If you could travel through time, but only to see something for Research or for fun, not to change anything, what would you pick? (Yes you may have a babel fish in your ear to translate for you, a companion, local currency equivalent, and you will be immune to damage and disease.)
Future Cures for Chronic Illnesses
What happened to the missing Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers in 1900?
Voting ended onJan 19
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(I had to bump the lighthouse keepers up a level as there was no third round option for the head to head).
A lighthouse, a beacon, the lantern in the night, shining brightly, constant, all the while standing tall, bathed completely in darkness along with her keeper(s).
National Lighthouse Day: Celebrating the Beacons of Light and Hope
National Lighthouse Day on August 7th honors the iconic beacons that have guided sailors for centuries. Celebrate these symbols of hope and resilience by exploring their history and significance.
Every year on August 7th, we celebrate National Lighthouse Day, a day dedicated to honoring the iconic structures that have guided sailors safely to shore for centuries. Lighthouses are more than just navigational aids; they are symbols of hope, resilience, and the enduring human spirit. On this day, we take a moment to reflect on the history and significance of lighthouses, the stories they…
I always thought that a lighthouse keeper was so lucky, but the keepers of the Saugerties, New York Lighthouse beg to differ. Well, they do get to live in this simple beautiful lighthouse.
Patrick & Anna work every day of the year as historians, curators, docents, bookkeepers, grant writers, and bed and breakfast managers. I think that they only take 2 adults at a time in the B&B, though.
The actual beacon would be my favorite part of the house.
Patrick says that the lighthouse basement is wet and dank. It floods at high tide and he calls it the “dimly-lit depths of the lighthouse–the belly of the beast.” He dons knee-length waterproof boots, rubber gloves, and particle masks to remove a cracked and corroded pot-belly stove, a rusty furnace, old pipes, and some unrecognizable globs of wet trash. He also did some repairs on the composter.
The living room has a cozy little stove and look at the old gramophone.
Check out the kitchen. The vintage fridge still works.
Right, so, I wanted to do something with the Lighthouse Keeper background I came up with, and lighthouses just go directly to ghosts in my head. They just do. I grew up next to one, I saw The Fog maybe a few too many times as well. Doctor Syn/Captain Clegg. The Uninvited. And the Phantom Rogue is so pretty. Put it in a maritime context, storms and sea ghosts and wrecks along the rocks under the lighthouse …
(I don’t know why she’s a dwarf, lighthouse keepers just feel like a dwarfish sort of profession to me?)
Ideal: Responsibility. When lives depend on what you do, you’d better do it right
Bond: A wrecker crew took over my lighthouse to lure a ship onto the rocks. I’d like to find them, and all like them, and bring down a reckoning for all the lives lost to their vicious trade
Flaw: I don’t have a good opinion of those who can’t stand on their own two feet and do the work
Traits, Feats and Background/Class Features: Darkvision (60ft), Dwarven Resilience, Dwarven Combat Training, Dwarven Toughness, Stonecunning, Weather Eye, Expertise (Perception, Stealth), Sneak Attack (2d6), Thieves Cant, Cunning Action, Whispers of the Dead, Wails from the Grave
Equipment: Leather armour, shortsword, 2 daggers, shortbow w/20 arrows, common clothes, oilskin coat, bullseye lantern, 1 flask of oil, 100ft rope, belt pouch, burglar’s pack
Description: A tough, no-nonsense looking woman with a hard, weathered face, iron-grey hair in a business-like plait, and a good oilskin coat over her woollens.
History:
A sturdy, self-contained woman, Esta spent a lot of her adult life travelling from place to place, searching for a sense of purpose and peace. A little bit by chance, she found both at the Rock of the Smalls lighthouse: a tiny but vital beacon of safety on a spit of land near the fishing hamlet of Sildur's Beach. The lighthouse had been badly in need of upkeep and repair, and someone to man the light and keep the fishing boats and larger ships safe in the rocky channel past Sildur's Head and the Smalls. Esta, well skilled at keeping a variety of structures together, offered her services, and spent the better part of two decades happily and peaceably keeping the light.
The collection of off-shore rocks known as the Smalls were a well-known, and well-used, shipping hazard, however, and not everyone was entirely happy with the lighthouse suddenly being in good repair and reliable use. The area around Sildur’s Head had long been the home of a variety of smugglers, pirates and thieves over the centuries. And, more importantly in this case, the home of a variety of wreckers, well familiar with the treacherous paths through the rocks. One storm-wracked night, as a very pretty prize sailed past the Smalls, a crew of semi-locals decided that they could no longer pass such opportunities up. The lighthouse had been a barrier long enough.
Esta woke up, her head bruised and bloodied, to the horror of a wreck upon her shores. Screaming sailors and splintered timbers, the bobbing lantern-lights of wreckers at their trade, and the butchery of any sailor unlucky enough to survive.
Something touched her, that night, as she wandered dazed among the carnage. Some phantom touch, the mark of wrongful death upon the shores. A ghostly chill sank permanently into her bones. She managed to avoid being slaughtered herself, but the peace of Smalls Lighthouse was lost to her forever. The ghosts of those slain that fateful night haunted her too powerfully.
Instead, she set to wandering once more, a new, deathly touch upon her soul, and a whole black profession’s worth of people to deliver a reckoning to …
Ida Lewis was born Idawalley Zorada Lewis-Wilson on February 24, 1842 in Newport, Rhode Island, and would become a renowned figure of heroism in her work as a lighthouse keeper at Lime Rock Light off of Newport.
Her father was appointed keeper of Lime Rock Light in 1854, and moved his family there in 1857. But four months after this, her father was disabled due to a stroke, so Ida and her mother kept the lighthouse. As Lime Rock was surrounded by water, Ida became an excellent swimmer and could deftly maneuver a rowboat by a young age.
She made her first rescue as age 12, but her most famous rescue was on March 29, 1869. Two soldiers and a young boy were trying to navigate the harbor toward Fort Adams when their boat capsized. Unfortunately the young boy was lost, but the two men clung to their boat in the icy water. Ida dragged them into her rowboat with the help of her younger brother, saving their lives.
She is credited with 18 rescues over the course of her 54 year long career at Lime Rock Light, but other reports suggest it could be higher. She was covered often in the press, and received numerous honors and awards, including the Gold Lifesaving Medal.
Lewis made her last recorded rescue when she was 63. A friend was rowing out to the lighthouse, stood up in her boat, lost her balance, and fell into the water. Lewis rowed out to her and hauled her aboard.
In 1879 she was officially appointed the keeper at Lime Rock Light, and she spent most of her life there. When she died in 1911, the bells of all vessels in Newport harbor rang for her, and over 1,400 people attended her funeral. Lime Rock was officially renamed Ida Lewis Rock in 1924.
Learn more about Ida Lewis.
Learn more about SSHSA and our Ship History Center in Warwick, Rhode Island.
