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If you visit the areas along the banks of the Kennebec River in Maine today, you are likely to run into someone who has Wyman family ancestry. There are several hundred descendants who are still there from William Wyman, who was born in 1762 in St. George, Maine.
Many of the Wyman family were boatbuilders, fisherman, and captains throughout the generations of this strong seafaring family. Their interest also extended to the Lighthouse Service. William’s later cousin, Rear Admiral Robert H. Wyman, even became the chairman of the United States Light House Board in 1882; and just like many of the Maine lighthouse keeper dynasties, the Wymans also had multi-generations of keepers who totaled over 60 years of service at a dozen different lighthouses.
But what makes the Wymans so unusual is that their service spanned both coasts. It was quite rare for a member of a lightkeeper family to be serving outside of the district in which his other family members were concurrently appointed, especially on the opposite end of the country. But Thomas Cushin Wyman did just that, and his descendants followed suit.
Born on February 26, 1844 at Parker Head, Maine near the mouth of the Kennebec River, this grandson of William Wyman gained some notoriety for bravery early on for his participation in many important battles of the Civil War. Thomas, who enlisted at age 17, was a private in the 2nd Maine Volunteer Infantry that saw action at Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. When he was then forced to transfer under protest to the 20th Maine Regiment, he fought in the decisive battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg where his unit had many casualties.
Thomas was wounded in the left leg, which was a foreshadowing of what was to come, but he continued to serve until he mustered out in 1864. He then immediately joined the U.S. Navy to serve in the stead of his drafted brother, William H.H. Wyman, aboard the USS Sabine until the war ended in 1865.
Following the Civil War, many veterans decided to go west, either for health reasons or to seek fortune and adventure. It is unknown exactly why Thomas went, but by 1869, he had married Rosina Mayers from Dresden, Maine and they had settled down on a ranch at Younker’s Point in the newly developed frontier of Oregon.
This location would impact the Wyman family’s future, both because of Joseph Younker marrying Thomas’ daughter, Mary, 30 years hence, and also because of Younker Point’s close proximity to Cape Arago Lighthouse, only a couple miles distant, where Thomas would later serve for 15 years as assistant lighthouse keeper starting in 1891.
Meanwhile, back home in Maine, Thomas’ brother, William H.H. Wyman, had started in the Lighthouse Service in 1887 as an assistant lighthouse keeper on Seguin Island Lighthouse. He served there alongside his cousin Edwin M. Wyman, who had already been stationed there since the previous year. In 1889, the two cousin keepers split up, with William H.H. moving on to Cape Elizabeth Two Lights and then to the Tenants Harbor Lighthouse, while Edwin went to Pond Island Lighthouse.
Unfortunately, William H. H. Wyman died at Tenants Harbor in 1892 from “inflammation of the liver” while in service. He had been a lighthouse keeper a total of five years. Prior to that, William had been a farmer, and then mariner, then worked as a certified chief engineer on steamboats, bringing them up the Kennebec River.
According to the family, William suffered from too much seasickness, so he gave up sailing and joined the Lighthouse Service. Perhaps William’s mal de mer is why his brother Thomas took his place in the Navy during the Civil War those many years earlier. Sadly, William H.H. Wyman was only 50 years old when he passed away. He is buried in a family cemetery at the homestead in Parker Head, Maine.
William’s cousin, Edwin Merrill Wyman, was born on September 1, 1863 in Parker Head. Not much is known about his early life, but in February of 1886, he married Rose Oliver, also of Phippsburg, and took her with him out to Seguin Island Lighthouse when he began his four years of lighthouse service.
The one story that is told in the family is how Edwin had to row Rose the seven miles from the Island back to Parker Head in September of that year through rough seas when Rose was in labor with their daughter Florence. To say it was a difficult journey was an understatement. Thankfully, both Rose and Florence made it through safely.
When Edwin Wyman transferred to Pond Island Lighthouse in February of 1889, he only stayed there until October of that year before he resigned and finished his lighthouse service career. The following May, Rose gave birth to their son Arthur. It is quite possible that Edwin’s resignation had to do with Rose’s pregnancy and not wanting to repeat what had happened at Seguin Island again for the birth of their second child, since Pond Island was also an off-shore station.
Edwin became a carpenter during those months ashore following his resignation, but it was a short-lived occupation because immediately following the birth of Arthur, the family moved down to Boston where Edwin was employed as a fireman on a tow boat. Tragically, Rose passed away there in 1908 at age 39 from pneumonia. Edwin stayed in Boston for another few years, working as a marine engineer before returning to the family homestead in Maine.
Back in Oregon, Edwin’s cousin, keeper Thomas C. Wyman, had experienced some tragedy of his own at Cape Arago Lighthouse. In the summer of 1898, within a month before the completion of the high bridge that would span the channel from the mainland to the detached island, the common means of getting onto the lighthouse reservation was by riding in a trolley box, strung across by a tramway cable some 60 feet in the air.
On June 3, Thomas, his 22-year-old daughter Mary, her then friend-soon-to-be-fiancé Joseph Younker from the Cape Arago Life-Saving Station, and John Caldwell were crossing over in the box when the cable snapped midway, plunging them all into the surf. Mary, Joseph, and John landed in deep water, but Thomas unluckily ended up on the rocks, severely breaking his left ankle.
