Unlike Catherine Moore, Abbie Burgess did not have to go
outside to light the lights. The 28 lamps hung in two stone towers attached to
opposite ends of the keeper’s dwelling. But that didn’t mean it was an easy
life.
Matinicus Rock Light Station was a lonely, barren
outcropping located five miles from Maine’s Matinicus Island and twenty miles
from the mainland. Fourteen-year-old Abbie moved there in 1853 when her father received
the lighthouse keeper’s job. At the time of the move, the family also consisted
of Abbie’s invalid mother, an older brother who was usually gone with the
fishing boats, and two younger sisters. (Abbie also had other siblings, all
older, who no longer lived at home.)
Abbie’s father wanted to earn additional money as a lobster
fisherman, so he trained Abbie to help with the lights while he was away.
A lighthouse tender was supposed to bring supplies twice a
year, but it wasn’t dependable. By January 1856, the delivery due September 1855 had still not arrived. Desperate for supplies, Abbie’s father
sailed to Matinicus Island for food and medicine, leaving seventeen-year-old Abbie
in charge of the light. A month-long gale blew in soon after he left, and it was
weeks before he could return.
Worried about the dwelling’s low-lying position, Abbie moved
her family into one of the towers. She wrote this in a letter to a friend:
You
know the hens were our only companions. Being convinced, as the gale increased,
that unless they were brought into the house they would be lost, I said to
mother: “I must try to save them.” She advised me not to attempt it. The thought,
however, of parting with them without an effort was not to be endured, so
seizing a basket, I ran out a few yards after the rollers had passed and the
sea fell off a little, with the water knee deep, to the coop, and rescued all
but one. It was the work of a moment, and I was back in the house with the door
fastened, but none too quick, for at that instant my little sister, standing at
a window, exclaimed, “Oh, look! look there! the worst sea is coming!”
Through it all, Abbie kept the lights burning.
The job as lighthouse keeper was a political appointment,
and Abbie’s father lost his position to a Republican appointee in 1860. Abbie
stayed to help the new keeper and fell in love with his son, Isaac Grant. Isaac
and Abbie raised four children and remained on Matinicus Rock until 1875, when they
transferred to Whitehead Light near Spruce Head, Maine. Both resigned in 1890
due to Abbie’s poor health. She died two years later at the age of 53.
* * * * *
For more information on Abbie Burgess Grant and Matinicus
Rock Light Station, see pages 21-25 of Mind
the Light, Katie and/or check out the following websites:
* * * * *
The picture is the cover illustration from the May 2, 1882
issue of Harper’s Young People: An Illustrated
Weekly. Abbie Burgess may have been the inspiration for the drawing.
1 comment:
My first grade class reads a mini biography of Abbie Burgess each year. It is always a hit.
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