part of the national registry of historic buildings and can get that qualification in grant money that is associated with that you can go to to buy a new cement it has to be chemically correct with what they used in the two hundred fifty seven it's a lot of work but the french is that when has a team of super people who come out every wednesday and do some of this special to construction work to keep the building safe and down intact and we're awfully lucky because wednesday is our day off and we go in town and do our shopping do our laundry and a team comes out here to do this kind of construction work well this is a delightful opportunity for my first time to sit down have some time to talk with the rain lol who was born lorraine schofield and who brings to this project her memories of like and finally at squirrel pointlike where i met him as a young man as he was completing his career as the last civilian lighthouse keeper from the old us lighthouse service in new england at the time and i felt very privileged to be able to sit with him while he worked on his projects at squirrel point and ask him questions about his his life as a light and harvested the land and it's great great history there and he he characterized his going into the service lighthouse service as more and more there were things you needed cash money for especially the taxes and so he chose to be the member of the family to go get a job that actually paid a salary and then he would always save up his  his leave time his annual leave time to go back to harvest oil and help among other things to help with getting the hay and this wonderful stories wonderful stories but i'm now fascinated with the opportunity to ask you about being a young girl on so when you told me that you went out there when you're five years old and at that time there are just some housekeeping questions that i have first of all course you must have still been using pr oh absolutely ok and each keeper had his own individual yeah they built them in different places yeah i noticed that from photographs and drawings and whatnot and they and you were getting water from the come later much oh wow and when you were there how was the steam how excuse me how was the fog signal operated it was operated by diesels build up pressure air pressure air pressure that means that those general motors to seventy one diesels had been there ever since you were a kid when i finally got out there wow that's quite a legacy there but you were still using for ok incandescent oil vapor so that was that special lamp that was the coastguard invented which you had to keep pressure on and the oil came up and was heated by the flame and turned into a vapor before it went into the mantle and then it was very bright it's ok but by the time you got there had to be very carefully monitor yes because it could so easily smoke or catch the mantle of fire and ruin it and ruin it you know of course the media lives a life right yep and there's a lot of people that would complain almost instantly my i mean that there were people who were really attentive in those days i mean it was a really important aid and the first the whole unit was inside that wonderful thing to lend do you know tender you know and i believe they wrote it sure ok because the old culpeper was gone by then at the end of the tram right it was just the very base of the tram you know and they simply threw the bag in that area and then it was up to man to really handle it put it of worthy tram car and transport it to the top of the hill ok did you go ashore for school in that it during that tour my brother would be starting school the following year so my mother decided that we he would then come ashore to our family farm and harps all the risk i had lived there during the school year we went out to the light any weekend that we could get there there were two other families out there were one was the engineer of the personnel day they change they there was a continual movement of the different personnel out there to lived in the main house two in the the engine house is still there where the compressors were and where the diesel and generators were when i was there so did any of those families have kids while you were there  when my dad first went out the keeper had a fairly large family i think he had about six children and he was only there about two years at that time i do not believe the first assistant had any children living there if he had any they were sure and of course there was my brother and myself dad i don't really remember the succession rather elderly but he had three granddaughters and every summer grandma and grandpa got to take care of the girls or what they always did i think granny for the summer for a number of years i have always wanted to ask you what it really are memories of the world war two era period besides having blackout shades on the windows was there were ver first thing cars i don't remember the announcement of pearl harbor we had no electricity there but we did have a battery radio and it was only for you still listen to the news o'clock in the news came over of the pro harbor incident wow and i do remember that very vividly wherever any military personnel were on the island almost stations that they had to take a punch clock and punch clock ok around to make sure they did make their rounds fascinating it's very interesting and never knew a bird about that my sense only recently i realized that most of most of the was built war war one that was a big investment it was a great concern and so that would that were done to make it understandable that they would have run the phone line we make a call a private call you had to always ask the guy on watch at the coast guard station please and just through so they were always aware of our private affairs did you have any for all people who've been interested in our special lighthouse so i want to introduce you to tom schofield thomas really good to have you here today i look forward to this for some time and we're particularly interested in your childhood memories the sick when i know you know a lot of the history that goes around the time you were there before and after but a nice kind of concentrate today on on your childhood memories that actually came at a very special down your father was there a time when they had improved a lantern and it was actually a pressurized lantern with with aladdin type mantle and th pride that you had to keep keep an eye on it and in adjust it during the night yeah yeah you could be in europe was and but no t v no electricity right lives when i say that when we were there you know if we hear a generator starting to go offline you know is a matter of pride to get down there and get another generator on the line quick so that we don't get caught with a light out i know there's a lot of pride i know i need that there's but in the summers you were on the island what the things that you remember doing when you're old enough to run around well we had fourth of july there w just about where you would be here that's right it wouldn't even bounce be right there this is been a special treat for us and i really have for those of you who have been watching with us if you belong to a and this is been a wonderful job ernie for me also into my own style jet i grew up on the shore of the of the kennebec river at the mouth the river and looking out to se current of the river and the waves it wasn't till i was an older teen that i finally had a boat that was safe enough to go and visit and ever since then i was a regular visitor out there but my real interest is sick when began well i was just a kid in a little rowboat and i go up to kennebec river exploring by myself and one day i decided i was brave enough to stop at a lighthouse right across from phillipsburg called the squirrel point light i was just curious i tied my boat up and went up to the house and the lighthouse keeper was clarence schofield i came to find he was out in his workshop and he was building a script boat  very precise task he shaped each individual strip separately to fit and he would fit and i would sit and ask him questions and he would tell me about his life as a lighthouse keeper  continuous lighthouse keeper left over in new england from the original lighthouse service and he was a great inspiration to me and probably had the greatest influence on me to later and a few years after that to actually enlist in the coast guard myself and i have always been beholden to him for encouraging me to do that and it was wonderful to come back and visit him again after i got out of the service and was a newspaper man in portland and could go back and capture some of his stories for use in the newspaper so it's been a wonderful experience and to have added now in my  later years i'm getting better acquainted with lorraine and with tom and hearing their recollections it has been a wonderful experience i'm glad we've been able to share them with you