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When Esopus Light lost contact with the outside world

In was wintertime, January 1961. New York’s Hudson River Lighthouse was surround by ice, when a normal winter day at the lighthouse changed into a slight emergency. The ice in the river shifted as it often does that time of the year. However, this ice shift caused a break in the cable that supplied electricity to the lighthouse and the keepers fell into darkness.

Coast Guardsman Third Class Godfrey Green, who was the only person on duty at the time, and the only person on the lighthouse, wasn’t too worried, as he picked up the phone to call the Coast Guard base to let them know he had lost power. But, the phone line was also out. Again, he wasn’t too worried, he knew he had a back up radio and he would radio the base. However, when things go wrong, they seem to keep going wrong. When he attempted to use the radio, it caught fire leaving him totally cut off from the outside world!

Now he was slightly worried.

The wind was picking up and howling at the old lighthouse and the temperature quickly began to drop inside the old structure. As he became more worried about the situation he realized that the other keeper Seaman John Ciak would be back soon with the supplies he had gone to town to get. However, Ciak, seeing the ice shift, which was caused by a very high tide, wasn’t willing to attempt the quarter mile walk across the ice flow until the tide went down and decided to wait it out.

In the mean time, Green spotted the Coast Guard vessel Firebush coming down the river and signaled then for help. They sent an electrician and radioman to the lighthouse who repaired the radio. Figuring out a way to cook was another problem. The electrician’s mate solved that problem when he hooked up one of the stove’s burners to the generator.

In the mean time, the Officer in Charge of the lighthouse, Bo’sun Bennett was on the mainland at the hospital where his wife had just given birth to a baby boy. By the time he was contacted and could attempt the walk over the ice it was pitch dark. As he made the dangerous trek across the ice with only a flashlight in hand he realized that he was being stalked by a pack of wild dogs that had been terrorizing area residents for months and had attacked and killed a pair of goats a few weeks back. Although he made it back safely he requested that his lighthouse crew be allowed to carry guns for protection in the future, a request that was immediately approved.

It would be a while before a second generator could be installed at the lighthouse and the power cable could not be repaired until well into springtime. The emergency generator on the lighthouse had enough power to operate the light in the tower, the fog bell, radio, one burner on the stove, the electric heater and three small lamps.

This all proves that lighthouse living was always interesting with no dull moments.

This story appeared in the August 2003 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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