Episode 71 - Minot's Ledge Lighthouse

0:00 Hi everybody, I'm Emily and I'm Vince and this is the lighthouse lowdown We're doing a nighttime recording we sure are and it's a Tuesday night. Yeah, Tuesday night. We got a winter storm coming tomorrow. I've got strep throat. So We're gonna be powering through. It's great. We're having fun many different aspects of our lives lucky to be here That is true. We are lucky to be here could be somewhere else We have a good episode today, it's a listener lighthouse So nice applaud our listeners for continuing to send lighthouses so that we can cover them Because those are always the most fun that we know that somebody's going to be like, oh my gosh. Yes This is the lighthouse I asked and then they can listen and be you know, just slightly disappointed by the delivery in the content Was this from one listener or is it a repeat? This is one listener. Nice Shout out but first I'll go into our history buoy. This is our where first incorrect pronunciation will come from most likely because How do you look up how a last name is pronounced from?

1:22 Well, there's a hundred and thirty years old history. I don't know like I was gonna say there's fanatics, but they don't I'm not very smart with those Yeah, so it's just Ma my hand Mahan. How do you spell it? M H M A H A N Mahan What part of the world? America Mahan Mahan Is it is the age capitalized the first name is Frederick the age is not capitalized Frederick man man on Man, it's gonna go with Mahan Frederick M. I'm sure it's wrong. So just live with it. But anyway, it's a style of for Nellis the Mahan System, so very cool. I'm sure it's out there, but I had a hard time even finding any information on this subject Which was interestingly even the US LHS website. I had to do some digging and I just found like one Newspaper article clipping about how this happened, but it's a huge part of the lighthouse recovering today. So I'm going into it. Okay, so Mahan system for Nellens So in the late 1800s it became and we talked about this the other day It became a problem that all the lighthouse light characteristics were starting to be the same. Yeah, everybody was like the same yeah, everybody had a fixed white light so You know if you were disoriented and all of a sudden you see a solid white light offshore You have no idea which lighthouse it could possibly be referencing. Yeah, you need more information

2:57 so captain Frederick a ma on Mahan yes Created the design for for Nellens is that flash numbers as their characteristics and so basically they had Little cropped flash panel. So, you know usually like the bulls-eye of a for Nellens It's like this little circle in the middle and it goes bigger and bigger rings around it And so this one is like if you had one of those but you cut it in the middle like Vertically or like slightly off to the side or like yeah, and I'll show a picture and a video So if anyone's interested in that you can go to our our YouTube and we'll have this posted But so as the lens rotated you would see really quick flashes and they would group the flashes so that it would be like Four quick flashes and a space and then like one of these examples five quick flashes. So it was the four or five lens cool, so like Nothing really changes the light would remain the same and everything but the for Nellens itself produces a flash pattern That's like different from any other lighthouse. You know exactly which one you're looking at and it's blocked off light and it's in series that are timed with a mechanism not blocked off but not punchy like not Flashes. Yeah, it's like it's not a focused beams. So it's kind of diffused. So I'll show you the picture That is cool. So here you can just see facing us is the diffused area So it's like it's still lit and you would still see it as like a light

4:29 Yeah, but the other side is where we have these these tight really skinny What are they called panels? And that's where you get your flashes from and you can tell in the reflection on the wall that there are these little bulls eyes That are cut off beautiful. That's a really pretty photo so this the actual lens he had two lenses made and they were in at display at the Colombian Exposition in 1893 and moved to their test lighthouses in 1894 where they remained but because of how expensive it was to get custom for Nell lenses that were so particular and You know like the panels are all slightly different. So it was just so expensive that they didn't Implement this idea anywhere else, even though it was so effective that both test lighthouses kept the for Nell ins for the rest of their Their lives. It's really interesting. It's a good idea. Yeah, so Mahan maintained that quote by this method The identity of the lighthouse would be absolute End quote and so he created to the first one was a first order that flashed four or five So that's the one that I'm gonna show a video of okay four quick flashes three seconds of darkness and then five quick flashes and then 16 seconds of darkness, which is like in this example the entire backside of the lens is Technically the darkness area, but it's not blocked off It's just just fused a light and that timing is just based on the spinning of the lens Yeah, and each panel coming in and out of a person's reference. Oh, yeah a perfect

