He had finished bringing the beacon home.
The last Coast Guard lighthouse keeper in the United States ended his watch at historic Boston Light after two decades at the helm.
Sally Snowman, 72, became the lighthouse keeper in 2003, which she says was a lifelong dream come true after first seeing it when she was just 10 years old.
“There was a connection, an instant connection. I didn’t know as a 10-year-old what that connection was, it just went into my heart. And to this day, it’s there. It’s still there,” he told the Daily Mail ahead of his last day as a goalkeeper on Saturday.
She is the 70th person to be a lighthouse keeper at Boston Light – and the first woman to hold the position – in its more than 300-year history.
The lighthouse – originally opened in 1716 and blown up by the British in 1776 and rebuilt in 1783 – has safely guided sailors through the treacherous waters of Boston Harbor from the rocky islet of Little Brewster.
Snowman’s first impressions of the Boston Light during a childhood visit to the island would inspire him for the rest of his life.
“In my heart, Boston Light is my home,” Snowman told CBS News earlier this month. “I took to it like a fish to water.”
Sally Snowman, 72, has been the keeper of the Boston Light since 2003. She retired on Saturday. CBS NEWS BOSTON
“I stepped onto the beach and looked at the light and said, ‘Dad, when I grow up I want to get married here’ — and I did in 1994!” he added.
She and her husband also wrote a book about the lighthouse, which helped her land a job as Boston Light’s first civilian keeper since 1941, after the Coast Guard decommissioned the lighthouse to free its members following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
For the past 20 years, Snowman has lived on a remote island for six months — alone some weeks but with her husband on weekends, she told CBS.
The current Boston Light structure was built in 1783. CBS NEWS BOSTON
His job at the automatic lighthouse included keeping it clean, checking the mechanical equipment and enjoying the natural beauty around him.
“There is a view from every window. even in the bathroom when you shower, you can see Graves Light,” Snowman said, referring to another lighthouse to the northeast.
The first Boston Light structure was a 60-foot tower built in 1716 and lit by candles, according to the National Park Service. It suffered several fires at the hands of American troops when it was held by the British during the Revolutionary War – before it was blown up by British troops as they fled Boston in 1776.
Snowman married her husband in Little Brewster in 1994, after promising her father that she would marry when she was 10 years old. CBS NEWS BOSTON
The current 75-foot-tall structure was completed in 1783 and is lit by four fish oil lamps. It was raised to 89 feet in 1859 and electrified in 1948, beaming its light 27 miles into the Atlantic Ocean.
Boston Light became a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
As the Coast Guard was preparing to automate the light and remove its staff from Little Brewster in 1989, the US Senate passed legislation requiring Boston Light to be permanently operated — making it the only remaining staffed lighthouse in the country, according to the NPS.
Snowman is the first female keeper of Boston Light in its 300-plus year history. CBS NEWS BOSTON
The law also required Little Brewster to be accessible to the public, which it became in 1999.
It became the last lighthouse in the country to become automated in 1989 and remains continuously lit, “ending the need for keepers to climb the stairs twice a day,” according to the NPS.
In 2018, when the lighthouse failed a safety inspection, Snowman was restricted to daytime maintenance trips only, CBS reported. He spends much of his time now at the Lifesaving Museum in Hull, where he dresses in 19th-century clothing and keeps a close eye on his beloved lighthouse.
Ownership of the lighthouse will be transferred through the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 to an organization or charity that will maintain the landmark.
Snowman said it will be hard to say goodbye – although he hopes to volunteer as Little Brewster’s tour guide and remain its historian.
“… We thought it would be short term, it has turned into 20 years. And letting go, how do you let go of all that? It’s like having kids who grow up, go to college, and let them start a new chapter, so this is a new chapter for Boston Light,” he told the Daily Mail.
“I can’t think about what January 1 will be like. But the other part of it is that I don’t get the feeling that it’s really over.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
