Marblehead Lighthouse

At a glance

Overview

Marblehead Lighthouse stands on a limestone ledge at the tip of the Marblehead Peninsula, which separates Lake Erie from Sandusky Bay in Danbury Township. Congress funded it in 1819, contractor William Kelly raised the 50-foot tower of peninsula limestone in 1821, and keeper Benajah Wolcott first lit it in 1822; it is the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on the Great Lakes. Rachel Wolcott, who took over after her husband died of cholera in 1832, is described as the first woman keeper on the Great Lakes. The same limestone made the peninsula a quarrying district from the 1830s, shipping dressed stone as far as the Soo Locks in 1854 and later lime and aggregate for steelmakers; the quarry still operates. The peninsula also saw the first War of 1812 battle on Ohio soil in 1812, and since 1998 the lighthouse has been owned by the state as Marblehead Lighthouse State Park, with the Coast Guard still running the light.

The name

According to a local account, settlers mistakenly called the native limestone marble, hence the name Marblehead. (source)

Native American history

No village, mound or other Native site on the peninsula itself was found in published sources. The Marblehead Peninsula (Danbury Township) is part of the Firelands, whose Native title was ceded by Ottawa, Potawatomi, Chippewa, Wyandot, Munsee, Delaware and Shawnee signers of the Treaty of Fort Industry on July 4, 1805. Epaphras Bull's widow Polly, who came to the peninsula in 1811, later wrote that Native people sometimes camped nearby and were friendly. On September 29, 1812, early in the War of 1812, a Native war party ambushed about 60 local and Ohio militiamen near the Ramsdell farm and the empty Wolcott cabin on the south shore; the Beacon's account calls the warriors Potawatomi, and the 1964 state marker gives about 130 attackers and forty Native dead.

• Skirmish on the Peninsula (first War of 1812 battle on Ohio soil): battle, south shore of the Marblehead Peninsula, East Bay Shore Road, Danbury Township, September 29, 1812
• Treaty of Fort Industry cession of the Firelands: treaty, the Firelands, including Danbury Township, 1805

Stories

The Skirmish on the Peninsula

In 1812 eighteen militiamen rowing across Sandusky Bay were driven by a storm onto Bull's Island, today's Johnson's Island; scouting the Marblehead Peninsula, they counted 47 Potawatomi outside the Ramsdell farm and withdrew to Camp Avery. A force of 72 volunteers then crossed, pushed across the peninsula and was ambushed in waist-high grass; the firing lasted about fifteen minutes. Some forty men took shelter in the deserted Wolcott log house while others found two of their boats scuttled. A rescue party later found 37 men hungry but alive. The Beacon's account gives eight militiamen and thirty Native dead (the 1964 state marker says forty, including several chiefs). Joshua Giddings, 17 at the time of the fight, put up a monument at the battle site to fallen friends in 1857. (source)

Rachel Wolcott, keeper

Benajah Wolcott lit the Marblehead lamps for ten seasons, climbing the tower each evening, logging passing ships and the weather, and organizing rescues. When he died of cholera in 1832, his wife Rachel took over the light, which lighthouse historians describe as making her the first woman keeper on the Great Lakes. After two years she married Jeremiah Van Benschoten, who became the third keeper. A second woman, Johanna McGee, kept the light from 1896 to 1903 after her husband George died. The stone house long called the Keeper's House, two miles away, is the oldest surviving home in Ottawa County, though Wikipedia notes conflicting records on whether Wolcott ever lived there. (source)

Stone for the Soo

Alexander Clemons, a Sandusky cabinetmaker's son born in 1794, opened a quarry on Kelleys Island in 1833 and bought 133 acres on the Marblehead shore soon after. Schooners such as the Grampus and the Telegraph loaded stone at his dock, and the heavy blocks could go anywhere on the lakes by water. In 1854 he signed a contract with J.W. Brooks of the St. Marys Falls Ship Canal Company to supply dressed gray limestone for the upper lock at Sault Ste. Marie, at twenty cents a cubic foot, with every block cut to specification and fitted with lewis holes for lifting. The contract required his dock to take vessels drawing nine feet and to load at least 150 tons a day. (source)

The keeper who knitted tapestries

Charles Hunter kept Marblehead Light from 1903 to 1933, the longest tenure of any head keeper. In those years the keeper had to crank up the clockwork weights that turned the 14,000-pound lens every four hours through the night. During the three winter months, when the light was dark, Hunter carved a grandfather clock and worked colored yarn into tapestries showing the lighthouse, ships and the eleven-room stone house he built for his retirement. He also wrote short stories and the words to a song, 'The Lighthouse by the Bay.' (source)

