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There are many stories of land-based lighthouse keepers who had a variety of pets at lighthouses, but perhaps none were as unusual as those of John J. Kerr who was the lighthouse keeper at the New York’s Esopus Meadows Lighthouse on the Hudson River from 1944 to 1959.
He had an array of pets, including two deodorized skunks, a bantam rooster, a rabbit, and a dog. He even had a seal, although the seal may have been more of a nuisance than a pet, but the seal must have known that keeper John Kerr liked all of God’s creatures, otherwise it wouldn’t have hung around.
Although John J. Kerr served as a keeper at a number of New York State lighthouses during his career such as Orient Point Lighthouse, Montauk Point Lighthouse, Rondout Lighthouse, and Stony Point Lighthouse on the Hudson River, the photos that seem to have survived of his pets are all from when he served at the Esopus Meadows Lighthouse where he lived with his wife, Anna, and son John B.
John J. Kerr was born on November 25, 1900 in Ballynahone, Ireland and served in the British Navy in the Mediterranean during World War I. After the war, he legally immigrated to the United States and secured a job as a New York City fireman. In 1937, at the age of 37, he changed careers and joined the United States Lighthouse Service and eventually became the keeper at the Esopus Meadows Lighthouse. In 1939 when the Lighthouse Service was taken over by the Coast Guard, John Kerr elected to stay on as a civilian lighthouse keeper rather than a military keeper.
Ruth Reynolds Glunt, author of the 1969 book The Old Lighthouses of the Hudson River, was a friend of John Kerr and his wife Anna. She recalled that the bantam rooster and dog went everywhere with him. When John Kerr would take the Esopus Meadows Lighthouse boat to shore, the dog and the rooster always came along for the ride. The dog would always sit in the stern of the boat with the keeper, and the rooster would stand mightily, with its head cocked, on the bow of the boat, seemingly guiding the way. When they reached land, the rooster and dog would both jump out of the boat and the rooster would always scratch around. When it was time to leave and go back to the lighthouse, keeper Kerr would let out a holler to the creatures and both would scurry back to the boat for the ride back to their lighthouse home out in the Hudson River.
Living out on a lighthouse surrounded by water did not seem to bother the animals; they got along with each other, although it was stated that the rooster clearly ruled the roost. The pet skunks generally slept all day and spent the night scurrying around the outer deck of the lighthouse.
In 1949, a seal, weighing between 80 to 100 pounds, showed up at the Esopus Meadows Lighthouse. At first, it spent the nights on rocks about ten feet from the lighthouse and would continually bark at the dog which kept Kerr and his family awake at night. But after a few nights, that behavior calmed down and it was obvious, or at least seemed that way, that the dog and the seal had become fast buddies. As much as the dog wanted to jump overboard and play with the seal, Kerr would not allow it. He was afraid the seal might play too rough with the dog in the water. Kerr tried to feed the seal, but it refused his handouts. Apparently fishing around the lighthouse was good for the seal, because it would be gone during the day and then return each night.
In 1959, after serving 15 years at Esopus Meadows Lighthouse, John J. Kerr was transferred to the 1826 Stony Point Lighthouse on the west side of the Hudson River in Stony Point, New York. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1968.
On October 18, 1984, at the age of 83, John J. Kerr passed away at the Riverside Nursing Home in Haverstraw, New York and was buried nearby at the St. Peter’s Cemetery.
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2019 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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