Episode 36 - Marshall Point Lighthouse

0:00 Are you ready? I am. Hi, everyone. I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown. Oh, excuse me. Vince, a little trigger happy with that. Big red button. Really want to push it. Never once has the song played before I finished my intro. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. So as I was telling you earlier, I picked the slide house today for a reason that I'll explain later. Okay. And I discovered the real reason that I should be covering this light house.

0:40 Why is that? Which will be faster and I'll tell you in a little bit. But first is our history buoy, which I almost didn't do because I wanted to do clockwork mechanisms. But it was two o'clock and now it's 445 and I didn't have anything. I didn't have it. I started and then realized that it deserved a lot more effort. Yeah, there's a lot to it. Yeah, just throwing it together last second. So I selected a different history buoy on the spot. I will say I did a pretty good job with the selection. Incredible. Coverage, maybe not so much, but it's going to be short and sweet and to the point and also relevant because the last couple podcasts we've talked about these things of which I will go into now.

1:24 What things? Let's see. We're going to be covering sector directional and leading lights, which are, yes. Which are types of light characteristics on. Thanks. Yeah, so they can be any of the light characteristics that we've already covered like occulting or fixed or whatever. But these lights are like how you perceive them gives you information about the terrain and like which direction you should be going. Sector lights. I have pictures up if anyone wants to go to the YouTube fence is going to see him now. But sector lights are beacons that change color depending on your position when you're approaching the lighthouse.

2:08 So it's like in the picture I'm showing if the if a boat. So if you're approaching a lighthouse and you see a white light, did you make this? No. No, this was from a website of which I will have the link in the show notes. But if you're approaching a lighthouse and you're seeing a white light, then in this case of a sector light, you'd be heading in the right direction. But if you go too far, that's brilliant. Yeah, if you go too far left, you'd start to see a red light. And if you go too far right, you'd start to see a green light, which is like port starboard. Okay, that is the picture that I'm showing kind of shows how the terrain decides what angle of each light you would see.

2:49 It's just if you're going into a channel with your boat or your ship or whatever, you'd want to avoid hitting the edges. You know, you don't want to you don't want to run into anything with your boat. So run aground. The safe spot is all going to be white and then anything beyond that. It's trying to steer you back on course of which you wouldn't hit anything when it comes to terrain. The sailboats are like tearing up the cove. I know that guy is dead. He's been shot. And he's steering with his feet. Yeah, directional lights are usually in a channel that has a lot less room for error. So with sector lights, you have a large area of red and a large area of green that you have a lot of time to direct back to the white light.

3:38 But for directional lights, it's like you have a very narrow channel. And so all you see is a white light. And if you vary off of that at all, then you see black. So it's just you have to stay on course with the lighthouse. So you have to find them as you're navigating. You have to come into view of the white light. I think this would be a case where there's either just the one lighthouse and you'd have to happen upon where you see it. Or if there would be two lighthouses or buoys or something on either side of the opening of the channel, which I think is a good thing. I think it's the case of one of the lighthouses that we covered that was in maybe it was Washington or Oregon.

4:18 I can't remember. But it was like Cape Disappointment was like one of the entryway lights. Also, we have leading lights are also called range lights. And the reason why I said this was relevant is because in the last episode, Point Arena, I talked about. Oh, wait, not Point Arena Montauk Point. Yeah, I said there was a red range light that was added. But actually, it's not a range light. It's more of like a sector light, because once you went into a range that was not good, you would see this red light and then would need to veer back into like a white light area. But anyway, a range light are two or more lights that show perfectly on top of one another when you're going in the right direction. If you vary one direction or the other, then the lights are misaligned.

5:02 If one light is, you know, starting to float off of the other light, then you have to steer back in that direction to correct it. So here's a nice little photo. That's probably one light that's there, too. Separate. Yeah, one that shorter. And yeah, so that that in this sense, two separate buildings. Yeah. And this answers the question to long source fear how there was that window, that fixed light that was green, white and red. And so it's just one another one of those range or sector lights where you're exactly. So we were right. So when we were looking at that, we had guessed we were guessing for the wrong purpose.

5:46 If you're going along the coast, you'd see red, white and then green to know that you're headed whatever direction. But if you're going at the lighthouse or to the island, then you would know if you're in white, you're good. Red or green. Yeah, not good. Right. Interesting. So they control all that. How are you covering that to control? Like how do they show a sector? Is it a split panes of glass or I think the lens isn't different? No, the lens wouldn't change, but it would it would definitely be like different. Yeah, just like panels. What are these called again? Two lights. Those are leading lights or range lights. Yeah, just to cover that, I thought that was never considered that relevant.

