Joshism
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First some background on the Lighthouse Service in the United States.
The first session of the Constitutional Congress passed an act creating the US Light House Establishment (USLHE) within the Department of the Treasury. The USLHE was responsible for all navigational aids in the United States - their establishment, operation, and maintenance. (Besides lighthouses this would come to include lightships, buoys, range lights, small non-lighthouse beacons, post lights, unlighted daybeacons, fog signals, and radio beacons). During colonial times these had been few in number and created solely by local interests. In 1820, the USLHE came under the administration of the Fifth Auditor, Stephen Pleasonton. He had famously saved the Declaration of Independence from being burned by the the British in 1814. Pleasonton badly ran the USLHE for several decades (long story). In 1852, Congress placed the USLHE under a new Lighthouse Board consisting of Army and Navy officers and a few civilian experts.
Lighthouses between 1789 and the late 1840s were contracted to the lowest bidder amongst civilian engineers. The result was many inadequate and poorly built lighthouses, few of which survive today. In the late 1840s, Army engineers started being assigned to design lighthouses and supervise their construction. In 1852, as part of the same legislation creating the Lighthouse Board, the entire coast of the US (along with the Mississippi River was divided into numbered Districts. Each District had an Engineer who was normally an Army officer (West Point being the best source of engineers at the time) and an Inspector who was a Navy officer. Engineers were responsible for construction and repairs. Inspectors made quarterly inspections of all light stations and handled personnel matters, although lighthouse keepers were nominated by the local Collector of Customs until the 1880s. Given the small size of the antebellum US military it should come as no surprise that many future big names of the American Civil War were Engineers or Inspectors during the 1850s.
Side note: several notable naval officers of the Spanish-American War were also involved with the USLHE in some capacity - namely George Dewey, Winfield Scott Schley, and Robley Evans.
Civil Service Reform began applying to lighthouse keepers in 1896. In 1903, the Lighthouse Service moved to the new Department of Commerce. In 1910, the Lighthouse Service was reorganized: Lighthouse Board and the Engineer/Inspector system was phased out, and Districts were reorganized. The new Bureau of Lighthouses had the same responsibilities as the old Lighthouse Establishment. It was an entirely civilian organization run by a Commissioner of Lighthouses who reported directly to the Secretary of Commerce. Each District had an Inspector (renamed Superintendent in 1918), with 1-2 chief assistants, who ran the districts. Engineering was all done by civil engineers, although by this point there was very little new lighthouse construction (although many other smaller automated aids to navigation).
The name "Lighthouse Service" was never formally used, although it became a very common informal name starting in the 1890s, including use of the acronym "USLHS" instead of "USLHE", especially after 1939.
If you really love maritime matters, in addition to lightships there were also many lighthouse tenders of various sizes that supplied lighthouses (especially offshore locations) and lightships; placed and maintained buoys and minor navigational aids; transported Engineers, Inspectors, Superintendents, lampists, machinists, and work crews to perform their duties.
In 1939, the Lighthouse Service merged with the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard had itself been formed in 1915 by the merger of the US Life Saving Service (a civilian rescue organization in the Treasury Department formed in the 1870s) and the Revenue Cutter Service (a law enforcement organization primarily concerned with customs enforcement) formed in 1789. The Coast Guard handled things very differently and by the 1950s pretty much all keepers were enlisted military personnel. In the 1960s, the Coast Guard accelerated the process of automating lighthouses and phasing out the remaining lightships. It introduced regional Aids to Navigation Teams (ANT) that handled all maritime navigational aids, other than Loran (a navigational network of special radio stations, using the same basic principles that GPS uses today). By the 1990s, every lighthouse in the United States had been automated. Many lighthouses have been transferred to national parks, state parks, local municipal governments (who often turn to nonprofits), or direct ownership by nonprofit organizations. This process was codified in 2000 under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
Fun fact: at the peak of the lighthouse service (ca. 1910) there were about 1000 light stations in the United States. There are something like 600 surviving today, some of them abandoned and in deteriorating shape. Unlike popular subjects like Gettysburg, Lincoln, or D-Day lighthouses are a woefully understudied subject, especially the history of the individual stations. Until proper research in the National Archives (and sadly some records were destroyed in the infamous 1921 Commerce Department fire), what is "know" about any given lighthouse is often times riddled with inaccuracies.
In this thread I will post about the various notable military officers who served in the American Civil War and also did work related to lighthouses, particularly during the 1850s. I will also be happy to answer any burning questions you might have about lighthouses.