The U.S. Lighthouse tender Columbine was nearby, delivering supplies to complete the bridge, and was able to float a raft of lumber over to rescue the party and bring them back to the ship. They rushed them all to the hospital in Empire, which was the closest facility.
A story is told in the family that Mary had some baby chicks wrapped in her apron that she was taking back to the lighthouse, and she had one in her hand at the time the box dropped. When she arrived at the hospital, they had to pry her hand open to get the chick out because she was so traumatized by the event.
Unfortunately, Thomas C. Wyman’s injuries were too severe. The doctors tried to save his lower leg, but five weeks later, on July 9th, they ended up amputating it below the knee. Ironically, this was the same leg he had wounded during the Civil War more than 30 years earlier.
Thomas’ recovery was very slow over the next year as is shown by the many letters submitted to the Lighthouse Board in Washington about the situation. In a letter dated August 5, 1898, the district inspector wrote that, following the amputation, Thomas Wyman was left “in a very precarious condition and he has not yet been able to resume his duties at the station. I beg to recommend the appointment of Mr. Frank E. Wyman as an additional assistant at Cape Arago Light Station from 18 July, 1898, and until such time as the assistant keeper is able to resume his duties.”
The Board agreed and appointed Thomas’ 24-year-old son, Frank, in his place, giving him the full salary of $600 per annum. The three-month position was renewed over the next year several times until September of 1899 when a six-month official furlough was granted to Thomas Wyman to go to Portland to the Marine Hospital to receive treatment.
At some point between then and April of the following year, Thomas was able to finally resume his duties as assistant keeper of Cape Arago Light, which lasted until 1906 when he retired from the service at age 62.
Frank E. Wyman must have had a good experience being a keeper while he was a substitute because he then officially took on an appointment at Point Robinson Lighthouse in Washington in 1900 for the next three years. In 1903, he transferred to Desdemona Sands Lighthouse at the mouth of the Columbia River where he served until he finished his lighthouse keeping career in 1908.
Thomas C. Wyman and his son Frank E. Wyman were not the only members of the Wyman family to serve at Cape Arago Lighthouse. Thomas’ grandson, Thomas Wyman Albee, was to follow the family tradition and serve at six different lighthouses and river range lights in Washington and Oregon from 1912 to 1944. Named after his grandfather, he went by his middle name of Wyman throughout his life.
Wyman Albee’s longest stint was at Cape Arago Lighthouse for 16 years, from 1919 to 1935, the last 10 of which he served as head keeper. He was the son of Thomas’ daughter Etta, who had married Ira Albee, keeper of the entrance range lights at Coos Bay. When Ira died tragically in 1912 in a boating accident, Wyman officially requested and was granted Ira’s post, which started his formal lighthouse service career.
Wyman Albee’s daughter, Ila Albee Lee, wrote a book, Children of the Lighthouse, in which she shared her memories growing up at various lighthouses where Wyman served. One story in particular concerning her older sister, Lavinia, was almost an exact re-enactment of what befell Thomas C. Wyman in 1898 when he plummeted from the tramway cable at Cape Arago Lighthouse.
Ila recounted that when Lavinia was about two, her mother, Ruth took her out for a walk at Cape Arago. She ran out ahead onto the rail-less bridge and her mother’s commands to stop “only made her laugh and toddle faster…. Ruth was gaining on her, but as Lavinia turned back to see where Mom was, she lost her balance and tipped over the edge. Ruth caught her dress tale, [sic] and swinging Lavinia into space, pulled her back up onto the catwalk. Mother was so shaken that she cried all the way back to the house. She had complained many times about the lack of a fence around the yard, and no railings on the foot bridge only to go unheard. This incident did carry some weight and a fence was built shortly after.” History oftentimes repeats itself, but it was a blessing that it did not in this instance.
Ila further stated that Wyman Albee became so skilled at working with the different types of engines needed to generate the lights over the years that, “the Lighthouse Service began to transfer him and his family to stations that had to be upgraded to electricity.”
Upon leaving his last lighthouse post at Point Robinson in 1944, Wyman Albee went to work at Pier 91 in Seattle as a civilian machinist where he serviced those “fine old auxiliary engines from the lighthouses that the young Coast Guardsmen were desecrating. Some were the very engines he had cared for on the stations. He was assigned to repair them, putting them back into working order. He thought it odd that no one else ever worked on them.”
Wyman Albee served in that position until his untimely death in 1950 when he was traveling back from a convention in New York. He arrived in Montana en route and was hospitalized for a bleeding ulcer. He passed away there on August 30, 1950 at the age of 56.
Thomas Wyman Albee’s long career brought to a close the multi-generational record of seven Wyman family members who served in the U.S. Lighthouse Service. There are probably even more if the female lines could be thoroughly investigated. Whether in Washington, D.C., Maine, Oregon, or Washington, the Wyman name stands for a strong lighthouse heritage and exemplary service, even through multiple trials, deaths, and injuries. They have served our country well.
This story appeared in the
Sep/Oct 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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