Fairport Harbor Light

The 1996 Golden Anniversary

Lighthouses are responsible for saving lives, but this is the story of a lighthouse that was itself saved. Fifty years ago, the old Fairport Lighthouse was a dark and disheveled sight. Local youngsters found it the target of the perfect late night dare. Weeds had grown up around it, paint was peeling on the door and ironwork, and cobwebs festooned the windows like lace curtains.

Though it had served Lake Erie shipping for a century and beckoned thousands of immigrants westward, a new, more efficient beacon had taken its place at the end of the harbor breakwater. Like many of its sister sentries, Fairport Lighthouse was no longer needed. Even the government viewed it as useless and appropriated $10,000 to demolish it.The citizens of Fairport had other plans, however. Bound together by affection for the historic sentinel and an emerging sense of obligation to preserve the maritime heritage of the lakes, they convinced the government to grant the town a probationary lease on the lighthouse for five years. If in that time a suitable use was not found for the aging structure, it would be torn down.

No wrecking ball was necessary. The Fairport Historical Society formed to rescue the cherished old sentinel, and funds were raised to "establish a marine museum in the lightkeeper's dwelling...and preserve the lighthouse as an historic monument for posterity."When the Fairport Marine Museum officially opened its doors in 1946, it held the distinction of being the first marine museum in Ohio and the first lighthouse museum in the Great Lakes. In addition, Fairport Lighthouse was acknowledged as one of the oldest standing structures in northern Ohio.

"We started the trend of converting old lighthouses into museums. For years, ours was the only one on the lakes and one of only three in the nation," recalls the museum's former curator, Pamela Brent, who until recently made her home in the upstairs of the old keeper's quarters. "It's a romantic idea--living at a lighthouse--but it's not at all like it was in the old days," says Brent. "Lightkeepers had to stay on watch; they trimmed the wicks several times a night. It was especially demanding work if the weather was bad. Curators are really just caretakers. Besides, there hasn't been a light to tend here [Fairport] for years."

Thousands of visitors tour the lighthouse and museum each summer, and in the off-season school children and special interest groups arrange for special tours. Discovering a lighthouse in Ohio surprises many travelers, as does the size and power of Lake Erie: "Visitors from other parts of the country stop at the museum and think they'll be able to see the other side of the lake," continues Brent, laughing. "They're very surprised that Lake Erie is so big, an inland sea really. The size of our lighthouse and the maritime relics on display say a lot about the lake's importance and the dangers here. I used to tell people to stop by in January if they didn't believe the weather could get serious on the lake."

Though not the tallest lighthouse in the Great Lakes, Fairport Harbor Light tops out at about 70-feet. In its active years, it was a crucial link in a string of beacons that guided shipping in and out of the upper lakes. Originally called Grand River Light, the beacon owes its existence to a sheltered lake-harbor that feeds into the Grand River. It was here that the gateway to the famed Western Reserve was established. A fertile tract of Lake Erie shorefront some 120-miles long and owned by the Connecticut Land Company, the Western Reserve attracted droves of homesteaders and speculators from the East.

No decent wagon roads had been cut across the wilderness of western New York and Pennsylvania in the early years of the 1800s, so most settlers traveled to the Western Reserve by water. A few of the more intrepid pioneers came in the winter months on heavy, ox-drawn sleighs, with the wind howling up their sleeves and the surface of Lake Erie like frosted glass.They were attracted to the Western Reserve for the same reasons the great Iroquois tribes had migrated there centuries before: The land was rich and arable, and there was bountiful fish and game. O-he-yo, the place of the beautiful river, was a wide-open frontier waiting to be mastered. By the time settlers began putting down roots, most of the Iroquois had moved further north and west, but their liquid language still echoed in the names of many twisting rivers feeding and siphoning Lake Erie--Cuyahoga, Chippewa, Mohican, Huron, Tuscarawas, and even the "beautiful river" itself, the Ohio.

It was the French, however, who named the river and the harbor over which Fairport Lighthouse would shine. Trappers had found profitable trade here with the Indians and called the handsome estuary "La Grande Riviere." The Connecticut Land Company must have thought it a suitable name, for they translated it into the English "Grand River" and dubbed the tiny settlement "Grandon."About 1818 a traveler named William Darby passed through Grandon and left a simple description of the river in his journal:"Grand River is a stream of some consequence...about 70-yards wide at the mouth, with a 7-foot water on the bar near the entrance to the lake. The east bank rises to a height of 30 or 40 feet according a very handsome site a village. The harbor is excellent for such vessels whose whole draft of water will admit entrance. Preparations are making to form wharves...to afford a harbor to vessels of any draft."