The first session of the Constitutional Congress passed an act creating the US Light House Establishment (USLHE) within the Department of the Treasury. The USLHE was responsible for all navigational aids in the United States - their establishment, operation, and maintenance. (Besides lighthouses this would come to include lightships, buoys, range lights, small non-lighthouse beacons, post lights, unlighted daybeacons, fog signals, and radio beacons). During colonial times these had been few in number and created solely by local interests. In 1820, the USLHE came under the administration of the Fifth Auditor, Stephen Pleasonton. He had famously saved the Declaration of Independence from being burned by the the British in 1814. Pleasonton badly ran the USLHE for several decades (long story). In 1852, Congress placed the USLHE under a new Lighthouse Board consisting of Army and Navy officers and a few civilian experts.
Lighthouses between 1789 and the late 1840s were contracted to the lowest bidder amongst civilian engineers. The result was many inadequate and poorly built lighthouses, few of which survive today. In the late 1840s, Army engineers started being assigned to design lighthouses and supervise their construction. In 1852, as part of the same legislation creating the Lighthouse Board, the entire coast of the US (along with the Mississippi River was divided into numbered Districts. Each District had an Engineer who was normally an Army officer (West Point being the best source of engineers at the time) and an Inspector who was a Navy officer. Engineers were responsible for construction and repairs. Inspectors made quarterly inspections of all light stations and handled personnel matters, although lighthouse keepers were nominated by the local Collector of Customs until the 1880s. Given the small size of the antebellum US military it should come as no surprise that many future big names of the American Civil War were Engineers or Inspectors during the 1850s.
Side note: several notable naval officers of the Spanish-American War were also involved with the USLHE in some capacity - namely George Dewey, Winfield Scott Schley, and Robley Evans.
Civil Service Reform began applying to lighthouse keepers in 1896. In 1903, the Lighthouse Service moved to the new Department of Commerce. In 1910, the Lighthouse Service was reorganized: Lighthouse Board and the Engineer/Inspector system was phased out, and Districts were reorganized. The new Bureau of Lighthouses had the same responsibilities as the old Lighthouse Establishment. It was an entirely civilian organization run by a Commissioner of Lighthouses who reported directly to the Secretary of Commerce. Each District had an Inspector (renamed Superintendent in 1918), with 1-2 chief assistants, who ran the districts. Engineering was all done by civil engineers, although by this point there was very little new lighthouse construction (although many other smaller automated aids to navigation).
The name "Lighthouse Service" was never formally used, although it became a very common informal name starting in the 1890s, including use of the acronym "USLHS" instead of "USLHE", especially after 1939.
If you really love maritime matters, in addition to lightships there were also many lighthouse tenders of various sizes that supplied lighthouses (especially offshore locations) and lightships; placed and maintained buoys and minor navigational aids; transported Engineers, Inspectors, Superintendents, lampists, machinists, and work crews to perform their duties.
In 1939, the Lighthouse Service merged with the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard had itself been formed in 1915 by the merger of the US Life Saving Service (a civilian rescue organization in the Treasury Department formed in the 1870s) and the Revenue Cutter Service (a law enforcement organization primarily concerned with customs enforcement) formed in 1789. The Coast Guard handled things very differently and by the 1950s pretty much all keepers were enlisted military personnel. In the 1960s, the Coast Guard accelerated the process of automating lighthouses and phasing out the remaining lightships. It introduced regional Aids to Navigation Teams (ANT) that handled all maritime navigational aids, other than Loran (a navigational network of special radio stations, using the same basic principles that GPS uses today). By the 1990s, every lighthouse in the United States had been automated. Many lighthouses have been transferred to national parks, state parks, local municipal governments (who often turn to nonprofits), or direct ownership by nonprofit organizations. This process was codified in 2000 under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
Fun fact: at the peak of the lighthouse service (ca. 1910) there were about 1000 light stations in the United States. There are something like 600 surviving today, some of them abandoned and in deteriorating shape. Unlike popular subjects like Gettysburg, Lincoln, or D-Day lighthouses are a woefully understudied subject, especially the history of the individual stations. Until proper research in the National Archives (and sadly some records were destroyed in the infamous 1921 Commerce Department fire), what is "know" about any given lighthouse is often times riddled with inaccuracies.
In this thread I will post about the various notable military officers who served in the American Civil War and also did work related to lighthouses, particularly during the 1850s. I will also be happy to answer any burning questions you might have about lighthouses.