The couple moved to Boston where Edwin served as keeper of the Long Island Head Lighthouse. The schooling at Thacher was thereafter done by family members. In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson was returning from Europe on board the S.S. America when the ship ran into thick fog near Thacher Island. The fog signal was sounding, but the ship kept heading straight for the island. At the last minute Third Assistant Keeper Maurice Babcock, later the last civilian keeper of Boston Light, put the fog horn in manual and sounded it over and over until the captain steered away from the ledges.
Fog is by no means uncommon in the area.
During a particularly bad stretch of fog in July 1959, the fog horn at Thacher Island sounded for 211 consecutive hours, or a total of 38,145 uninterrupted blasts. The government first proposed the discontinuance of the north light in 1912. The Boston Transcript published an editorial condemning the idea, and many Gloucester fishermen protested the change. These complaints put off the inevitable for another 20 years, but in 1932 the north light was extinguished. A submarine cable that had been laid in 1902 provided power for the south light, which was intensified to 70,000 candlepower.