Steamboat traffic into the Grand River increased considerably in the early years after settlement. By 1825, when the population of Grandon had grown to about 300 and steamboat navigation was in full swing on Lake Erie, the harbor's future looked bright indeed. Citizens abandoned the name Grandon and proudly announced their town's new name would be "Fairport," a moniker sure to attract hardworking folks from back east.

Soon there was so much activity in the harbor, it seemed sensible to build a lighthouse on Fairport's bluff. The March 26, 1825 issue of the Painesville Telegraph carried a notice asking for bids on the proposed lighthouse and keeper's quarters. Specifications for the sentinel included a stone or brick tower 30 feet tall. A two-story dwelling house with cellar and well was also described . Separate bids were taken for fitting up the lantern with patent lamps and reflectors. These were most likely fueled with whale oil, as whaling was at its peak in New England and whale oil was inexpensive and accessible. The light of the beacon was intensified with silvered, parabolic reflectors placed behind each lamp. Among the lightkeeper's duties was the daily polishing of the reflectors to keep a clear, brilliant light.

Jonathan Goldsmith, a Connecticut native who had moved to Painesville, Ohio in 1811, won the construction bid for $2900. He completed the tower and keeper's house in the fall of 1825, but became embroiled in a dispute over the cellar beneath the keeper's house, which he claimed was not included in the plans he had been given. He submitted an exorbitant bid for the addition of the cellar, and since the expense of hiring another contractor was inhibitive, the Collector of Customs at Cleveland had no alternative other than to accept Goldsmith's high price. This brought the total bill for the project to $5032, almost twice Goldsmith's original bid.

Though a respected Western Reserve architect, Goldsmith's work came into question within a decade of completion of the lighthouse and quarters. The foundation of the tower settled so much it became necessary to replace it in a costly and time-consuming project. An ironic turn of events occurred six years later when Goldsmith applied for the position of lightkeeper. He was denied when his application fell into the hands of the same Collector of Customs who had handled both the unfair bidding and the repairs to the faulty foundation. The position was given to Samuel Butler, the first of seventeen keepers to serve at Fairport Lighthouse.

The town of Fairport burgeoned over the next few decades. It served as fueling station and supply harbor for vessels headed to other ports on the lakes. These ships carried pioneers and all their earthly belongings west to new lands beyond the reserve. Everything from oil of peppermint to upright pianos sailed into the harbor and passed under the scrutiny of the lighthouse keepers, whose job included keeping records of incoming and outgoing marine traffic and collecting wharf fees.

In 1847 alone, during the tenure of keeper Isaac Spear, 2,987 vessels entered Fairport Harbor with cargoes valued at almost a million dollars. Records also indicate that other cargoes passed through the harbor at this time, buoyed by the beams of hope and freedom streaming from Fairport Light. Historians believe these priceless "goods" were hidden in the cellar beneath the keeper's house--fugitive slaves passing through Fairport Harbor on the Underground Railroad.

By the time the Civil War began, the lighthouse was in terrible condition and its archaic lamp apparatus lagged far behind the technology of the day. An 1868 inspection revealed that one of the iron bands supporting the tower had snapped, and the keeper's dwelling was dilapidated. The tower was braced to stand through the winter of 1868-69 while plans were made for a new lighthouse. A temporary beacon was erected and lit in the winter of 1869 so that the old tower could be dismantled.With an appropriation of $30,000, work began on the new Fairport Lighthouse on April 4, 1870. Rather than repeat the same mistake Goldsmith had made with the old foundation, contractors for the new structure prepared an elaborate foundation some 12-feet deep with piles encased in concrete and a grillage of 12-inch timbers. The gray Berea sandstone tower was built on top of this sturdy base and completed up to its twenty-ninth course when work was halted due to suspension of funds.

An unpainted board cover protected the tower during the interim period, but the exposed skeleton of the keeper's house began to deteriorate almost immediately under the constant pummeling of Lake Erie wind and rain. In the spring of 1871 when work resumed, an additional $10,000 was required to rebuild the house.On August 11, 1871 a light shone in the new tower for the first time, produced by oil lamps positioned inside a glistening third-order fixed Fresnel lens. The new illuminating apparatus with its hundreds of prisms and huge convex belt of magnifying glass was encased in a handsome brass framework and pedestal. The entire mechanism weighed several tons. Keeping the magnificent jewel polished was the bane of the lightkeeper, assuaged only by the benevolent beam cast 18-miles over the troubled waters of Lake Erie.

