Episode 54 - Navesink Lighthouse (Twin Lights)

0:00 Hi everybody, I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown. Oh. Did coffee today? Yep, they gave me a venti instead of a grande. Oh, bonus. In my personal cup, which is venti size. So you didn't order a venti? No. Okay. I brought the venti cup just because that's all I had. I'm expecting it to be half full and it was full. It's a big cup. I know. I have to be chugging during this. So anyway, we never mentioned this, but our anniversary of the podcast was like May.

0:44 Oh, yeah. May 2nd. We just skated right over that. Yeah. We never said anything about it. Never did a post or... That was our two year as well, right? Mm-hmm. Two year anniversary of the Lighthouse Lowdown. We actually made it. Yeah. Now specifically we've made it. So I just thought I'd put that out there. We did get a card in the mail from a listener saying happy anniversary and it was the coolest card ever. Just really spectacular. That was nice. It was a birthday card with a lighthouse on it. So that's it. Nice. Thank you. That's it for my announcement. Two plus years. I do have a history buoy this episode. Very nice.

1:24 I was kind of worried that I was going to have to skip it, but I powered through and we have a history buoy. It's part two of Signal Flags. So I did Signal Flags last time for storms and this time I'm just doing like their general Signal Flags for the Coast Guard, but it's also internationally recognized. So yeah. Wow. And they have a whole... I wish I had taken screenshots, but I just included the link in our show notes of this, what is it called? International Code of Signals 1969 version. So that's the latest update. I think in 2005 is whenever it came out, but it says 1969 version.

2:07 So I wonder if they like relapse to a different version. Interesting. Don't know, but it was very confusing. A lot of strange, very 60s terminology and things. But anyway, you guys should check it out because it's actually pretty cool. It's not that long. It's just like a lot of different codes and breaks down what combination means something very specific. Like I've had a nuclear incident on board or something. There's a lot of stuff. So I will start out. Let me make sure. Here we have... All the flags. A through Z. What flags? So basically it's alphabetical and they also mean something specific if you're just flying them by themselves.

2:50 I have a picture that I pulled off line of like an example of the flags being flown and it's not clear. I'm sure it's like maybe it's the name of the boat, this Muritz. Yeah maybe. Maybe it's the name of the boat. I also saw it's the name of a national park. So maybe they were in a lake in the national park or something. And MUE, according to the International Code of Signals means give ice to suck. So... What? What's the code for why? For what? Any code that starts with an M is medical related. And so I suppose... You had a burn in your mouth. Yeah. The hot hot cocoa is too hot. You report it with flags.

3:32 We have one man with mouth burns. Okay so there's... With ice to suck. Yeah I'm reading. You should keep going. Okay. I'm not going to describe what all these flags are because obviously there's 26 right? 26. That's how many letters are in the alphabet. So I won't describe them all but if you look at our YouTube, I have it pulled up now. There are 26. Okay excellent. Oh you had to count too. Just to make sure. I like that there's both the military alphabet. So like Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, ABC. But also like there's a secondary meaning to the flag. Yeah that's what I was saying is like if you fly it separately, I think it has its own meaning like stop instantly.

4:18 I am stopped. I am stopped. I am dragging an anchor. I'm dragging an anchor. Stop your intention. My favorite one is whiskey also means require medical assistance. I don't know what it... Like this one, the example that I have up, it has this murits twice. I don't know if that's like something specific but... Did ships carry all of these flags in like I'm thinking of a pirate ship crate, like a chest. Oh. Like had a boy go down and get the chest. Let me show you. I actually have it on the next slide. Show how they hang up. So they're still used today and they're common enough that they're just out in the open for people to clip on to the ropes.

5:05 So this is a common way of communicating these days. This setup right here satisfies me. Very satisfying. And it looks awesome and all the brass hardware and everything. And then the guy, he's not fitting that vibe. Well, because you got a hard hat on. But it's not just that. So I work in construction, right? Oh no. The hard hat on some people, it just doesn't fit the same. Like on some people it sits further back versus further forward. He's one of those further back gentlemen where there's like more hard hat in the back and the front seems to go with the curvature of his face and head. Yeah. For some reason it doesn't look as cool. It's hard to look cool in a hard hat anyways.

