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| Forty Mile Point | Seeing The Light |
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Historical Information
While the Presque Isle Peninsula had been lighted since 1840, and the entrance to the Cheboygan River fifty miles to the north had been lighted since 1851, the New Presque Isle Light's range of visibility of 19 miles and the Cheboygan Light's visible range of 13 miles left an unlighted 18 mile intervening stretch of coastline along which mariners were forced to navigate blind. In it's annual report for fiscal 1890, the Board recommended that $25,000 be appropriated for the construction of a new light and fog signal at Forty Mile Point near Hammond's Bay, at the approximate mid point between the two lights. Congress appears to have been unconvinced of the need to create such a system of contiguous coast lights, as a similar request for the funds to construct the light at Port Sanilac in 1869 had languished unresolved for 16 years before Congress finally provided the necessary appropriation in 1885. With this in mind, it is not surprising that the matter of the Light at Hammond's Bay remained unresolved until February 15, 1893, when Congress finally authorized the project, but failed to provide the necessary appropriation. The Board again requested funding in its 1894 annual report, with Congress freeing-up the funds as part of the Sundry Civil Appropriations Act of August 18, 1894.
A 120-foot long T-shaped dock was erected between the fog signal building and the dwelling, with a boathouse for the Keeper's boat erected at its shore end. An iron-railed tramway led from the dock, across post supports to the shore to the fog signal building and thence behind the dwelling to the barn for the transportation of coal and supplies delivered by lighthouse tenders during their semi-annual supply visits. Finally, plank sidewalks were laid connecting all of the station's structures to provide easy and safe access to the keepers.
1901 saw the busiest year at the Forty-Mile Point fog signal station, with the whistles kept operating for a total of 274 hours, and consuming 7 tons of coal. By 1905, the twin iron smokestacks on the fog signal building were so badly rusted and decayed that they were replaced by a single, three-foot square brick chimney into which both boilers were exhausted.
Four years after assuming responsibility for the nation's aids to navigation, Commissioner of Lighthouses Charles R Putnam made the startling revelation that the Forty Mile Point Light had been built in the wrong location. In his 1913 annual report to Congress, he stated that the county survey charts used in selecting the site in 1896 were in error, and that vessel masters expected the lighthouse to be erected at Nine Mile Point, some 20 miles to the northeast, where a total of nine strandings had occurred between 1903 and 1909. With Eleventh District Inspector E L Woodruff's 's estimate that a new Light and fog signal could be built at Nine Mile Point for $50,000, Putnam suggested that with the appropriation, the Forty Mile Point Light could be downgraded, and the fog signal eliminated. After Putnam reiterated the request for the appropriation in his 1914 annual report, Congress responded turned down the request, and Putnam forever abandoned the cause.
1931 saw the removal of the steam whistles from the fog signal building and the installation of a pair of Type F diaphones, representing a significant improvement in both the audible range and speed at which the signals could be activated. The station was automated in 1969, and
is now part of a county park and one half of the dwelling has been
turned into a museum, and the other half as quarters for the caretaker.
The tower has been opened to the public, and visitors can climb the
stairs to view the Fourth Order lens close up and enjoy the view across
Lake Huron. Membership
in the 40-Mile Point Lighthouse Society is only $20.00 per year, and the
Society may be reached at: Or visit the Society's website at
www.40milepointlighthouse.org |
Eleventh District Engineer Major Milton
B. Adams selected and surveyed the site for the new Light. With an offer
of $200 for the property accepted by the owner, Adams approved the plans
and specifications for the station in February 1896. Contracts for the
ironwork for the lantern, gallery, boilers and fog whistles were awarded
soon thereafter, and with receipt of the materials at the Detroit depot,
were loaded aboard the lighthouse tender AMARANTH and delivered to the
site on July 5, 1896. Work at the site began with the construction of a
wood-framed building, which would be used by the work crew as a
temporary dwelling during construction, and converted into a barn for
the keeper's horses on the completion of the work.
Adams'
plan for the main lighthouse structure was a virtual duplicate of that
simultaneously under construction at Big Bay Point on Lake Superior.
Consisting of a duplex dwelling with a tower incorporated into the
center of one side-wall, the structure stood 35 feet by 57 feet in plan.
Erected on a 20" thick cut limestone foundation, the brick walls
featured double walls with an air space between to provide insulation.
The integrated tower stood twelve feet in plan, and fifty-two feet in
height. The apartments on each side of the dwelling were exact mirrored
duplicates and were set-up to afford complete privacy. Each apartment
featured its own main entry, cellar, kitchen, parlor, tower entry door
and stairway to the bedrooms on the second floor. Indicative of Adam's
thoughtfulness in designing the structure, each of the stairways
incorporated a skylight in its ceiling through which the lantern could
be observed, thereby allowing both keeper and his assistant to verify
the correct operation of the light from within the warmth of their
apartment without having to leave the building or climb to the top of
the tower itself to see the light. The brick tower was capped by a
square gallery with iron safety railing, and a prefabricated octagonal
cast iron lantern erected at its center.
A pair of brick privies were erected to
the rear of the dwelling flanking the barn, and a well was sunk and
equipped with a windmill-operated pump, which discharged water into an
elevated tank to provide a supply of drinking water to the station. The
brick fog signal building was erected approximately 290 feet southeast
of the lighthouse. Outfitted with twin boilers installed on raised
concrete pads, the boilers were piped to duplicate 10" steam
whistles located on the lakeside wall and exhausted through a pair of
iron smokestacks.
The Eleventh District Lampist arrived
from Detroit, and carefully assembled the 
With construction completed on November
12, 1896 and winter setting in, it was deemed too late in the year to
activate the Light. Thus, a caretaker was hired to live in and watch
over the building until the appointment of a Keeper and Assistant at the
opening of the following navigation season. Xavier Rains, who had been
served for a year as Keeper of the Round Island Light in the St. Mary's
River was selected as Keeper, and Edward Lane was promoted from his
position as Second Assistant at Devils Island to Assistant at Forty Mile
Point. Both Rains and Lane first appear on payroll records at Forty Mile
Point on January 4, 1897. It is therefore likely that they arrived at
the station on this date, and after preparing the station for operation,
exhibited the Forty Mile Point Light for the first time on the night of
May 1, 1897.
Within a year, problems were
experienced with the drinking water supply, and a work crew arrived at
the station to construct a new foundation, elevated support frame for
the water tank, and completely replaced the water supply piping leading
into the dwelling. In November 1900, the posts supporting the tramway
from the dock to the shore were found to have deteriorated
significantly, and were replaced by five substantial timber cribs filled
with stone, and a log retaining wall was built along the sand bank
behind the boathouse to stem erosion.
On
October 19, 1905, the Lake was assaulted by fierce storms, and twenty
seven wooden ships went down, with an accompanying loss of fifty lives.
The wooden hulled steamer JOSEPH S. FAY was Southbound, towing the
schooner barge D. P. RHODES, when the storm caused the RHODES to break
free, dragging with her a portion of the FAY's stern. Finding his vessel
to be sinking, the Captain of the FAY turned toward shore, only to catch
her bow on a sandbar, swinging her around into the oncoming sea, ripping
off the forward cabin. The Captain and ten crewmen were carried to shore
safely within the cabin. Two crewmen made it to shore alive, but the
First Mate was not so fortunate, His body was found on the beach about a
mile to the north almost two months later.
That same year, on July 10, 1914, the
illuminating apparatus at Forty Mile Point was upgraded to an
incandescent oil vapor (I.O.V) system with an increase in intensity to
55,000 candlepower and a resulting increase in the Light's visible range
to 16 miles.