News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-08-27
IN A LIGHTHOUSE.
THE STORY OF KEEPER WHO HAS
KEPT LIGHTS BRIGHT FOR YEARS.
Queer Incidents of His Life-Bombarded
With Many Birds.

Queer Incidents of His Life-Bonbarded
With Many Birds.
Yes, we see and hear some curious
things said the lighthouse keeper,
"and as for monotony it's enough to
drive one mad, and has done so in some
cases. Married men fare better, as
when women and children are around II
isn't quite so lonesome but it's bad
enough. My station for a number OF
years was rock about two hundred
feet long and one hundred feet wide,
and in a gale of wind the house stood
right in the water, with the sea rolling
all around.
g Yes, it was shaky. One night cal
to mind especially. 1t had been blow
ing gale for two days; the sea was
making a clean breach over the ledge
and every time it hit the house it would
jump sixty or hundred feet into thu
air and come down on the roof like
rocks. On the ledge were four or five
boulders that must have weighed Owe
two tons, and the first thing we knew
one of them fellows came at the door
burst it in and in second we were al
a-swimming. The stone couldn't get In
it Just stuck there, so we took to thu
light and sat on the stairs, and nigf
froze to death, all night. Me and my
man took turns in going up every hal
hour, and dye know, the lighthouse
swung so that you could hardly keel
your feet. l thought more than one
that we'd go over, but she didn't. Thu
feeling is different from most anything
else. There is a shaking and vibrating
all the time, and then when the bls
gusts come YOU can feel the whole thing
tremble and culver, so that you'd almos
lose your feet.
zone night" continued the speaker
81 remember some fishermen got bloweG
off shore and came in there, and what {
night it was About midnight some one
sings out, The lamps out And so i
was. Up we rushed, half dozen of us
scared to death, as ten minutes might
cost good many lives and a vesse
might come within twenty foot of oul
house before she struck. By the time
we got up we found the place full Of
smoke, and seen something had fouled
the chimney, and what dye suppose il
was? You'd never guess. 1t was blow,
ing fit to take the buttons right off YOU
coat; but some one had to go outside
and climb up the rod to the very top Of
the light and see what was the trouble
1t was a close call and we tossed for it.
My mate drew and started. We tied q
rope around him and up he went and did
the job. He came back alive, but with
the whitest face | ever see on a live man.
He said he wouldn't do it again for love
or money.
''But what dye suppose he found in
the chimney, stuck fast2 Nothing more
nor less than one of these ere Mother
Careys chickens, jammed in as tight as
as it could get, and dead, of course.
We get regularly pelted with birds in
the light and that is the reason the glass
is made so thick, as almost every night
one or two birds hit against it. Some
times in the spring and fall hundreds of
'em will strike in the course of a night.
You see at this time the birds are mi
grating and flying off shore along the
coast and on foggy nights they only see
the blaze of the light. They make a
break for it and down they go, and in
the morning the rail, iron and glass will
be all blood and feathers
"You can hardly imagine such a
sight" said the lighthouse keeper. 81
remember one night late in September
there was what we call a dry fog, the
kind that CLEANS and looks bright some
times without a light. | went out on
the walk around the light, thinking
baar1 n o,,,i o,,o ,oico opd tho p,in11ta I
got out / tell you / was taken back.
There were thousands of birds, l should
say, darling about in the luminous fog,
with the light dancing on their backs
and wings, so it reminded me of insects
about a lamp. The roar of their wings
and their cries was such thas you
couldn't hear yourself speak ort even
think, and / hung on the rail almost
crazy from the uproar. But l came too
mighty quick, can tell you, for the first
thing knew got a knock on the head,
a bird taking me right side of the neck :;
then, as | turned another struck me in
the back, and don't doubt but that I'd
have been fairly bombarded off if /
hadn't got in. The birds kept it up all
night, and in the morning we counted
over six hundred dead at the foot of the
lighthouse. They were of all kinds
sparrows, hawks, robins and mostly duck
and snipe, birds that travel along the
shore going south. You see, they had
seen the light, and getting confused ran
right into it. One night we were sitting
at dinner, when the first thing we knew
the window went with a crash, and
some big thing came whizzing and
sprawling across the table, hitting my
man fairly in the chest and knocking
him clean out of his chair. 1t was
duck that had seen the light and came
apounding through the window, dropping
dead on the table.
'EWrecks sometimes come in, but it
amt often if the light is kept up. In
one light l was we got shut up in gale
of wind and had to stand right by the
light to keep it a-goin; but it finally
went; something got wrong with the
After while we
we thought we heard yell, and going
down we managed to get out, and there
was brig hard and fast, with her bow
spirit sticking good ten foot over the
rocks, and on it the crew come ashore,
lCoO llhC q blllBC, uOb ODC VI Gill SClllnS
lost. 1t wasn't our fault, as they
couldn't have seen the light anyway, the
sea was breaking about the house so,
and there was such a black fog running.
Before the Boon Island Light was built
A crew come ashore there and starved to
Heath right in sight of land"
The Congregation of birds about light
houses is nowhere so strangely illustrated
as at Heligoland, off the coast of Den
mark. This bleak and barren rock lies
IN one of the great lanes of bird migra-
ion, and in the spring and autumn the
sland appears to be alive with birds.
At night they present a marvellous spec
acle, sweeping about the light in great
clouds, whirling, curving, rising up as
hey approach the glass, or again, in
eeming bewilderment, dashing fairly at
t and falling in hundreds dead and dy-
ng to the ground Thousands of birds
re killed in this way during these sea
ons. Flocks of all kinds are continual
y alighting to rest, rising again to con-
inue the journey, their places being
aiken by others, so that the spot is sort
If bird halfway house between the
lorth and south
The fact that even the young, delicate
birds fly over great bodies of water is
'orne out by many observations. The
writer has seen hundreds of the smallest
and birds alght on the extreme outer
,eys of the Florida group that had I'M
loubtedly flown over the Gulf of Mexico
II perhaps from Cape Florida, two hun
lred miles away, and the nearest land to
he south was Cuba, sixty miles. How
hose delicate creatures can endure such
ong-continued flights is a mystery in