5:46 He looks like under that hard hat he'd have frosted tips. No, you're just saying that because he's wearing like glasses. He looks like he doesn't really wear hard hats even though you can't help the shape of your head. You just can't. Well, he's probably about to climb up or something. He's probably a cool dude. I'm just saying he's not putting out the vibe. Yeah, we don't know him. We can't trash him. But his setup looks pretty cool. But anyway, that answers your question. I also put this up. There's numbers too. Yes, there's numbers and there's also like a couple of very specific pennants and the order in which you use them, like it says first, second, third. You're supposed to use them in conjunction with the rest of your message and it means something but obviously I wasn't going to go through every single rule.

6:30 I also included the flag for SOS. So this is like when there's a serious problem. Brianna said SOS means someone help me. It's unhealthy. Oh, God. That was not something I was expecting you to say. So some examples. So like there's some general codes where you can use them. I have an example on here. This is from the International Code of Signals. AL means I have a doctor on board. Like a flight surgeon except on the seas. Yeah. And then ED means your distress signal is understood. ED1 means nearest life saving station is being informed.

7:12 So there's all kinds of different combinations and it was actually kind of fun to read through. If anyone's interested, they should check it out. Do you think that they all all sailors have this memorized? I see they have the labels here with their. Yeah, I can't imagine that that's possible. The amount like like I was saying, it's not a super long document, but it's just packed full with different letter combinations. So I notice they have multiple of each one of these. We need another S playing Scrabble. Yeah, a dire situation. We're out of this. Get a white flag. Put some blue across the center. But that's all.

7:53 Yeah, that's all I got for signal flags. I could go more into that, but I didn't want to take up a bunch of time trying to describe it. I really like this. So yeah, check out our YouTube to see what the flags look like because they're pretty cool and they're all very distinct. Obviously, they have to be. All right, let's move on. The lighthouse today will be taking us to the highlands of. Let me check. I know I want to say Navy sink, which I think is an acceptable pronunciation. But then I saw a video from somebody who actually lived in New Jersey and it's. Wait, go to New Jersey again. It's Navy sink. Yeah, we're in New Jersey. We're facing the New York Harbor again. OK, we're four miles away from Sandy Hook.

8:35 So this is actually a very well known lighthouse. You will have seen it because the United States Lighthouse Society sent an email and it was one of the topics. Oh, cool. Nice. Yeah, yeah, cool. Jersey Shore, sick, sick, sick, sick. OK, so it's Navy sink, I think. I want to say Navis Inc, but I think it's Navy sink. But it overlooks the entrance to New York Bay. It's in New Jersey and the lighthouse we're covering is Navy sink lighthouse or twin lights. I have a picture, which is abnormal for me. I usually avoid showing.

9:16 Oh, cool. Isn't that so cool? Very castle like the towers are different shapes. Is this near a military academy? I have no idea. Continue. It looks a lot like there's a symbol for the Army Corps of Engineers. Oh, that looks a lot like this. I think we should look it up. OK, but I'm going to throw you off. We'll do it later. Yeah. So the highlands of Navis Inc, as you can decipher from the name, is that it's highland. And so since it was elevated, it's been used often in observing traffic into the harbor. So like all far in the past. I have a picture of where we are looking.

9:58 So we got New York to the north. Sandy Hook is on the end of that Gateway National Recreational Area. We're pretty close to another lighthouse. That one came shortly before this one. And actually, it said that there's some evidence that there was a light built on Navis Inc at the same time as Sandy Hook Lighthouse was built in 1764. So a long time ago. But the evidence is not like super clear, so they don't make it official. So the Navis Inc Lighthouse that was built in 1828 is considered the first instead of suspecting that it was earlier. So from this site, you can see all the way across to New York. Yes. I wish I had taken maybe I'll insert.

10:40 Maybe I'll send you a picture to insert. But there's a picture of the view from the tower. And it's pretty cool. Cool. A lot of buildings. The first lighthouse in 1828 was a pair of rebel stone towers instead of one on the summit, which was like a special thing. And it was actually the one of only seven US stations to have two lighthouses. There were 320 feet apart and 43 feet tall. Here's a really old is an etching, I think. But it shows the two towers and they're not connected. I don't think they're also at different elevations.

