Omaha daily bee., 1902-12-21

f|1HE ONLY woman in the world in
charge of a lighthouse entirely
@ surrounded by the waves lives in
IW&NNl New York bay. She is in the
very center of a population of
100000 people, yet she is not a part of it
and has not its ways, for when she leaves
her sea-swept home once or twice a year
to shop in New York the rush and con-
fusion of the great crowds all about so
fill her with loneliness that before she has
scarcely begun her purchases she turns
her back on the things dear to the feminine
heart and fees precipitously to Robbins
Reef lighthouse. There, she says, she has
not known a lonely minute in the seven
teen years that she has watched the end
less procession of countless craft up and
down the bay on their way to and from the
docks of the new world metropolis.
This woman Is Mrs. Katy Walker, and
the sailors beacon which she has in charge
rises sheer out of the water five miles
south of the Battery. 1t stands on the
eastern end Of the reef, where. in the days
of the Dutch governors, the boys Of New
Amsterdam went out in rowboats to shoot
with their blunderbusses the seals that
summed themselves on the rock-strewn
sandy stretch that reaches back to the
Jersey flats to the westward and is eX-
posed in a long, thin line when the tide is
out. And just a half mile to the east
runs the channel that the majestic liners
and other ~seagoing craft follow on their
way to the Atlantic.
From the lighthouse Mrs. Walker has a
marvellous panorama of natures works and
mans most ambitious efforts. The only
thing that she has to do in order to drink
in a view that tens of thousands of people
boyo travelled acrOcS continents and OpaaOc
to behold Is to walk around the little stone
balcony surrounding the light. She can
see the Narrows and the ~frowning fort on
either side; Brooklyn, with its two or three
tall buildings and its wooded suburbs TO
the southeast; and Governors island and
queer, old, rounded Fort Castle William.
She can see the East river with the Brook
Ign bridge hanging above it,; New York's
skyscrapers, hiding the rest of Manhattan
island and looking like sticks,
pierced with many holes, rising sheer OUT
of the water; and the North river with its
myriad Of ferry boats and ragged liue of
docks and railroad terminals on either
shore. She can see Bedloe's and Ellis
islands, supporting the Statue of Liberty
and the mosque-like buildings of the new
Castle Garden. She can see the score or
more OF smoky, b~ustling, manufacturing
lONuS dlOuB the JeIDey pIOLuOuIOIlSS. Sht
ban see the hills and beach towns of Staten
island, with picturesque st. George two
miles away, and the low, long, rakish build
ings OF Sailors Snug harbor just visible up
the Kill Van Kull. And in a sweep of the
harbor itself she can see chugging tugs,
churning ferry boats, every manner Of sail
ing craft, tankers and tramp steamers, eX-
cursion beats, long strings of barges, puff
hng launches, gilded yachts of millionaires,
warships, ocean liners and rowboats of the
Bay fishermen, dotting the water on all
sides and displaying the flags of many ma
lions.
Mrs. Walker is content to see all this
and to live isolated from it all. The very
noises Of the great marts about her that
sometimes come family out to the reef
make her tremble, for these almost silent
echoes of trade recall the lonely moments
Of her city trips. And just as she thinks
the metropolis is the most God forsaken
spot on earth, so she believes that Robbins
Reef lighthouse is the most blessed. 1t is
her home, and there her son Jake, who is
the assistant keeper, his wife and three