6:01 Yeah, and that these were both on mercury floats So nice, I know they were with the times and the other one was a second order that flashed one for three and And so each group of flashes was separated by three seconds of darkness with two seconds between each flash Followed by 15 seconds of darkness Nice, I'll show this video and darkness meaning a blacked-off panel altogether. No, it means this diffused area The darkness is just like you're not getting that flash of light in your corneas Okay, this video is from is one that somebody took on Facebook as it comes back around you can see those Crapped flash panels and also on like the ceiling of this video You can see how a lot of the light on the diffused area is lost upwards and then the focused ones have this really tight Prisms around there so they don't lose any light Yes, you see you one two three four and then there's a change in angle of the Fresnel lens And so you don't technically have a block off there, but it takes a little bit longer To for it to show on that next panel because the angle of the corner is steeper It's split one way or the other. Yeah, is that that's intentional to build the timing Yeah, so it's like so you get an obvious group of four and then a slight pause and then a group of five So because it's it's radial it's around a point there is a a Difference probably in timing so the number of seconds is probably different depending on how far you are away

7:37 Between the flashes. Yeah, probably Fan if you're closer to the center versus close to the edge Yeah, I think science Yeah, that was my History buoy we are going to cover the lighthouse that received the one four three lens I care which is Minutes ledge lighthouse what's twenty minutes ledge? It's spelled this whole time. I was researching. I'm gonna try really hard not to do this It's just like body island where I'm like Bodhi Yeah And then you find out like at the end of your research or even after you'd already done the episode that the pronunciation is not The way that it looks it's like this one. I would say minnow because it's M. I in O T Yes, I'm like minnows light, but it's um mine. It's Allegedly Maybe I'm wrong, but every video I've watched they say mine It's and that includes Jeremy a video that Jeremy made so sometimes things come to the US And they're kind of renamed based on our pronunciation. Yeah, that's true Jackie Minow is a Dark red rose for example. Oh my gosh. Am I NRT? Yeah Cute I Didn't know that you go that French. Yes Okay, so like I said, this is going to be our listener lighthouse So thank you to Megan our listener Megan who sent this in from New Zealand She also said by the way, we have a lot of cool lighthouses, too

9:11 So we'll have to definitely look at New Zealand and I saw that we actually get around Like eight listens per episode from New Zealand. There's people out there. Let's go You live we have to get that on our radar for sure because I'm honest. I don't even know where it is It's very cool. Geography is not my forte awesome part of the world. It's far from here. Yeah for sure Just like about everything else So we're doing a little Valentine's Day themed episode So I know this is coming out a couple days after Valentine's Day But you know, you can just pretend that it's in the moment We're going two and a half mile. I Forgot to put in some slides, but whatever you can look it up on maps. I Thought I was prepared for this but I suppose I'm not two and a half miles out into Massachusetts Bay Which is inches slightly south of Boston. So originally I had a screenshot that showed In their geography, but yeah, we drove past it, but it's you know, two and a half miles out So you'd have to work really hard to see it out there. You'd have to squint. We would not have Probably been looking out into the sea for a lighthouse The problem that introduced this lighthouse was a almost invisible outcropping of rocks out in Massachusetts Bay Oh, no, and these rocks had picked off sailors for centuries and the first recorded ship crashed in 19. Oh, sorry 1695 with no survivors. So yeah, that was like super long time ago before I mean