11:20 Slightly. Yeah. There's a North Tower and a South Tower. And I think even today, I think one of them slightly taller, but they're also closer together. So I think the difference was a lot less noticeable. Or maybe whoever etched this was just not very accurate. Maybe they were closer to this other chair they were sitting on was not level. So there was a dwelling that was built in the middle of the two towers and the station cost a little over $10,000 to build. The North Tower had a fixed white light and South had a flashing white light and this pattern would continue for as long as they were in service. Awesome. That's cool. In 1838, Commodore Matthew C. Perry and Matthew Perry is the name of that guy who was in France, Chandler.

12:04 Rip. I just read it and I was like, Matthew Perry. He passed away, right? Yeah. This Matthew Perry, Commodore was sent to England and France to see how Fresnel lenses were looking because I need to cover the history of Fresnel lenses. I talked about him briefly, I think in the second episode, but France was the one who invented them. Augustine Fresnel, I think. You could tell me on that. Okay. I'll leave it at that. The US took a long time to adopt the Fresnel lens. Apparently it was something about the guy, what was his name? Pleasanton, Stephen Pleasanton. Apparently it was a little bit negligent in- He didn't like the French?

12:48 I don't know. Or something. I didn't look, there's a whole chapter of a paper on it about why he resisted introducing Fresnel lenses into the United States. We've talked about Pleasanton before. Yeah. He's been mentioned a lot. He was basically single-handedly running lighthouses in the government for a little while. Okay. Okay. So, he went over there. First lens in France was installed in a lighthouse in 1823. So Matthew Perry was over there 15 years later to go see how things were going. But France had all of their lighthouses with a Fresnel lens within three years of when he first put this- So they proved it and started spending them out.

13:33 Yeah. So the entire country had Fresnel lenses before, within three years. And then it took us 12 years after that to come and be like, how do they look? It's like exceptional. That's so funny. I hear a word of the Fresnel lens and they're like, oh no, no, no, it's Fresnel. Although the pronunciation has shown us many different things in many different locations. So I'm sure no matter how you say it, it's probably got some truth. I'd like someone to tell me- No one's wrong. So I'd like someone to tell me exactly how to pronounce it. A lot of places say this or that, or they say it's this. And I had never used that.

14:17 There needs to be some definite- someone needs to decide. Okay. But anyway, I made a note that the first lens that they installed in France was in a lighthouse that was supposed to show the grandeur of France. Like be like, oh, when you come into Harbor or wherever it was. And it also had a apartment in it for the king. Like that's how fancy it was is the king can stay there. That's awesome. Anyway, that one. Yeah, maybe that one should that one will be on my list. The French. I'm sure it has a lot of super cool history. But anyway, we're talking about Navy sync and this lighthouse was sort of a guinea pig throughout its entire history for new tech, like testing new tech.

14:59 And was the first lighthouse in the U S to have a Fresnel lens in 1841. It's early year. It's an early year. I mean for us. I don't know. Well, it was the first so early compared to all the other lighthouses. The team that's going to win the game will have the most points. Vince isn't listening to me because he's making faces at the cat is staring at me in a way that he's never stared at me in his whole life. Honestly, I think he's just zoned out and you happen to be the topic of his eyes are tracking me. Oh, interesting. He does seem to be staring like having an episode. Okay.

15:39 So Stephen Pleasanton, which I put on here, who was in charge of US lighthouses at the time said, quote, upon a rough estimate of the cost of these two sets of lenticular apparatus of also because there's two towers and they both got Fresnel lenses. So it's like really expensive. Sorry, I interrupted his quote of the first and second order put and putting them up upon two lighthouses already built. It appears to be between twenty three thousand and twenty four thousand dollars, which at the time was like almost nine hundred thousand dollars. So honestly, not as expensive as I would think. Because I really need to do an episode that just talks about the history of finances because there was only one glass supplier in France that could make prisms close to the quality that was required for these lenses.

16:33 And often there were small imperfections. And so they had to like, like it took them two years to make the first lens of just working on this polishing the prisms and having to redo pieces. And all of that stuff. Anyway, I interrupted his quote again. The cost of these lenses, however, is nothing compared to the beauty and excellence of the light they afford. They appear to be the perfection of apparatus for lighthouse purposes, having in view only the superiority of the light, which is reported by the pilots to be seen in clear weather, a distance of 40 miles. End quote. That's crazy. And for this lighthouse later, they talk about you can see the hint of the light of this lens on clouds at night from over 70 miles away.

