|
The Thacher & Straitsmouth Islands Association took advantage of the lighthouse keeper grave marker program in Gloucester and Rockport, Massachusetts. The ceremony was held at the Beechbrook Cemetery on November 15, 2024.
Those honored were all former keepers on Thacher Island off the coast of Rockport, Massachusetts.
They included Alexander D. Bray (1819 to 1885). He served as keeper on Thacher from 1861 to 1869.He was a veteran of the Civil War and founding member, deacon and treasurer of the Universalist Church of West Gloucester. Also honored was his wife Maria H. Bray (1828-1921), who kept the twin lights lit for three days and nights while her husband had to leave the island with one of his assistants who was ill with a severe fever.
Alexander was unable to get back to the island due to the storm’s severity. Maria knew what she had to do.
Keep the lights lit.
Then with the wind thundering, she climbed the 156 steps of each tower four times during the night then proceeded to face the 300-yard walk through two-foot-deep snow between the towers. Maria repeated this superhuman feat every four hours for three days. Because of poor visibility during the snowstorm, both lights had to remain aflame day and night.
Alexander returned on the third day on Christmas Eve and the exhausted Maria was found sound asleep on a concrete bench at the bottom of the south tower. “Maria you are a brave woman” was all Alexander could say.
The valiant Maria lived to be ninety-three and died in 1921, much loved and mourned.
Addison Franklin Tarr (1842-1920) longest serving keeper on Thacher 36 years from 1878 until 1914. Buried at Locust Grove Cemetery in Gloucester.
John Farley (1868-1891) had been in the lighthouse service for five years, rising in the ranks to 1st assistant when on October 20,1891, he was flung from a boat landing on the Thacher Island ramp and died instantly of head injuries. He was only 23 years old and is the only keeper on Thacher to have died in service. He is interred at Beech Grove in Rockport.
Corporal Felix Doyle, (1822-1901) Served in the Army during Civil War 1861 to1864. Company F, 19th Regiment, Mass Infantry. He was an assistant to Alexander Bray from 1865 to 1866. He is interred at Beech Grove in Rockport.
Albert Giddings Hale (1813-1896) He was the first head keeper to serve in the newly built twin lights in 1861 and the first keeper to light the lamp in the south tower. He served until 1864.
While serving he and his assistant keepers saved the crews of two different schooners as well as capturing an escaped Confederate prisoner of war in a rowboat as he had passed Thacher on his way to freedom in Canada.
Participants at the ceremony included Jeremy D’Entremont, historian of the U.S. Lighthouse Society who served as master of ceremonies, Speakers included the honorable Bruce E. Tarr, Senator, First Essex and Middlesex District, General Court of Massachusetts, who presented citations to the Association President Bill Whiting, US Coast Guard Station Gloucester and US Coast Guard District One Auxiliary and Cape Ann Flotilla.
Paul St. Germain President Emeritus of the Thacher & Straitsmouth Islands Association who spoke about Maria H. Bray’s life, Suellen Wedmore, who is the Poet Laureate emerita for the town of Rockport who read her prize-winning poem about Maria Bray.
Also, in attendance U.S.Coast Guard CWO James Bridges and Commander of Coast Guard Station Gloucester, Chief Christopher Irish, officer in charge of Coast Guard Station Gloucester and their station crew. Commander Bridges also read a message from Commanding Officer Jason O. Burke the 9th Commanding Officer of the USCGC Maria Bray (WLM562) now homeported in Jacksonville, FL. This 175’ Coastal Buoy Tender is the 12th of fourteen “Keeper Class” ships named for famous and heroic Lighthouse Keepers and was commissioned in 2000 named for Maria Bray. Commander Burke was quoted in his remarks “Emblazoned on the ship’s crest, the motto quote “Watch Upon the Waves” serves as a guiding principle to the twenty-three men and women assigned to her. These shipmates strive to uphold the perseverance and determination Maria Bray embraced daily and do so with the grace and courage their ship’s name represents. As a small group crew, we consider ourselves a family with Maria Bray at the helm and are extremely, proud to serve aboard her, execute her missions in service to our nation and boast her name in every port of call we visit.”
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2025 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.
| 