10:47 this this spot was 16 obviously active, you know Boston harbors, right? Yeah one of the early places to yeah get busy Still like so noticed very early on which didn't he didn't get a lighthouse for a long time. Anyway Do you know that story that shipwreck? Because that's curious no survivors, you know, yeah, so Theoretically whoever was expecting the ship to arrive was the one who figured it had crashed Mm-hmm. So like did they find the ship? How do they how do they know there's no survivors? I don't know people but they weren't alive Yeah, maybe it's like half the ship or something like it was so shallow that maybe it just grounded But then like everybody died Never know two and a half miles out. It's pretty far when it's you know, 1600s too far to swim But anyway before this Native Americans would paddle out and offer dishes ornaments and beads to appease hobo mock Which was an evil spirit they believed plague to the waters and that's why there were so many deaths, but it was this ledge Two things can be true it could have been Yeah, you're hobo mock hobo mock and this ledge. Yeah, that's true could have been working in tandem So a prominent Boston merchant George, Minot No, no minute minute see I'm having to get used to it minute minute

12:17 Mine it yeah mine it that's what it is But maybe he went by minnow, but we over time it's just turned into Minutes mine it anyway this guy lost a valuable ship there in 1754 and At that point over 400 people had died on this outcropping of rocks. So I'm shocked that it took that long, but after the loss of his ship I don't know if he like threw a big fit or if like there was like a bunch of Drama surrounding it or something, but it became known as mine. It's lech That one heck of a hall I'm wondering yeah, like It's a merchant ship. So like so like porcelain bowls, or was it like gold salt salt Yeah, cinnamon, you know the stuff they tell you in history classes that were valuable And then you only have four examples for the rest of your life Yeah, what used to be value start? Yeah Your own podcast you're like oh my gosh. I know there's silk trail salt pepper pepper white pepper white pepper spices in there the spice trail My gosh derailed so I WP Lewis we know this guy we had a history boy about his uncle Unfortunately, it was a problem child. He wrote his report in 1842 and said quote a lighthouse on this reef is more required than on any part of the seaboard of New England The loss of lives and property here have been annual and will continue to occur until a light is established and the one that's

13:53 dang it situate Suppressed situate is another lighthouse just south like on the mainland jeez Situate I think is how it's pronounced but I could be wrong didn't look it up going by feelings He continues a wreck on this fatal reef is always attended by the destruction of human life Owing to its great distance from the shore and the tremendous sea that rolls in over the rocks when the wind is at the eastward End quote so obviously he's like I don't know what you guys are doing there needs to be a lighthouse on this rock How many more people are gonna die before we end up putting a lighthouse out here?

14:33 So the lighthouse establishment responded by building a strange lighthouse, especially for the time perched on 60 foot long iron pilings cemented in just five feet of rock The legs would allow the light to be hit by waves and high winds without damaging the actual lighthouse Okay, but like it makes it quite precarious, you know, yeah 60 foot legs But are they long legs? Yeah I Was thinking 60 feet laid down No five foot weight a fire off rock. I'll show you yeah five feet embedded and 60 feet out. I think the word precarious makes sense They completed it in 1850 for $39,000 which at that time was probably crazy and it was lit New Year's Day 1851 or 1850 camera I think was 1850. So New Year's Day of 1850 It was lit. So it was completed 1849 it was bright red the entire thing octagonal and Definitely not something that would bestow too much confidence in those that were in it So I pulled up a photo of a drawing of What it looked like I'm sure they posted the newspaper and everything so it's like a Like a water tower type construct. Yes. It's like a water tower for a city but in water And so you obviously have to get up by a ladder and like all the supplies are you know, kind of the same

16:07 Is that a deck below that's exposed that has supplies on it? Yeah Feel like you probably lose those. Hey, would you run down and get some toilet paper? Sucks little of a storm. That's just too damn bad Yeah, that's I mean there's a boat Racked up there. Mm-hmm That looks like a lot of work. Yep, and so like automatically this lighthouse was a terrible experiences for keepers because Way back and forth like during storms any amount of wind and so much so that the first keepers cat Abandoned ship in the middle of a storm because it was so spooked by the water So and thus becoming the first casualty of this lighthouse and not the last damn The cat gave up. I know Like just I'm out tapped obviously he didn't know that I don't know but imagine jumping off of the surface that high in the air 60 feet I would be doing some serious swaying. I mean with legs that skinny. That's crazy the width of a human man That's not that much for 60 feet the resonance would be awful the first head keeper Isaac Dunham, which sounds like a familiar name to me I think we've probably read about him at some other lighthouse Dunham Dunham he wrote quote the wind east blowing very hard with an ugly sea Which makes the light real like a drunken man I hope God will in mercy still the raging sea or we must perish God only knows what the end will be end quote. So by October he quit

