Given the area’s history, it isn’t surprising that one of the most laudable rescues by a lighthouse keeper would occur at Cape Elizabeth. Marcus Aurelius Hanna was awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal in 1885, one of only three awarded between 1876 and 1915, for “heroism involving great peril to his life.” Hanna was wounded during the Civil War and later became keeper of Pemaquid Lighthouse. After a few years of service there, Hanna used his political connections and war record to convince President Ulysses S. Grant to reassign him to a more desirable station. On March 3, 1873, Keeper James Mariner angrily scrawled in Cape Elizabeth's logbook, “Mr. Hanna from Pemaquid Light Station will take my place but not with my consent. I am no longer a Republican.”

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In January 1885, Hanna, suffering from a bad cold, finished his fog signal shift during what he described as “one of the coldest and most violent storms of snow, wind and vapor…that I have ever witnessed,” and was relieved by his assistant Hiram Staples. Hanna was so weak that he had to crawl home through snowdrifts in the minus ten-degree weather. Shortly after falling asleep, he was awakened by his wife’s cries. While putting out the lights in the towers, his wife Louise, who served as an assistant keeper, spied a wrecked schooner.

Waves “poured over [the Australia] in a perfect deluge,” dragging cargo and the captain into the sea and drenching the two crewmen, who took to the rigging. Soon they were nearly frozen. It was impossible to launch a boat, so Hanna climbed over the icy rocks knowing that falling would mean his death. He tied a wrench for weight to a stout rope and futilely tried to toss a lifeline to the men. Hanna said, “I felt a terrible responsibility thrust upon me, and I resolved to attempt the rescue at any hazard.” Meanwhile, Mrs. Hanna set off to find help, and locating a fifteen-year-old boy, she sent him to summon the neighbors.

To increase the chances of getting the rope to the desperate crewmen, Hanna waded into the pounding surf. Irving Pierce was finally able to catch the lifeline With it securely about him, Pierce jumped into the frigid water, and Hanna dragged him to shore over the ledges. As the ship began to break up, Hanna managed a successful throw to the remaining sailor, Bill Kellar. Just as Hanna was nearing collapse, Staples and two neighbors appeared and helped haul Kellar to shore. After the weather cleared a few days later, Pierce and Kellar were taken to a Portland hospital where they recovered. Hanna received a Gold Life Saving medal in 1885, and ten years later, a Congressional Medal of Honor for his earlier Civil War bravery, making him the only person to receive both accolades.

The story of Cape Elizabeth’s Two Lights began in 1614, when Captain John Smith, who sailed along New England’s shores, gave the appellation to the cape in honor of Princess Elizabeth, King Charles’ sister. After the American Revolution, Portland Harbor became an important port, and a fifty-foot-tall, octagonal rubble stone day beacon, painted black on the top and white on the bottom, was built on Cape Elizabeth in 1811. Marine traffic continued to increase in Casco Bay. On July 14, 1825, it was possible to see “with the naked eye forty-two sail vessels” and with a telescope atop an observatory over 100 ships, according to a local newspaper.

In March 1827, Stephen Pleasanton, the Treasury official in charge of light stations, wrote to Isaac Ilsley, superintendent of Maine’s lighthouses, asking him to “make an examination, or cause it to be made” and to inform Pleasanton whether one or two lighthouses were necessary at Cape Elizabeth and what they would cost. Ilsley oversaw the building of two sixty-five-foot-tall, octagonal towers, following an appropriation of $3,000 in March of 1827 and an additional $4,500 in February 1828. When Ilsley submitted the construction bill, the penny-pinching Pleasonton told Ilsley to strike his fees for overseeing the project.

Second-order lens used in east tower

The decision was made to use two lights, a fixed light in the east tower and a revolving light in the west one, so the station would not be confused with the lights at Portland Head or Wood Island. Mason Jeremiah Berry built the twin lighthouses on twelve acres of land purchased for $50. The towers, topped by octagonal wrought-iron lanterns housing lamps and reflectors, first shone their lights in October 1828. Problems were noted only one year later when John Chandler, the local lighthouse superintendent, wrote to Pleasanton, “The Light Houses…were built so late in the season that the mortar froze, and whenever rain came, it ran amongst the stone and kept it continually wet.”

President John Quincy Adams selected Elisha Jordan as the first keeper from eighteen men vying for the position. Jordan had to “reside at the station and make it a habit to be home,” for which he received $425 annually over the next six years. His wife was his assistant. Politics cost Jordan his job in 1834. Charles Staples, one who sold his land for the light, came next, but died of cancer in 1835. When the first fog bell was added in 1834, Staples’ salary was increased by $50.

The deteriorating towers and dwellings were noted by civil engineer I.W.P. Lewis in 1843. He reported bad mortar, leaky roofs and walls, that the buildings were laid on bare rock, the woodwork was rotting, there was no fresh water well, the west tower’s rotating light mechanism was defective, and the fog bell could not be heard far outside the reefs without the aid of an offshore wind. Keeper George Fickett, confirmed all this, adding that he didn’t have a boat and the distance between the towers made his work tough, especially when snow filled the valley between them.