6:28 The image that's on screen. I had no idea what was at the bottom for a while. I think I figured it out to be a compass and a hand. But I don't know. They're like, this is what you would see. It's like a garden of fingers. It is interesting that it was on a boating website. So it makes sense that they would put it from the point of view of the boater. And that's the history, but I just wanted to it's basically like giving definitions to some of the words that we've been using and answers a couple of questions that we have. Did not know. So the lighthouse we're covering today. Many have seen this lighthouse without realizing it. Millions, in fact, and I also completely forgot that this what I know what I'm guessing in my head.

7:14 Can you guess is the Statue of Liberty? No, that'll that's coming. But this is you recognize the scene. Oh, I think I heard about this this week. Really? There was an incident this week where a bridge collapsed. No, I feel like I would have seen that online. Look it up. OK. In Maine. Yes. Yeah. Eleven people are hurt when walkway collapses at Maine's inaugural lighthouse festival. Portland, Maine, doubling point lighthouse. No. OK. I'm going to read this section. The wooden walkway collapsed at Dublin Point Lighthouse. It looks a lot like this in Erisic on Saturday afternoon. The lighthouse was open to the public as part of Maine Open Lighthouse Day, which is neat, which is a day when the state's scenic lighthouses are open to the public.

8:02 Five of the 11 injured people were taken to the hospital. Oh, no. Rocks below. Look at this. I guess it's like a marsh area below. Oh, yeah, that's pretty tall. That's a long way to go. I think it's like 20, 20 foot tall lighthouse. Something like that. Must have one needed renovating and two reached its like maximum weight limit. A lot of traffic. Yeah. Open to the public. So that is unfortunate. And it looks quite similar. It does. OK. Well, I'm glad I'm wrong. So sorry about that. But anyway, this photo that I have up on the screen is a still shot from a movie that. Oh, yes. Nice.

8:42 But if you've seen Forrest Gump, then you have seen this lighthouse. It's a scene where he's running across America and he reaches one ocean, decides to keep running, reaches the other ocean and turns around. And this is where you see him running towards Marshall Point Lighthouse. Forrest Gump. I know they show a map. Maybe they don't. I think they show a map in the film. Oh, of what his run was. Yeah. I'm going to see if I can insert here or not, if it doesn't exist. I don't remember seeing one, but a lot of people have recreated this run. No way. Yeah. There's stuff on that online. Cool. Cool. And they wear the same outfit as this guy. This guy, Tom Hanks, as Tom Hanks in the film Forrest Gump.

9:25 There is a photo online of him posing in front of the Keepers Cottage over here. Anyway, Marshall Point is in Port Clyde, Maine, and this is in close proximity to several other lighthouses because around this area, the land kind of breaks up a little bit. And there are a couple islands, but it's mostly just a lot of points. Show it. See how it's just a lot of jagged coastline. And so they ended up putting a lot of lighthouses all over the place. But it's in close proximity. It's named after the point is named after John Marshall, an early settler who had a homestead there. And he passed it down in the family and four acres were purchased for the lighthouse in 1831 for $120.

10:13 I wish I was in on that. The first version of the lighthouse was decrepit and just really awful. Just after a while or right at first, right at first, it was just bad. It was bad design. I don't know who to blame for that. I didn't look up the name of the engineer, but he was probably not actually an engineer. He didn't have his P.E. or anything. It was 20 feet tall, made of rubble stone and had a matching keepers dwelling. So like same material, same builder, same everything. And that was completed in 1832. And both the tower and the dwelling leaked so bad that the tower door would freeze from the inside and be almost impossible to get open. Keepers filled out a lot of logs about how badly the tower leaked and the dwelling as well.

10:58 They would just they'd be like there's just like rivers of water coming down the walls. And then they said the basement would like fill up with like a feet a foot of water. Yeah, that's when you have to call it a dwelling. You know, that's where I dwell at. It is funny that they never call it a house like a keepers house. It's always everywhere you look, it's referred to as keepers cottage or keepers dwelling. I wonder if there's a reason for that. Who knows? So that was the first first edition. Yeah, the tower was rebuilt in 1857, which was still a solid 25 years after it was built. Started from the bottom. And now we're here. It's 31 feet and the bottom half is granite bricks and the top half was brick.