17:40 When was that he wrote I think that was it is in January and he was the first keeper so he actually lasted Good solid I'm not lasting the winter out here. Yeah So at least yeah, that's true. Yeah winter would be way worse than that So in the fall he quit his replacement said in January. There's a lot of quotes today because they're they're good for history Quote so precarious is our present state That there is a prospect this may never reach you the rods put into the lower section are bent up in fantastic shapes Some are torn asunder from their fastenings The ice is so massive that there is no appearance of the ladder The sea is now running at least 25 feet above the level and each one roars like a heavy peel of thunder The northern part of the foundation is split and the lighthouse shakes at least two feet each way I feel as seasick as I ever did on board a ship Think not that I will ever flinch from my post though The waves should gain the mastery for which they are so incessantly striving when I accepted this post I closed my ears against the reports of the former keeper treating them as I now find too lightly Here I shall remain so long as a vest Vestige of the lighthouse remains, but the truth must be told and quote So he sent that to a new That is epic. I know first of all excellent storytelling. It was so He thought about it for a while. Yeah, he was like the peels of thunder may not reach you

19:11 Yeah, the ladder is not still visible Twisted in fantastic shapes. Yeah, you monsters be yeah Definitely a good thing for a newspaper and he was basically just saying like this is really awful And people need to know that this is a story that's been told for a long time It's awful and people need to know that this might die. Yeah That is actually worrisome that we might not make it Swift who was the engineer for this lighthouse? Responded and said quote if a lighthouse can be built on the minot Which can be made to stand securely in its place for say $40,000 would it be wise to expend it?

19:52 $200,000 or more for a stone tower the answer we think is obvious If it can be made safe build the pile light if it cannot be made safe build the tower Time the great expounder of the truth or the fallacy of the question will decide for or against the minot But in as much as the light has outlived nearly three winters. There is some reason to hope that it may survive one or two more Whoa, so he's like Okay, what the time time tells all right? So let's just see what happens Right because it would be a lot more expensive to make a stone lighthouse. So such an engineer. I know oh my god This thing's falling apart Time will show us that One could explore the idea of having done something differently you could have But why but here the two if it's still here then why worry?

20:52 What is a man's life worth really? Oh gosh, so April following this letter that was in January in the boston daily Advertiser a nor'easter hit the lighthouse the head keeper had rode to shore early in the day to get a new boat and So his two assistant keepers were left behind Which now there's only one boat so they're kind of He abandoned them for certain But let's be fair in no ways is his fault because nobody knew storms were coming back then He was getting a new boat. Yeah, like The boat that he went there on was not gonna That's what i'm saying But I mean same story for the lighthouse Maybe it was like really decrepit and they're like, wow, we really need a new boat. So i'm gonna go do that I should have done that with the lighthouse. So the two assistant keepers were left. They frantically rang the fog bell Uh, and everyone like could hear it from the shore But nobody can get out there to help them and it went silent as the lighthouse broke apart and plunged into the sea Oh my god Got a picture of what was in the newspaper. Oh no So Awful destruction of Destruction of mine. It's ledge lighthouse. Oh no So a last letter in a bottle washed ashore two days later written by the two men Which like put a letter in a bottle and someone actually found it two days later. I think that's crazy