Pleasonton may have pressured Fickett to recant his report of conditions at the station. Fickett wrote that upon seeing his printed statement, he noticed “several important errors”: There were no leaks, the woodwork was great, and he’d always had a big boat. Keepers elsewhere also retracted negative statements. However, when the Lighthouse Board ad hoc committee conducted an inspection and found many lights in dire straits, including Cape Elizabeth’s Two Lights, the U.S. Lighthouse Board was given responsibility for all lights.

Keeper William Jordan complained in 1852, “I have to hire a boy during the summer season, and a man during the winter months, and, if I did not do so, could not faithfully keep things in order.” His yearly salary was $500, and he requested a raise of $100 to cover the help. After Nathan Davis took Jordan’s place, Davis gained an assistant, and a second one was added a few years later. In 1854 a new fog bell was installed at Cape Elizabeth, and its old bell was relocated to Portland Head. The following year, the eastern tower was lined with bricks and received a cast-iron staircase and new lantern.

For economy and visibility, the station’s appearance changed several times, sometimes in color and sometimes by lighting only one light. In 1855, the west light was extinguished, and the east light fitted with an occulting third-order lens, but this change was abandoned after just eight months. In 1865, the west tower gained a big vertical red stripe and the east tower four horizontal red bands. The west light was discontinued in 1882, but again relit after complaints. Finally, in 1924, the government changed all twin light stations to single lights, and the west light permanently went dark.

A steam fog whistle was installed at Cape Elizabeth in 1869, and two more assistants were assigned. A second-class siren, which had been constructed as an experiment, replaced the whistle after proving a success. In 1888, the signal sounded 1,117 hours, using 71,500 pounds of coal. When a new, even louder foghorn generated complaints in 1929, an unsympathetic lighthouse superintendent, Capt. C. E. Sherman, told a sleepless man that the new signal shouldn’t be any more annoying than the old one once people got used to it.

A $30,000 appropriation was made in 1873 for rebuilding the western tower, but this money proved sufficient to fund the erection of two matching sixty-seven-foot cast-iron towers set 923 feet apart and featuring elegant Italianate details. A second-order revolving Fresnel lens remained in use at the station, and a new fixed first-order Fresnel lens was added. In 1878, a new wood-frame, 1.5-story dwelling was built for the principal keeper near the east tower, and the nearby old stone dwelling was repaired. This stone dwelling was replaced by a framed dwelling in 1890. Since one of the assistants had been a keeper’s wife, three houses had been sufficient for the four keepers, but when this situation changed in 1891, the Lighthouse Board recognized that four families living in three houses would not do. After requesting funds for a new dwelling for a decade, money was finally provided to enlarge the dwelling near the west tower in 1901 so it could accommodate the first and third assistants.

American painter Edward Hopper painted several views of Cape Elizabeth’s Two Lights in 1927 and 1929. His oil painting, The Lighthouse at Two Lights, became his best-known lighthouse painting after it was featured on a U.S. postage stamp in 1970 commemorating the sesquicentennial of Maine’s statehood.

The east light was electrified in 1925. In January 1934, sixty-five-year-old Keeper Joseph H. Upton failed to return from lighting an auxiliary light in place of the main light that had failed. His concerned wife discovered him unconscious with a fractured skull where he’d fallen at the base of the east tower. He later passed away. Some claim that the ghost of an older man in a lighthouse uniform seen near that tower or the driveway is Upton’s spirit.

During World War II, the west tower became an observation point after its lantern was removed. It was auctioned to the highest bidder in 1959. In 1971, actor Gary Merrill and Bette Davis purchased the west tower for $28,000. Merrill sold it in 1983, and a new house was built next to it. The 1878 keeper’s house adjacent to the east tower is now privately owned. Amid some controversy in the 1990s, that house was remodeled making it markedly different from the dwelling immortalized in Hoppers paintings. The east light was automated in 1963, and its 1,800-pound second-order Fresnel lens was removed and placed on display at the Cape Elizabeth Town Hall.

The east light is maintained by the Coast Guard and remains an active aid to navigation, although the tower itself was licensed to the American Lighthouse Foundation in 2001. In 2008, J.B. Leslie Masonry Company of South Berwick, Maine repaired the concrete base of the east tower thanks to $9,000 donated by William Kourakos of Cape Elizabeth and $2,5000 provided by New England Lighthouse Lovers.

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References

1. Lighthouse Board records, various years.
2. The Lighthouses of Maine, Jeremy D’Entremont, 2009.
3. “Cape Elizabeth Two Lights Lighthouse,” U.S. Coast Guard, Historical Section, Public Information Division, U.S. Coast Guard, April 1950.
4. “Keeper At Cape Elizabeth Two Lights Answers The Call,” Lighthouse Digest, Nikk Salata, April 2003.
5. Haunted Portland: From Pirates to Ghost Brides, Roxie J. Zwicker, 2007.
6. Edward Hopper’s New England, Carl Little, Edward Hopper, 1993.
7. The Pine-tree Coast, Samuel Adams Drake, 1891.
8. “Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse”, The Keeper’s Log, Wayne Wheeler, Summer 2006.
9. “US Coast Guard Awards, Marcus A. Hanna, Awarded 25 April 1885,” US Coast Guard website.