11:39 Brick, brick, brick, brick, common brick. But that's the one that we see today. So it's lasted up. Oh, wow. So we are here. Yeah. The lantern room is cast iron and has had a white fixed fifth order for Nellins by the time they rebuilt it. Very nice. The bill was five thousand dollars for building the new tower. And I think they probably built a new bridge. Dwelling too. Huh? Dwelling as well. No. No. It's awful. But Charles, I think it's Clement Skinner. Clement became keeper in 1874 and he began the longest service in history at the same lighthouse for the United States Lighthouse Service.

12:25 Whoa, let's go Clement. He started. He was a keeper at this lighthouse for 45 years. Damn. That could be like your whole life, depending on when you start. That's crazy. And there's no other there's no assistant keepers or anything. So you're just there's only a head keeper at this lighthouse. So he just oh, man, he's by himself. Yeah. Is there towns nearby? Yeah. Yeah. I think this is a pretty good spot. At least it's on land. Yeah. Yeah. He had a wife and kids. He actually has a story. He married and then had a couple of children and she died during childbirth. And then he married her younger sister and had five kids. As one does. It's only natural.

13:10 In 1879, the Keepers Cottage was heavily renovated because it was the same as the original horrible tower. And all the problems with leaking probably, you know, kept going. And this was now like a what is that? Seventy nine. That's 40 year old house. That's not bad. It's not that long, especially for a stone structure. Yeah. So they put in new floors, chimneys, windows and amenities like a like a new outdoor water closet is what they said. I think it's just bathroom. Right. Later, they also added a boathouse, fuel house and a barn.

13:50 And the barn has been reconstructed. I think it was torn down by the Coast Guard. And then now recently they rebuilt it the way it would have looked today. And now it's like a museum. That's cool. In 1895, the dwelling was struck by lightning. And Keeper Skinner wrote that the chimney, the roof and three rooms, quote, shattered. And that lightning actually entered all of the rooms whenever it was struck. That's not good. There are no major injuries, but I'm sure somebody got bumps, scrapes, stuff from that. Probably contributed to that. Two things. Oh, one probably didn't have a lightning rod. Probably. And two, water conducts electricity. So it's because it was leaky. Now we know that is crazy.

14:33 They were placed in a temporary home, which they call the workshop. So it must have just been like a room or something. Tent. And I don't really know how long it took to rebuild the house, but they I think the workshop was right outside of where. So this is a put a picture of the old house and you can see the barn off to the side. They rebuilt recently. So in this picture is the new tower and the old Keepers Cottage. The bridge is a cover. That's the new Keepers Cottage. Very fancy farmhouse. Very farmhouse. Two levels, which means two porches. Yeah, the same size. I know. Why not? And there's some strange balcony on the ceiling.

15:14 I mean the roof. But you are right. I was going to mention that the walkway to the lighthouse used to be covered. And I couldn't find exactly when they changed that. It must have been just the next time they renovated the walkway, which I think was long, long after this. Yeah. Keepers Cottage. Cool. Very fancy. Nice little walkway. Boardwalk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they got to move in there after. And this is called Colonial Revival Style. All right. Yeah. I was farmhouse is not quite there. You were close. They made a couple of changes to the station in 1898. They had added a bell tower with a one thousand eighteen pound brass bell, which sounds like it would be huge, but I don't think it was.

16:00 It was kind of small. Yeah. Although a thousand pounds sounds ridiculous. Half a ton. Heavy. But it had a weight driven striking mechanism, which means that it had to be wound whenever it needed to be used. So every four hours in foggy weather, they would have to wind it for it to strike every 20 seconds. Yeah. So a telephone for four hours continuously. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it's not awful, but when you're also taking care of the light, it's kind of be a pain in the butt. Yeah. A telephone line was also added along with a signal tower, which I feel like I've read about before, but it's the Weather Bureau would use the signal tower to warn the station of any inclement weather or incoming storms or something.

16:44 So it might have just been like a color or something that the tower would show us some kind of signal. So it wasn't like a telegraph tower. I don't think so. I don't know how that works. Yeah. I didn't look it up. Where they get a signal from. Oh, the telephone line. They had a telephone. Yeah. So maybe it was like a telegraph kind of thing, but it was just, yeah, don't know. We can just leave that one to never be answered. Mystery. If anyone can answer. No, past that, nothing really happened at this lighthouse. The lighthouse was automated in 1971 until personnel were removed in 1980. The cottage fell into disrepair. And then a popular hotel chain showed interest in the property, which probably means that they wanted to bulldoze everything, just buy it and build one of their hotels.