22:22 Uh, they said quote the beaten beacon cannot last any longer She's shaking a good three feet each way as I write god bless you all end quote And their bodies washed ashore soon after that's That is so sad however I can't help myself if this wasn't a real story How epic epic? I know fortunately it's just sad and how tough they are what an awful experience. I know So there's actually a a memorial now they did a dive and found like what they think are the original like pilings in the ground of the you know ocean and so they lowered a um memorial like plaque that has their names on it to be in the water, which I would disagree with but they also have a marble one. That's at the current um Like museum site, it's crazy you can read about that. So the whole the whole body of the lighthouse was lost Oh, yeah, it was like everyone woke up in the morning and it was just like Gone bits like jutting out of the water and that was it And those steel beams are what they've supposed they'd found. Yeah, what a way to go. I know Also, if you're not watching youtube We should include this somewhere on like instagram. Yeah crazy photo really great drawing Great like Used to be an awesome job to have would be to like draw from from people's Accounts of what happened or like your own imagination. You just draw

23:56 Like a depiction of what happened and it's like a whole newspaper size kind of cool. It is cool. Very well done After the loss of this lighthouse and our two keepers a light ship was stationed on the reef from 1851 until 1860 And there's a little drawing of this one It's an early light ship. I know Mine it's ledge light ship which Became something else. I have another chest. It's again. Yeah, it's Another vague memory of like us having talked about it Turning into another light ship that we actually like did a discussion. Yeah so So yeah, that was there for solid nine years For those of you don't know we have a at least it was an episode right talked about yeah, we did light ships I can see the cover. Yeah youtube cover is really cool. Um But we talked about light ships It's a ship being in place of a lighthouse to keep those travelers away when a lighthouse can't be built or in this situation where It's kind of a tough situation. Yeah mobile mobile lighthouse and we got to see a light ship. Was it?

25:03 Was the night? Was it a Chesapeake? In Boston, no No, no it was The island that's off of Cape Cod That we didn't go see Nantucket Nantucket. I'm sorry. No, that's right. I couldn't remember it was Docked at Boston Harbor And we got shown around it was really cool. Really recommend you go see it if you have time It would be hard living but it also like they had like heated internal like it radiators Yeah, there was they're efficient. They made really good food Their kitchens were extremely spacious and like well stocked so pretty cool Okay, Kathleen in 1852 so one year after they put the light ship $80,000 was set aside with construction beginning in 1855 to build a new lighthouse And what do you think they did the same thing? No Luckily, they went with a stone tower and a cool thing about this lighthouse is they used The method that we just covered with your episode the dovetail Granite blocks that were used in the eddy stone lighthouse. So we see it's trickling over Being really successful somewhere else and yeah the construction method trickling over to the u.s. Hundreds of years. Mm-hmm Well, and to today the base at least is still there. Yeah crazy 1850 like that's crazy. Yeah So this time well the stone tower granite blocks cut to be interlocking and weighing two tons of granite

26:34 The stone tower granite blocks cut to be interlocking and weighing two tons each and I did see that they were um The the mortar they did use dowels and the mortar was um Portland cement. Yes portland cement. Thank you. I would not I knew it started with a p and that's all I had so Which was named after The quarry in england, I think uh Where portland stone came from? Yeah The same color strong the cement is was the reason it was named that way. Oh crazy I thought it was because it was extra tough. I thought he did a bunch of research to make it extra tough He did but he didn't call it portland cement. Oh, okay. Gotcha. It was called portland cement because of its color Okay, I understand the blocks were placed only at low tide to minimize waves and In spite of this many times construction workers were washed away anyway, but nobody died. No nobody died No, nobody died. So but like so one of the requirements for working on this construction site is that you had to prove that you could swim Oh shit, and they still employed a lifeguard that would just like sit and oversee the entire time a lifeguard, it's nice, which is like cute unexpected. Yeah, because Not that long later. We built the skyscrapers of new york city where many men died. I know crazy like this is like Nobody died and yet we still employed Somebody to help the people who did get washed off