17:18 So it was insane. I'll have to talk about it because there's they install a Fresnel lens in here. That's just like the most powerful there's ever been. OK, I'll continue. I'm all over. So in 1857, Navis Inc. was found to be in considerable disrepair. Here we go again. Wait, 17 years later? Yes. And then because it was rubble stone, anything that was made with rubble stone usually goes to crap. Rubble. Yeah. And also, I think the weight of these Fresnel lenses were not accounted for in their construction. Obviously, why would you plan on having literal tons of glass and brass at the top? Like it just doesn't.

17:59 It wouldn't. Something they wouldn't take into consideration. So in 1860, Congress appropriated almost seventy three thousand dollars to rebuild them. Seventy three thousand dollars in 1860. What is that? Like over two million dollars. I don't know. So they went all out, you know, because they had a large budget. Cool. The ones that were built in 18. I think they're finished 1862 are the ones that we have today. So super old. That's awesome. Really neat. I have an old picture of them pulled up, but the plans were very castle like with the North Tower octagonal and the South Square. They're made of brownstone and connected by wings with a two story headkeeper slash first assistant living space in the middle.

18:46 And then the second and third assistant had living areas somewhere in between. I couldn't really figure out if these two little knobs sticking out. But I don't think so because I'll pull up plans like architectural plans. And it's it doesn't really mention anywhere second and third assistant living. It just seems to be headkeeper and first assistant. What's that building in the back left image? It just looks like a wall kind of. There's not one on that side, though. Oh, interesting. Maybe that's a living court. Oh, generator, which is part of the future for Nellyn's installation I was talking about. Yeah, that comes a little bit later. OK, so this is the second story of the assistant or them, the keepers house.

19:29 And so that's also the so there's all this. Assistant's bedroom workshop, principal keeper versus. OK, so second and third assistants had a very small living space right next to the workshop in the oil room for each tower. OK, so that makes sense. That checks out with my sources. So what is a chamber in comparison to a part or a bedroom? There's one bedroom. Oh, yeah. Bedroom, maybe a chamber. A chamber has a fireplace. Sitting room. I don't know. It would be a lot fancier than we are now. Really cool. Lots of places to entertain people. And now we're like, come hang out in my living room. I like that they have the hallway is a passage.

20:11 Yeah, passage all the way from one tower to the other. It's so cool. This is really neat. Also crazy that the USLHS has access to these super old. We're talking mid eighteen hundreds and it's just we have scans of them. What the drafting that went into making this by hand? Yeah, it's really interesting. This of straight edges. So each tower got a first order for Netherlands, making it the most powerful lighthouse in the US at the time, because originally they had a first order and a second order. So one tower had first order. I think South Tower had second order. And then when they got rebuilt, they did two first order lenses. And when the new lighthouse was first lit in 1862, it burned lard oil, but the US began testing mineral oil.

20:55 And so Navis Inc became the first US lighthouse to burn it in a first order lens in the South Tower in 1883. So there's tons of I'll continue, but there's tons of firsts at this lighthouse. They actually used it as a guinea pig style lighthouse for the rest of lighthouses in the US. That's really cool. Oh, and it was 73 feet tall. They did a lot of this is incredible. A lot of really good work out here. Yeah. Well documented. So clear to you think it would be really beat up by this point, but they took care of it. You can see where it was folded. All right, so the world's Columbian exposition is the next thing I'm going to talk about. This is where our enormous, very powerful Fresnel lens came from.

21:35 So it was held in Chicago in 1893 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landing in the new world, quote unquote. The French Lighthouse Board came to this exposition and brought with them a colossal bivalve lens along with other innovations. So it was kind of like you walk around and kind of take a look at what other countries are doing and all their innovations stuff. They didn't want to ship this humongous lens back to France because it was 10 tons just by itself. And so they convinced the US to purchase it. What a sale. They're like, hey, you know, this is pretty cool.