It wasn't until November that the keeper's quarters were complete, so Captain Joseph Babcock, whose family would tend the lighthouse for the remainder of its career, rented a house in town until his home was ready. Cost for the new tower and Babcock's dwelling was almost six times that of the original lighthouse built by Goldsmith in 1825.The new tower was 70-feet high and had a spiral iron staircase with 69 steps leading to the light room. The tower was whitewashed in its early years of service, but later wore its natural gray garb. It was easy for approaching vessels to see, day or night, since it was situated on a slender finger of land elevated 102-feet above the lake on the east side of the river entrance.The Babcock family tended the lighthouse for more than fifty years (1871-1925) and are its most remembered keepers. Captain Joseph Babcock escaped death in an Indian massacre at Sandusky at the age of eight, because his mother was Indian. Babcock fought in the Civil War before accepting the position of lightkeeper. His son Daniel served as assistant keeper from 1901-1919, then as head keeper until the lighthouse was decommissioned in 1925.

Two of Joseph Babcock's children, Hattie and Robbie, were born in the lighthouse. Robbie died there of smallpox at about age five. The boy's ghost is believed to haunt the downstairs of the museum. Staff describe him as "a presence of dread" sometimes accompanied by cold air and a foul smell of decay. Pamela Brent also remembers a shadowy catlike form that was seen from time to time in her upstairs apartment. She believed it to be the apparition of one of the many beloved felines belonging to Mary Babcock, wife of Captain Joseph Babcock. Mrs. Babcock was bedridden on the second floor for a long period during her stay at the lighthouse and was entertained by a kindle of kittens. Brent said the harmless little wraith she encountered looked like a small puff of gray smoke "skittering around on the floor as if playing, but without feet."

In 1910 the management of navigational aids was handed over to the newly-created Bureau of Lighthouses, headed by a practical and thrifty chief named George Putnam. Within months Putnam began tightening up the purse strings and making more efficient use of funds. A long overdue appropriation of $42,000 was made to improve Fairport Harbor. It provided for a new lighthouse and foghorn on the west breakwater pierhead and the deactivation of old Fairport Lighthouse.

But the nation went to war before the funds could be spent. Construction of the new lighthouse was delayed until 1921. It was completed and placed in service in 1925, the centennial of the original lighthouse. The new, 38-foot Fairport Breakwater Light had been prefabricated at Buffalo Lighthouse Depot in 1921 and shipped 147-miles across the lake to its destination, where it was quickly assembled. About $10,000 had been saved by this method of construction. The sensible Putnam earmarked the savings for the demolition of the elder sentinel.

Public outcry at the loss of Fairport Lighthouse was overwhelming. Putnam had not expected such opposition and chalked it up to local sentimentality. Feeling certain the protests would die down, he temporarily shelved demolition plans, then forgot about them. When the Coast Guard assumed control of the abandoned lighthouse in 1939, the idea of razing it revived. Again, it met with opposition, but this time the citizens of Fairport were prepared to offer an alternative--community care. "Being a landmark in a small, close-knit community was the key," remembers Pamela Brent. "Many lighthouses are too remote to really belong to a community, and except for their keepers there's probably no one intimately tied to them. The people of Fairport banded together to save their lighthouse because it had become something more than an old abandoned building. The government was surprised that people felt so strongly about the lighthouse. It wouldn't surprise anyone today, but back then it was something new."

Much has changed at Fairport Lighthouse since it was saved fifty years ago. The Fairport Marine Museum, located in the downstairs of the old lightkeeper's house is run by about fifty volunteers. Displays showcase Lake Erie's maritime past and lore, as well as the crucial role of the lighthouse at Grand River. Among the treasured relics are the old third-order fixed Fresnel lens and the pilothouse of the Great Lakes carrier Frontenac. The tower is open for climbing and affords excellent views of the lake.

Fairport Marine Museum is open Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays 1:00-6:00p.m. from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Group tours are given year-round by special arrangement. Fairport Historical Society, founder and custodian of the old lighthouse and museum, celebrated its Golden Anniversary in 1996. Historian Helen Kasari says the lifeblood of the museum is its volunteers and membership, which donate hours of work and much-needed funding to maintain the museum. For a brochure from the museum, write: Fairport Marine Museum, 129 Second St., Fairport Harbor, OH 44077.

©Elinor De Wire 1996.