28:06 Let's go safety first think about how common that it had to have been for people to get washed off for them to be like We need somebody to go and get them like Every time we need somebody So they did that two years into construction the ship the new empire The new empire wrecked on the rocks taking out everything that had been constructed thus far For this lighthouse and damaging the base rock, which means they had to start over with their like Foundation. Yeah dang You might mean two years in and just being like, oh no change order the new empire just got to restart So they started a new which is nice. They didn't just give up. They just started again like okay It's a setback crazy. Let's power through They cut the rock for the foundation in the first three years And a couple more years dovetailing and doweling the blocks that built the lighthouse So this was like this is why the light ship was there for nine years because it took this long to get construction over with The granite supported a bronze lantern at almost 100 feet tall And the second order for nell lens was lit officially november 15th 1860 with a fixed white light And cost ended up being three hundred thousand dollars What an what an epic construction project? Yeah for the 1800s To see this go up to be a part of it to even just be just know the story years almost a decade like

29:39 Of working on this I'm sure it would have been hard to see the end like if you were just a guy You kept getting washed off the base every five seconds For like why are we even doing this? But yeah, I mean it's still there today. No problems at all. Really. It's a testament to this method of building lighthouses It's just sitting there absolutely destroyed by waves all the time and it just perseveres so That so I have a cross section pulled up that shows one The expanse of ladder that you have to climb Wow to get into this lighthouse and the bottom half is all solid granite There's 50 feet of ladder. Yeah, I know They really made you work for it i'm sure it was like probably 30 feet you had to climb I mean the tower is 100 almost 100 a little less than 100 in any case. That's a lot of ladder I know and that's a I mean it makes sense, but that is a subtle I mean it makes sense, but that is a solid solid base and you're getting if you think about it you're getting onto the ladder in a bobbing boat or a Thrashing boat, you know depending on what the weather's like. So yeah the videos are like even today like um Ship pilots jumping onto a boat like to grab a ladder. Yes crazy. That's that's still thing like Brain words is hard. So in this cutaway, I see a channel so we see all the The mar isu marble dowels in between each layer really cool

31:09 solid granite um There's a tunnel in the center. Is that for the clockwork mechanism? No, and i'm not sure what it was for I'm wondering if it was like maybe they put water in there. It was like a Long skinny cistern. I'm sure they had a cyst they had to have fresh water stored somewhere. So Yeah, I didn't uh make make any notes on it. But anyway The lighthouse got a headkeeper and three assistant keepers who had two double dwellings built at Cohasset I want to say To provide shore accommodations for them and their families along with a storehouse boathouse and blacksmith shop So, you know the two and a half miles back to shore There was a place i've seen to it referred as cohasset and government island I think government island is like you see cohasset on google maps, but not government island, but Government island is what they call the Space where all of this is still located. You can go and like tour it like a museum interesting They have the lantern room of this lighthouse there. So Though it's still still there. It's just they have a lighthouse, uh, the lantern room replica still there or wait Maybe it is the original because they did a remodel in like the 80s Yeah, where they took the original down? Yeah, where they had a picture of it of the Tower without its lantern room And so I think they might have moved it and then put in like a new one up there. I don't know bronze top

32:45 We went to a uh place a lot like that The old jail and next door was a blacksmith shop That was a dark time for vince and I Story for another time yeah Yeah, or you can go back and listen to our cape cod plug where i'm sure we talk about the disappointment that was that moment Um, yeah, oh, I think I have a photo Of No No You don't have a photo You don't have a photo. I don't I had one and apparently I'm telling you I was in my head. I was 100 prepared for this. Maybe we can see it on instagram. That's cool Yeah, i'll put it i'll put it on there So I guess we'll move on from that 1894 The lens was replaced with a different second order for no lens And it was one of the only two of its kind from the mahan mahan system, of course Um the other going to cape charles So if you guys wanted to look up the four or five lens Which is the one that I had a video of is like all of our examples photos and stuff was from the cape Charles lighthouse because they have that on display really nicely, but this one's On display but it's in the lighthouse Lantern room that's on government island So, you know the example from cape charles had it's lit and it's rotating and it's like solid walls