Timeline

• 1805: The Treaty of Fort Industry, signed July 4, extinguished Native title to the Firelands, which include the Marblehead Peninsula. (source)
• 1809: Revolutionary War veteran Benajah Wolcott bought 114 acres on the peninsula and built a home for his family. (source)
• 1811: Epaphras W. Bull, first owner of what became Johnson's Island and of the land where the lighthouse stands, arrived in Danbury Township from Connecticut with his family. (source)
• 1812: On September 29 a Native war party ambushed Ohio militia on the peninsula; the 1964 state marker says twenty men held out in a cabin until rescued two days later (the Beacon's account puts some forty in the Wolcott log house), in the first War of 1812 battle on Ohio soil. (source)
• 1819: The Fifteenth Congress set aside $5,000 for a light tower at the entrance to Sandusky Bay. (source)
• 1821: William Kelly and a crew of two built the 50-foot conical limestone tower between September and November, at a cost of $7,232. (source)
• 1822: Benajah Wolcott was appointed the first keeper on June 24 and lit thirteen whale oil lamps set in sixteen-inch reflectors. (source)
• 1832: Wolcott died of cholera and his widow Rachel took over as keeper, described as the first woman keeper on the Great Lakes. (source)
• 1834: The first commercial quarry opened on the peninsula (a museum article gives 1835, when Alexander Clemons bought 133 acres and shipped 6,470 feet of stone in his first season). (source)
• 1854: Alexander Clemons contracted to supply dressed Marblehead limestone for the upper lock of the St. Marys Falls Ship Canal at Sault Ste. Marie. (source)
• 1857: Joshua R. Giddings erected a monument near the battlefield to Mason, Simonds and Mingus, who fell there on September 29, 1812. (source)
• 1858: The whale oil lamps were replaced by a lard oil lantern magnified by a fourth-order Fresnel lens. (source)
• 1870: The tower, until then called the Sandusky Bay Lighthouse, came to be known as Marblehead Lighthouse. (source)
• 1873: Methodists founded Lakeside as a camp meeting on the peninsula's Lake Erie shore; it became a Chautauqua. (source)
• 1876: A life-saving station was built half a mile west of the light, with Lucien Clemons as its first commander. (source)
• 1880: The present keeper's dwelling replaced the old stone dwelling, described as leaky and barely habitable, and the tower was stuccoed and painted white. (source)
• 1886: The Kelleys Island Lime and Transport Company, consolidating smaller operations, had become the largest quarry operator on the peninsula. (source)
• 1890: Botanist Clarence M. Weed discovered the Lakeside daisy, a rare flower that survives on the peninsula's old quarry ground and is now protected in a 19-acre state nature preserve. (source)
• 1891: Kelleys Island Lime and Transport bought and extended the Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad to serve its quarries. (source)
• 1897: The top eight feet of the stone tower were removed and a brick watchroom added, raising the tower to 65 feet; a larger lantern followed in 1900. (source)
• 1903: A 14,000-pound rotating Fresnel lens began producing a white flash every ten seconds, driven by clockwork weights the keeper wound every four hours. (source)
• 1923: An electric light replaced the oil vapor lamp, raising the beam to 600,000 candlepower. (source)
• 1943: Edward Herman, the last civilian keeper, resigned and the Coast Guard took over the light (Wikipedia dates the Coast Guard takeover to 1946). (source)
• 1955: Kelleys Island Lime and Transport sold the Marblehead quarry to Chemstone Corporation; it passed to Standard Slag in 1962 and Lafarge in 1989. (source)
• 1958: The light was automated and the tower given a new coat of stucco. (source)
• 1969: The lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 17. (source)
• 1969: During a major renovation a 300mm beacon flashing green every six seconds replaced the Fresnel lens. (source)
• 1998: The Ohio Department of Natural Resources took ownership of the tower in May after the Coast Guard declared it surplus. (source)
• 2001: A $500,000 restoration of the tower and keeper's house began on September 1. (source)
• 2004: The historic Fresnel lens returned from the Marblehead Coast Guard Station for display in the keeper's house. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Marblehead Light (Ohio)
• en.wikipedia.org: Marblehead, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Danbury Township, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Benajah Wolcott House
• en.wikipedia.org: Lakeside, Ohio
• lighthousefriends.com: light
• nps.gov: marblehd
• hmdb.org: m
• hmdb.org: m
• nmgl.org: marblehead limestone for the soo lock summer 1976
• hmdb.org: m
• hmdb.org: m
• thebeacon.net: danbury twp is site of first ohio battle in war of 1812
• ottawacountyhistory.org: east ottawa county
• blog.otterbein.org: explore the history of marblehead ohio
• sanduskyhistory.blogspot.com: letter from epaphras w bull to zalmon
• archive.org: standardhistoryo0001hews djvu.txt
• en.wikipedia.org: Treaty of Fort Industry
• en.wikipedia.org: Firelands