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| Seul Choix Pointe Light | Seeing The Light |
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Historical
Information Seeking to both make identification of such a refuge easier, and to mark the shore at an interim point between the two existing lights, the Lighthouse Board recommended that establishment of a light station on the end of Point Patterson, approximately midway between St. Helena Island and Manistique. Unable to determine the need for such a light, Congress referred the matter to the Commerce Committee for evaluation, with the Committee returning a favorable report on February 15, 1882. A bill appropriating $15,000 for the station’s construction passed through the Senate on May 4, 1882, however the bill failed to pass on a vote in the House, and the matter was dropped. In reconsideration its recommendation, the Lighthouse Board determined that Seul Choix Pointe, approximately 20 miles to the west of Point Patterson actually represented a better location for the light, and submitted a request for funding of a light in the revised location in its 1885 annual report. Evidently this time Congress concurred with the need for the station, as a $15,000 appropriation for establishing the new station passed both houses on August 4, 1886. A survey of Seul Choix Pointe was conducted late that year, and a 6.1-acre site at the southernmost end of the Point selected for the station, and negotiations for its purchase undertaken with Archibald Newton, the owner of the property. Newton and his two brothers had early attained financial success as fishermen in northern Lake Michigan, establishing a booming town around the natural bay on the eastern shore of St. Helena Island. Archibald had attained local fame in 1856, when under his leadership a fleet of vessels sailed from St. Helena to Beaver Island to drive out the followers of renegade Mormon "King" James Jesse Strang after his assassination by a couple of his disgruntled flock. Over the ensuing years, the Newtons spread their fishing operations westward along the north shore all the way to Seul Choix, and operated a fleet of schooners out of St. Helena which trading goods for fish with fishermen throughout the northern end of the lake. While Newton was universally recognized as the landowner of virtually all of Seul Choix Pointe, proving clear title to the surveyed property was less than a simple task, with previous inconsistencies in title documents preventing transfer of title to the Federal government until June 17, 1889.
On August 29, 1891, the lighthouse tender WARRINGTON departed from the Detroit Depot bound for Seul Choix Pointe loaded with building materials and a construction crew under the direction of Ninth District construction superintendent Todd. Expectations were high that the work would be carried far enough by the end of the year that the light would be exhibited at the opening of the 1892 navigation season. However, on arrival at the site it quickly became evident that the plan to use rubble stone from the area in building the dwelling cellar was impossible, as the local stone was found to be altogether too soft and flaky for the intended purpose. As a result, construction was virtually halted while the crew waited for a shipment of cement and aggregate from which to construct the cellar walls. To exacerbate the problem, the fall of 1891 was particularly stormy, again bringing construction to a halt on numerous occasions. With the dwelling barely complete, and the masonry of the tower laid only to a height of 20 feet, it became clear that there was no way the work would be brought anywhere close to completion that year. In order to ensure that a light would be exhibited on the opening of the 1892 navigation season in accordance with the terms of the appropriation, Ninth District Engineer Major William Ludlow authorized the erection of a temporary beacon on the point at a cost of $850. Consisting of an open frame timber structure with diagonal bracing, the upper part was enclosed to create a service room, and a place to work on the light during inclement weather. Within the cast iron lantern atop the service room, a fixed white Fourth Order Fresnel lens was installed 47 feet above the ground, and at a focal plane of 56 feet above lake level, making the light visible for a distance of 15 miles in clear weather. Work on the beacon was completed just in time as the onset of a particularly bitter winter put an end to construction on the point on November 16, and the work crew left for the season. Captain Joseph Fountain, who was serving as keeper of the Beaver Island Harbor Light was selected as the keeper of the new Seul Choix Pointe light on January 23, and he exhibited the light for the temporary tower on the opening of the 1892 navigation season.