34:15 So you can see the flash pattern happening. So it's more it's easier to see when you're not there in person. So Those are the examples we used but mine of fledge got one for three flash pattern because of this It became known as the I love you lighthouse because one four three Represents the letters and I love you Um, the spacing of the flashes has changed slightly over time with the flashes being one and a half seconds long as well as the eclipses being a One and a half seconds long between flashes. So these are just a couple of the the two clippings that I found Referencing that this happened So it just kind of talks about how they altered it from fixed to the flashing and like what the background was behind it And everything So if anybody wanted to look it up, it's a lot of good information in here When you first said numbers, I was thinking like oh, how do they how do they do that with like morse code?

35:10 Like how would everyone know? No, yeah, it's just the number of flashes these silly goose, but it is. Yeah, it's not really it seems a good idea Yeah, I agree. It's too bad that it was too expensive which kind of is the destroyer of all good ideas Costs true 1947 the lighthouse was automated and electrified and lost its resident keepers The second-order lens was disassembled and crated in the basement of the tower and subsequently damaged by vandals because who doesn't climb Into a lighthouse two and a half miles off the shore and smash some glass prisons You might as well right uncrate and smash some Prisms, it's I don't get that. It's awful. I get going there You're not supposed to but it'd be awesome. It would be awesome. And then breaking it breaking stuff. I understand that part I don't understand drives me crazy a Third order was used in the light until 1971 and now it resides inside a replica of the lantern room on government island What so it doesn't even?

36:19 So the second one is like not even on display. I surprised myself with my own nose So, yeah, but that's So the one from the ma ma and mahan system not even On display you can't even see it that sucks Stinking vandals. I don't understand. So they where did it go? I mean, I don't probably dispose of if they were all broken. Oh, they damaged it enough. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's no way they oh man Yeah, they probably broke it to take a piece rude, yeah Well, they did a lot more than that if they couldn't even like replace a couple of prisms So much that they don't even have it anymore Somebody please tell me if you know if it's still out there someone's living room, maybe It's my new theory i'm gonna die on that hill My theory is that there's a bunch of rich people out there and they have Frinelle lenses. Yeah or parts chilling in their living room Casual mercury floats. Did you see that article? I sent you with the velociraptor. Oh, I think I opened it for like a millisecond That makes sense Rude i'm having it. I'm sick. All right I'm having it. I'm sick. All right Is this the one that where they still had skin attached? No, okay, then I saw a different velociraptor

37:53 He had on a durag and a gold chain All right Okay, so that's that sucks, but it's the third order one that's on display that you can look at It also has original granite blocks from the light the original keeper's dwellings because this is where their their houses were actually built The fog bell which was removed from the tower after an unsuccessful robbery attempt And some construction rings that they used to build the light so you can like go and explore cool Um, who tried to steal the fog bell? I don't know and an unsuccessful What like are you gonna turn it in for scrap? Yeah, I don't know like did realize this is so heavy Yeah, it's like hundreds of pounds. Yeah No way. It's easy to carry. It looks pretty nice. Yeah, it's a nice little display there Yeah, and i'm loving that um cupola bronze vent ball. It's all shiny and nice little lightning rod on top Mm-hmm, of course a classic. We'd love to see it what's the uh Are those cables going from the cupola down to the rails edge? I don't know I don't think i've seen that before on a lighthouse design. I kind of like it. I wonder if it was there Let's do a little back Oh, yeah, they were there on the original Could be not in the drawing but like protect the glass could be just an added strength Component that's cool. They look like they're Also bronze. Yeah, maybe if there was like any sort of movement happening