22:16 I have a picture of it because they installed it in a museum in 1951. The Coast Guard did and it's insane. So I'll show you a picture. It was originally designed for Fire Island Lighthouse, which is interesting that it says that because why would they need to convince the US to purchase it if it was already destined for somewhere in the US? Fire Island is it's also in New York. It looks a little bit like Body Island Lighthouse, like stripey, 168 feet tall, so very tall. Maybe they just didn't want to move it up that far. So they chose our little more squat lighthouse. I didn't look I didn't see an explanation for that, but they installed it in the South Tower of Navis Inc. But the lens was made for an electric arc lamp, which is not something that like electricity was not was not at the lighthouse at that time.

23:04 So they built that generator building that I was talking about at the station and the South Tower was lit with the 10 ton lens in 1898, making it the first coastal light to use electricity. Look at the size of that. Nice clamshell lens. That's crazy. Very fancy. Very cool. The lens itself was so powerful that they had to install protective paneling because the residents nearby said they couldn't sleep, that their chickens were not laying eggs, and that cows were not producing milk anywhere. This was 25 million candle power. And for reference, the first order lens that they had before this was 8000.

23:45 8000 to 25 million candle power. So crazy. One because of the size of this and also because they started using this arc lamp. What style is this again? This is clamshell or a bivalve. That's nuts. Yeah, that's I want to see it. It's like eight feet tall. It's got to look at that guy. Imagine he's six feet tall, but still like two of him tall, probably 10 feet tall. The keepers to be around this to do anything with it while it's lit, they had to wear eye protection that was similar to welder's goggles. That's so cool. Here's another picture they posted 1898 in the Scientific American kind of showing I had never seen what an arc lamp looked like.

24:31 And so they have a drawing of it in here. Maybe a patent that we should go look at eventually. Yeah, that's awesome. But it looks like it would be crazy to install. And giant electrodes. Yeah, there's a guy standing next to it. This one says 90 million counter candle power. So there's some difference on the 90 million. Where are you seeing that? Oh, candle power. So I don't know. Interesting. There's some variation in intensity of the power. But regardless, this was obviously very cool. The most powerful kind of a big deal. Yeah. And then shortly after that, the North Tower discontinued use, obviously, because it was severely overpowered by this South Tower.

25:15 But it was used as a back up in case South, the South one failed because electricity at that time wasn't super reliable. So if that ever went down, they had old reliable. The generator was added at that time. Yeah, so that they could power the arc lamp. So in 1899, the first wireless telegraph antenna was installed at the station. We got another first. In 1917, the generator was about to kick the bucket. So they changed. I just read that straight from my notes. I don't remember saying that. So they changed to an incandescent oil vapor, dropping the light to 710,000 candle power, which is still pretty powerful.

25:56 And seven years later changed to incandescent bulbs, which raised it again to nine million counter candle power. So we never really got the power that we had with the arc lamp. But I'm sure there were some humongous downsides to using that lamp that they would change to just regular bulbs. Well, so this I'm supposing, I think the arc lamp assembly we're looking at. Those two things that are facing each other are the electrodes. Yeah. So they degrade a little over time. Yeah. But if you have an arc, like if you have static electricity, get close to a little jump, if you're in the dark, it will actually light up. That's tiny, tiny amounts of current.

26:38 And these electrodes are enormous. This is the same concept as a spark plug we talked about before. Yeah. Where there's a gap. So that arc that travels across is the ignition in a cylinder. But if that to scale, if that applies to scale, that would be like a brilliant lightning bolt. Yeah, it'd be like painful to look at. I don't think you could. Hence the welder's goggles. I don't think you could. That's good. That's so cool. I've never even heard of this before. Well, you need to look deeper into it. Oh, it says the theoretical luminous range of this giant lens in clear weather is 146.9 nautical miles. Theoretical, of course. You know, someone's doing that math a couple of times.

27:20 Like, yeah, like, no, that's not right. Is there, is this exhibited anywhere today? I'm not sure. It would be really, even if it wasn't power on. Yeah, or even an example of what it would have looked like at that time, because this is just a drawing. Super cool. So you said halogen lights? Incandescent. That's right. Yeah. In the same year, the first experimental radio beacon was established with the light. So tech, new tech everywhere. World War II followed after that, and the light was reduced again to comply with blackouts. And the lighthouse also served as location for the United States first experiments with radar, which was called the mystery ray in local papers because it was not public information.