With funding still unforthcoming in the summer of 1893, an inspection of the construction site indicated that there had been significant deterioration of the partially erected structures since construction was halted the prior year. Much of work already done was significantly damaged that it needed to be torn down and started over, significantly adding to the costs Poe allowed for in his 1892 request for additional funding. Moreover, the passage of the 8-hour labor law early in 1893 made it inevitable that labor costs would increase dramatically on the resumption of construction, as lighthouse crews had historically toiled from dawn to dusk, a practice which the act eliminated. Unfortunately, Poe was faced with requesting more funds at the most inopportune period in decades. Earlier that year, the Reading Railroad went into receivership, with a number of other smaller railroads falling in its wake. The situation was quickly exacerbated by the failures of hundreds of banks and businesses that depended upon the railroads. The stock market reacted with a dramatic plunge, European investors pulled their funds out of US markets, and the US economy spiraled into a four year Depression. With plummeting tax revenues, Congress was hard pressed to make ends meet, and the problems associated with building a lighthouse on an far off point in Lake Michigan with a French name that nobody could pronounce was inevitably pushed to the bottom of the pile.
The duplex dwelling consisted of a red brick structure on a stone foundation with ashlar limestone above grade to reduce deterioration of the brick. All trim work was painted in a buff color, and the roof capped with red metal shingles. The interior of the building was laid out with four rooms in each apartment, 5 closets a pantry, drawing room and a vestibule at each entry.
A series of plank walkways connected the dwelling to a brick oil house, a brick privy, a wood frame boathouse and the 34’ by 20’ brick fog signal building standing 108 feet southeast of the tower. To provide steam for the single tone 10" steam whistle mounted above the roof, a pair of locomotive-style boilers manufactured by the Miami Valley Boiler Company of Dayton, Ohio sat on brick foundations within the building. Operating at a pressure of 80 pounds per square inch, the whistles were sequenced to emit the station characteristic single blast of four second followed by 26 seconds of silence by a Crosby automatic timing device, tripped by 3 cams on each cylinder.
Life at Seul Choix settled into a basic routine until 1901, when a work crew arrived at the station to install a second iron floor in the upper portion of the tower to form a watch room and a second oil storage building was erected. The following year, the twin iron chimneys on the fog signal building were demolished and replaced by a single brick chimney into which both boilers were plumbed. Responding to the cramped living conditions for the assistants, the station barn was relocated next to the main dwelling and converted into a dwelling for the 2nd Assistant in 1907. With the arrival of electricity at the station in1925, the dwelling, outbuildings and the light itself were electrified and the steam boilers and whistles removed from the fog signal building and replaced by a two-tone diaphone. Also this year, the dwelling was modified through the addition of a wing which provided more suitable accommodations for the Second Assistant. No longer serving any purpose as a dwelling, the old converted barn was sold into private ownership, and its new owners moved it to the shore of one of the nearby lakes where it served as a summer cottage. With the assumption of responsibility for the aids of navigation transferred to the Coast Guard in 1939, three-man crews of seamen began tending the station. In 1972, the station was finally automated through the installation of a single DCB-224 aero beacon with a characteristic white flash every six seconds, which like the fixed Third Order lens it replaced, was visible for a distance of 17 miles in clear weather conditions. The following year, the Coast Guard closed up the station, leaving the light to operate on an unmanned basis.
Over the ensuing years, as a result of numerous private donations and
successful grant writing campaigns, the dwelling was restored and
re-furnished in time for the station’s centennial in 1995. |
In the meantime, plans and specifications for construction of the
station buildings and mechanical systems had been completed and
approved, and with clear title in hand, bids for construction could be
advertised. However, with the closest bid coming in at more than $3,000
beyond the limits of the appropriation, a second round of bids were
sought in the hope that some contractor would be willing to do the work
for less. When this second group of bids came in similarly beyond the
appropriated amount, the Board had no alternative but to request an
additional $3,500 appropriation for the work in its 1890 annual report.