39:24 Because the cupola looks heavy compared to like the glass how much glass there is Yeah, maybe if there was any sort of movement it would have like glass, um cracking the glass panels or something Yeah, although I remember hyland light That we were at cape cod Large glass is first order room, but there was no fresnel lens in it. So it was fun to walk around. Yeah very open but um It was more structural than I had anticipated Also nine hole golf course pretty cool. Really nice really enjoyable golf course. Yeah played pretty well, too Lots of opportunities for seeing the lighthouse while you golf which is why we're there. So that's my thing 10 out of 10 Oh, and they sell golf balls with the lighthouse on them Plus t-shirts and hats and everything sandwiches. We bought everything dogs all of those listed. We had them all Really great breakfast sandwiches Honestly, like I think fondly back on and he's like is there one that you want that's not there and i was like Oh, yeah, like just egg and cheese and I could bake that for you. Come on On croissant class service. Yeah, nice guy Nice people and excellent sandwich. The only downside the whole thing was the rented golf clubs They were like ramshackle whatever Didn't matter emily had men's clubs kind of Yeah, I had uh, it was kind of fun. Actually. I had an old nike sq driver. Yeah, which is like a like A lightning strike when you hit it We did we did take a couple holes as learning curves with these

40:55 Clubs took a minute lost a ball literally on the first hit In front of that's because it was the strangest hole i've ever seen It was like remember it was like you you hit off a cliff and then you go down this hill That like the the golf cart could barely even handle it. So that was hole two. Oh was it? Yeah hole one Remember we pulled up there's like a putting green and everyone's waiting and they're like, oh you guys go ahead I thought that's where it was. I just like hitting into the void. You didn't even hit Oh, yeah, because I was too it was too embarrassing. I hit left not that anyone cares, but i'll tell you And uh, if you know heaven length so you can look it up. I hit left into the Rough. Yeah. Anyway, anyways, I lost my ball right away and they told me to go ahead and hit left I lost my ball right away and they told us like, yeah, I wouldn't go out there. What was it ticks ticks?

41:43 Yeah, which is probably not true. It's probably a no no, they tell us that to keep us moving No, they tell you massachusetts. They're like don't go in the brush. It's tick city. Well So I lost that ball and the first hole the first hole was rough. Yeah, and then After that it went pretty well. Yeah, we had fun at the very least I don't remember how I golfed but it was fun. So to digress. It's all right. Highland light lighthouses. Here we go back on it 2009 the lighthouse was offered up under the preservation act of 2000, but nobody wanted it And it was auctioned off in 2014 for 222 000 to bobby sager i'm gonna say his name is bob seger s a g e r bobby sager I'm trying I'm trying to okay who also owns gray's reef lighthouse, which is close to our wagershaw's lighthouse Of course and boone island lighthouse, which we haven't covered yet guys rolling in lighthouses. I know I was like What are you doing with this person? Yeah, what are your intentions with our lighthouses?

42:50 What do you have to offer her? Getting delirious Nowadays the lighthouse continues to be an active guide to navigation but cannot be visited though Those of the ghostly kind Seem to frequent the light Perfectly timed the execution is just Exceptional thanks while it is known as a place of romance and love like the I love you lighthouse the love lighthouse it's It's also um holds lots of stories of unexplained sounds and sightings and These seemingly from the two keepers who lost their lives to the spot so many years before Yeah, at least they died together. Yeah, that's true But it seems after death they still stick around. So I guess we'll never know and that's the story of Minot's ledge lighthouse Never heard of it before a little valentine's theme just a little that's uh, that's big lighthouse country out there Yeah, I know we keep hitting massachusetts with our but I mean they're everywhere boston harbor, man We're gonna have to cover cover. Whatever it is situate lighthouse. I have the pronunciation I'm just i'm gonna find out what it actually is. I'm gonna be like, oh no Well, thanks everybody for listening in and hope everyone had a great valentine's day You can follow us on instagram at the lighthouse low down You can check out our website lighthouse low down.com where you can listen to our episodes see our youtube videos

44:24 Leave us a review if you liked it if you didn't like it Come back and try the next one If you didn't like it, you listen to the whole thing. So you liked it surprise. Yay And is that that's all I got that's all we got. Okay, we will catch you next time on The lighthouse low down