28:03 So people saw it and they're like, what is that? Like, if you know, if you look at satellite right now, it's like it would look like a ray gun. 1949, the lighthouse was extinguished. A minor optic installed outside the lantern room while the lens was dismantled and taken to the Boston Museum of Science, which is where we saw that picture beforehand with the two guys. The state of New Jersey has had ownership of the light since 1962 and the State Park Service Twin Lights Historical Society and the Rumsome Garden Club raised almost a million dollars to renovate it. And I couldn't find out what year that was in that they renovated the lighthouse, but they fixed it up.

28:43 It was looking to be in pretty poor shape again. And now it's, yeah, really good. Today they have a museum where you can see the original clamshell lens. They bought it back from that museum for $5,000. I was like, $5,000? Yeah. Even if that was shortly after it was acquired in like 1960 something, I feel like that would be or no, 1950. I feel like $5,000 still would be pretty cheap. I think it's a show of respect. Yeah. I don't think it's a market price. Okay. So they're not like trying to make a profit. I don't think they had it for sale for anybody for five grand. Maybe that was just like moving costs. They were like, if you want it, you just move it over there.

29:24 And you can also go and climb the North Tower and see it's sixth order lens. Because right now it has a little lens in the North Tower. Climbing is $5 and $12 for a private guided tour that includes both towers. So if you pay for a private tour, then you can see both. But normally it's only the North Tower and the grounds are free so you can go there at any time. On off season climbing the North Tower is free. And off season, of course, is just like winter. Cold. It's a little chilly. It gets pretty cold up there. How far is this from Atlantic City? Just because we covered Epsicon light. Because they're both New Jersey. It's not that big of a state. Yeah. Epsicon. No. Okay.

30:05 It's only an hour and 45 minute drive. So like the whole state. Yeah. Yeah. It's a large majority of the coastline you'd have to drive by. It's funny. Yeah. Because this is the top right next to New York and yours is kind of towards the bottom. One more thing. If you would please look it up for me. Oh sure. Is the Army Corps of Engineers symbol. Like where it comes from. It's probably not this but it looks kind of castle like. Yeah you're right. Let me pull it up on the screen. A guy who sat next to me. A P1 group. Army Corps of Engineer veteran I suppose is the word. Cool dude. Smart dude. I was zoomed in and now I'm all over the place. It's probably not the same.

30:45 Looks like a castle though. Yeah. It's definitely castle like. Cool. This picture I found online. It's everyone should go to our YouTube. I'll also have it on our Instagram. So if you want to go check it out. It's a picture of the two lights at night and one of them looks like there's a Christmas tree in it. I was like what is this? Little South Towers got a Christmas tree. So I looked it up and they do in fact have a Christmas tree. Not an actual Christmas tree but like they hang lights to appear like a Christmas tree. All the way from like late November to like the end of winter. So I looked into that. There's some stories about it but I figure I'll cover this in part two of our Christmas at Lighthouse episode when it gets closer to Christmas.

31:31 But I put a little picture here you can see. That's awesome. They put a little tree in there. So cute. But this lighthouse is so pretty. I can't believe they put so much effort. I mean they had a crazy budget but made it very castle like. Like the top of these lighthouses the what is it called? Lantern room. No the top is called like a cupola or something. Yeah. Cupola. Cupola. It looks like a crown. Very cool. That's what I got. That's Navisink Lighthouse or Twin Lights. Very cool. New Jersey crushing it one more time. I know we keep hitting on New Jersey. Thank you for listening. Thank you for two years of Lighthouse Lowdown and following along and thank you to all of our new listeners for joining and hopefully you enjoyed this episode.

32:17 You can check us out on thelighthouselowdown.com where you can watch our YouTube videos. You can listen to our podcast. Find out where you can listen to our podcasts because we're on like Spotify and Apple and all of those. You can send us an email at thelighthouselowdown.gmail.com if you want to hear the history of a specific lighthouse and follow us on Instagram at the Lighthouse Lowdown where we post pictures after each episode of what we were looking at while we were chatting. And we hope to see you next time. Oh, la la la. Very good. Good day.