Realizing the important role this light would play to mariners, the
decision was also made to seek funding for the establishment of a
first-class fog signal at the station, and a request for a separate
appropriation of $5,500 for its construction asked in that same report.
Colonel
With funding thus unlikely, Poe conducted an analysis of all funded
projects in the district to identify if there were any unexpended
appropriations which could be reassigned to allow the completion of work
at Seul Choix Pointe, which had now been sitting in a decaying state for
two years. A likely candidate was identified in the St. Mary’s River,
where a $5,000 appropriation for relocating the Upper Range lights had
been made on August 5, 1892, but the work had yet to be started.
Determining the completion of the station at Seul Choix to be more
critical to maritime commerce relocating the range, Poe suggested to the
Board that permission be obtained to redirect the $5,000 appropriation
to Seul Choix, and concurring with the determination the Lighthouse
Board recommended that action to Congress in its annual report for 1894.
Since the solution required no additional funding, Congress approved the
funding reallocation in the Sundry Civil Appropriation Act of August 18,
1894, and also included an appropriation of $2,200 for beginning
construction of the fog signal building.
Revised estimates for completing the tower and dwelling were
formulated over the winter of 1894, and bids for the materials needed
for the completion of the work were advertised on March 9, 1895. The
materials and working party were loaded aboard the Lighthouse tender
Attached to the dwelling by a covered way, the white painted brick
tower stood 18’ in diameter immediately above the foundation, and
gracefully tapered to a diameter of 12’ 4" in diameter beneath the
gallery. Of double-walled design, the outer wall stood 20"in thickness
at the base and tapered to 17" in thickness at the gallery. The 8’
diameter inner wall stood 9" in thickness, with the two walls separated
by an air space tapering from 29" at the base to 9" at the gallery, with
radial buttresses between the two walls to anchor them together. 86 cast
iron spiral stairs wound their way vertically within the inner cylinder,
passing through 2 landings and leading to a hinged scuttle in the iron
watch room floor. Four arched windows with carved limestone lintels were
located on the compass points in the watch room, and provided an
excellent view of the lake.
Above the watch room, the gallery was supported by sixteen carved
limestone corbels, and surrounded by a delicate but sturdy iron railing.
Atop the service room, the decagonal third order lantern stood 8 feet in
diameter, and featured nine ¼" thick glass plates, each 31 ¼" wide by 69
¾" in height, and was surmounted by a copper roof with a zinc inner
lining. The fixed white
Work on the station was complete in August, and the fog signal placed
into operation on September 10, 1895. With the exhibition of the Third
Order lens for the first time on the night of August 15, the temporary
timber skeleton tower was disassembled and the components shipped to the
depot for storage. The fog signal was evidently a useful addition to
navigation as keeper Fountain and Assistant Patrick McCauley fed 51 tons
of coal and 3 cords of wood into the hungry boilers in order to keep the
whistle screaming a station high 573 hours during the 1896 navigation
season. Realizing that managing a first-class light station and such a
busy fog signal was more than a two-man crew could handle efficiently,
the decision was made to add a Second Assistant to the station’s roster.
Without quarters for the additional keeper, the Second Assistant likely
moved in with the First Assistant, which likely made for less than
desirable living conditions for both.
No longer serving any government purpose, the station buildings were
sold to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to serve as a park
on June 20, 1977. After sitting untended for ten years, with the
exception of infrequent visits by Coast Guard AtoN crews to undertake
scheduled maintenance on the aero beacon, the buildings started to
deteriorate rapidly. Realizing the historical significance the station
represented, a group of concerned local citizens banded together to form
the Gulliver Historical Society on October 8, 1987, with their primary
charter being the restoration and preservation of the station and its
history. As part of this process, the Historical Society was successful
in having the station listed on the National Historic Register on August
8. 1988. After obtaining a Michigan Equity Grant the following year, the
Historical Society proudly opened the station to the public at a grand
opening celebration on August 6, 1989.