She summed it all up upon her retirement: “Oh, it was an easy-like chore, but my feet got tired, and climbing the tower has given me fallen arches.”Īccording to historian Virginia Neal Thomas, women light keepers received equal pay to men. Salter once pulled the rope ringing the heavy fog bell every 15 seconds for nearly an hour until a steamer made safe passage into the Chesapeake and Delaware canal. The fog bell saluted passing ships and was rung manually when needed in order to guarantee safe passage for ships heading into the Elk River under low visibility. Then there was the laborious task of winding the heavy fog bell mechanism every three hours. From her bedroom in the keeper’s quarters, she could see the light and would awake immediately if it went out.Ī daunting 137 wooden steps led down the bluffs to the Elk River, where next to the stairs there was a chute with a windlass, a device the keeper used to haul supplies up to the station. Salter would fill and light one of two lamps at dusk, climb the 31 stairs of the tower and the iron ship’s ladder that led to the lantern, place the lamp within the lens, check in on it an hour later and once again before going to bed. Weller, who asked then-President Calvin Coolidge to personally intervene. His widow, Fanny May, was first told she would not be hired to continue his service. She lived at the station for an amazing, and likely record, 54 years.Ī few years later, then-keeper Clarence Salter passed in 1925. At age 16, her daughter Georgiana moved to the property and continued her mother’s work. Crouch likewise replaced her deceased husband as keeper from 1873 to 1895. The first was Elizabeth Lusby, who took up the torch for 18 years after her husband died in 1844. The last to serve there, Fanny May Salter, was the last civilian woman lighthouse keeper in the nation. These three women tended Point Lookout for all but six of its first 40 years of operation.įurthermore, women keepers at Turkey Point were responsible for 86 of its 114 years in service. Edwards and her daughter Permelia, who kept the light for 14 years after her mother’s death. Other women who served there include Martha A. Ann took over the job in 1830 and held the position for 17 years until her own death. Maryland’s first female light keeper, Ann Davis, was the daughter of James Davis who died about two months after he was hired at Point Lookout. What is surprising, however, is the number of years women minded the lighthouses in Maryland, particularly at Point Lookout and Turkey Point. Their livelihood depended on hard work, rigid routine, long hours and dedication to duty, which often included long periods of isolation. For hundreds of years, lighthouses were operated by keepers, hearty men and women who kept the light burning.
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