17:33 So then the public came together to stop this atrocity from happening. And in 1986, the St. George Historical Society assumed responsibility of restoring the Keepers Cottage. So that's what they that's it that long. No, it was like five years. I think still but five years of sure there's work to do. No help on the edge of water is probably right enough. 1988, the station was added to the National Register of Historic Places. And two years later, in June, the restoration was complete. The first floor of the Keepers dwelling is now a museum. And the second floor is rented out to tenants.

18:13 Just random tenants. Yeah. So you live above a museum. Yeah. Nice. I would love it. That would be the dream. I wonder if that's true of. One of the ones we went to in the Outer Banks. The first floor of the building was a museum or not a museum, but a shop. A shop. The shop. And the second floor was cordoned off. What do you think? We sat outside of a picture of you. It's a red tall brick. Oh, Kuretake. Is it Kuretake? We went up north for it. Oh, they did. There was a duplex there. Oh, yeah. And that was rented out.

18:53 But if I was in. Side note, everyone. That was a side note. Oh. Sorry. I sit back to sip my drink. I'm just like zoning out. Like, remember that one time? Yeah. So this has the second floor rented out. Yeah. And is it still look like this? I mean, it's renovated. But wow. Yeah. Nice. They kept it in good shape. Whatever that style is, I can't remember. It's nice. Colonial revival. If I lived on this second floor, I would be sitting on that porch watching people come. This would be people watching Utopia. That might be a window you'd have to crawl out of. It would be just like a frat house in college. Yeah, I'd be all right with that. OK. Look down upon the simple people visiting the lighthouse. You're paying to visit.

19:39 Hilarious. Well. Who process when was when was Forrest Gump filmed? 1993. I want to say I could just be saying numbers out of my mouth. Ninety ninety four. I was close. I'm sure it was filmed in 1993 and then came out. No, for definitely. I think I'm right. For certain. In 1998, ownership of the dwelling lighthouse and the grounds were officially passed on to the town of St. George as part of the main lights program. And I had to look that up. But I think it's basically just legislation that was passing ownership of lighthouses off to like towns and nonprofits and stuff like that.

20:28 So basically get it out of the hands of the government. But I think they're still a Coast Guard every time that happens. The Coast Guard is still in charge of the beacon. So it's like everything else is under the control of the nonprofit. So they have to do restorations and maintenance and everything. But then the Coast Guard is still in charge of the beacon. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, I can see like, I don't know, East Brother in San Francisco. Yeah. Thinking about like if that house and facilities were not maintained and they were to deteriorate and there's nothing there. Yeah. The Coast Guard could just put up a that's not a pole, but a metal tower. Yeah. It could cost almost nothing.

21:09 And it still have their light there. So they don't really care what facility the light is in other than other than a sense of respect. Yeah. But as far as maintaining a beacon for Coast Guard safety, I think that's that's a guess of mine. But it's cool. Let me see what kind of pictures I have. Oh, yeah. Just more of the lighthouse. Picture of the lighthouse. Man, it's like 20 feet tall, you said. Thirty one. And I saw a couple of different heights. I couldn't figure out exactly which one was correct. But I'm thinking 31 feet is from ground to top of lightning round. Yeah. So we got granite block and brick. Yeah. Big, nice looking block and brick and a steel door.

21:52 Yeah. I'm surprised by that. You can't climb it. It's kind of sad. I mean, you'd only be going a couple steps. Physically could, but not you're not able to. You're not allowed to. Yeah. If you wanted to like scale the side of it or something. Well, the doorway. We can't get the doorway takes up. It's probably, you know, six foot, seven foot tall. Yeah. It's like a third of the building. Yeah. The part that you can access is all the brick part. Oh, cool. It's an additional sensors and stuff up top. Yeah. It's a cool light room. I like that design. And in 2017, the Coast Guard replaced the Fresnel lens that was in there with the current beacon, which you can see in this photos.

22:34 Oh, arrow beacon. That's what she bright. It's pretty cool. It's still Fresnel esque. Yeah. It's got hints of Fresnel. It's pretty cool. Sounds like a clone. It's giving Fresnel vibes. It's a I like this photo. I get the reflections on the different panes of the class. It's kind of cool. That looks expensive as well. I got to say that's what I was thinking, too. It's still it's got the same energy. The fifth order Fresnel lens is now in the museum. So replacing a Fresnel lens in 2017 seems like really late. Yeah.

23:14 You think they wouldn't want to deal with all of that, but that must have been a sad time for the St. George Historical Society for them to come and remove that. I mean, like, at least they were able to keep it in the museum. But to have it taken out of the tower would be like, oh, man, like, got so far. 2017. I wonder how it's removed. Did they have to take like this? It's big. Even a fifth order is still large. Yeah. I don't know. Unwieldy. It's round. Slippery. But at the same time, when they took out the Fresnel lens, they also restored the walkway to the lighthouse. OK. And I think that was the Coast Guard. So I don't know. Well, it's a maybe it's a means to get to the signal.

23:55 So that's part of their. They had to. I don't know. But the lighthouse grounds are accessible 24 7 for the whole year. But you can't climb the lighthouse. It's kind of sad. But everything else has, you know, normal business day working hours for like the museum and stuff. I didn't write them down. But the whole reason that I so the Forrest Gump was the reason why I should have covered this lighthouse. The real reason I found this lighthouse is because you and I were talking about how like I wonder how many lighthouses have been struck by lightning and destroyed. And it led me to this lighthouse because this year, 2013, 2013, 2023, what was happening?

24:37 It was August. So last month it was struck by lightning. What happened? The building was fine. The actual structurally, it wasn't damaged because it had a lightning rod. Heck yeah. But it fried all the circuits. So like the beacon and the foghorn, every electrical component was fried. It was taken out of service by the Coast Guard until August 17th when it was relit. So they fixed it by then. I think it was like a 10 day period of it being down. Toasted that stuff. Toasted. Something that's interesting is that originally this light was on 24 7 year round. Like even during the day it was on. And when they brought it back into service last month, they decided that it was only going to be on at night.

25:20 And so it's like they changed the light characteristic of this lighthouse in 2023. That's pretty crazy. I know. Doesn't happen. Wild. I'd be like, what are you doing? The people of this lighthouse probably like, why are you changing everything? If people want to go listen to my history buoy on lightning rods, it's episode 34. It's my latest episode. So check that one out. 34. Yeah. Sanibel Island. But that is Marshall Point Lighthouse. Oh, that's it? Yep. Look at it. Yeah. I pulled up a picture and I think that must be the brass bell that we were talking about. Look at the grass. Yeah, that's incredible. High quality. Lots of evergreen trees, I think.

26:06 Yes. Yep. That's very pretty. Yeah. The bell looks about the same size I thought. Maybe a little bigger. Yeah, I think that is the one I was thinking. 1000 pounds. Cool house. Very nice. Everything looks nicely painted. Oh, I want to go down where they're at. They're taking pictures on the rocks. Yeah, looks cold there. Side view. I've never been to Maine. I haven't either, but I keep thinking how much fun it would be. This is actually really close to Owl's Head Lighthouse, which was one of the haunted ones I covered on Halloween last year. I saw it on the map. Really? Just up north. Owl's Head. Yeah. There's quite a few. There's quite a few lighthouses around here. I like it. I like the aesthetic there. Thank you. Yeah. So short little episode for you.

26:47 But now you know if you watch Forrest Gump, the lighthouse that he stops in front of is Marshall Point. And let it go down in history as such. You know, my mom talked to me about this. I heard you talk to you about this too. A group, I can't remember the name, but a group in Boise where they're talking about like giving a discussion on how to do something. Like basically a live show. Yeah. Well, it's like it's a discussion on how to do something. But I was proposing that we could do a show on how to lighthouse travel. Not specifically. There's not everyone that's out there is looking to just go see lighthouses.

27:28 But there are lighthouses in almost all of the coastal locations where you might be interested in going. Yeah. Or within driving distance wherever you're visiting. I don't. I mean, maybe I'm biased because we're doing the research. But it seems like it would be interesting. Yeah. Like culturally significant in all of those areas. So not a bad idea. It's in the the old brain seed in the brain. So it's in there. Well, cool. That's our episode. So check us out on the lighthouse lowdown dot com where you can watch our videos. Please leave us a review if you enjoyed this episode and leave us a email or a voicemail to tell us.

28:10 What lighthouses you want to cover because listener episodes are the most fun and it's fun to have your suggestions covered. That's right. That's almost a tongue twister. We're also on YouTube, LinkedIn, Spotify. Anywhere you podcast. Yeah. Thank you for listening. We'll catch you next time on the lighthouse below now.