In December 1851, the United States Government purchased Green Island from Alfred P. Edwards. $5,000 was appropriated for construction of a lighthouse, and by 1855 a wooden structure similar to Cedar Point Lighthouse had been built at the west end of the island. The tower was attached to a keeper's quarters and featured "a costly French mirror."

The most famous keeper of Green Island Lighthouse was Colonel Charles F. Drake, who was living on the small island with his wife and children when the lighthouse went up in flames on New Year's Eve in 1863.

The evening is remembered as the coldest ever in the area, with temperatures dipping down to 25 degrees below zero. Heavy rain had fallen throughout the day, and was followed by a strong gale from the northwest as night rushed in. Sometime during the evening, Green Island's wooden lighthouse caught fire. With the wind howling fiercely outside, Colonel Drake and his family did not notice that their home was on fire until they heard flames crackling above them. Soon the entire second story of the structure was burning.

Colonel Drake took a moment to get dressed in a coat and hat, and then grabbed a ladder. He attempted to douse the roaring flames as his daughter and wife filled pails with lake water and passed them to him. After emptying more than 30 pails of water, the family realized that their efforts were in vain and there was nothing they could do to save their home or their valuables. They turned their attention to saving themselves, realizing that they could not survive the night outside without protection from the bitter cold. The lake could not be navigated in such weather, and no one from the mainland would be able to come to their rescue until the storm subsided.

Colonel Drake braved the burning house and was able to save two ticks and a comforter. Wrapping these around themselves and seeking shelter in the outhouse, the little family tried to stay warm. Colonel Drake's son Pitt had gone to Put-in-Bay to attend a party and watched in horror as the flames from Green Island lit up the stormy sky. Though he was only two miles from the island, his friends would not let him try to cross the churning lake to his family. The storm had grown so violent that the surf reached thirty feet high and froze as it fell onto the shore. What a spectacle it must have been, ice falling onto the lighthouse as flames consumed it and illuminated the sky.

1864 Green Island Lighthouse Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

When the storm finally subsided the next morning, Pitt Drake and a crew of men set out on the slushy lake. They rode in two cutters, using planks to traverse the ice that was quickly forming in the channel. Pitt was terrified of what he would find when they reached the island. Even if his family had survived the fire, could they have survived the icy night? When the crew reached Green Island, they were dismayed to see that the only structure left standing was the outhouse. Miraculously, the small building had been adequate shelter for Colonel Drake and his family, and though they were suffering from exposure to the freezing temperatures, they were still alive. Following this traumatic ordeal, Colonel Drake and his family moved back to the mainland.

In 1864, a new, two-story lighthouse was built on Green Island. The square tower and its adjoining keeper's house were made of limestone. George Fergueson was the first keeper of the new light, and his wife was his only companion on the small island. It is said that a subsequent keeper had a beautiful team of Italian greyhounds who pulled a sled across the frozen lake to take his children to and from school on the mainland. This keeper also had livestock, for which he built a small barn and fenced in a three-acre pasture.

Green Island saw several changes at the turn of the century, including the construction of a boathouse at the northeastern corner of the island. The island's natural supply of strontium was exhausted by 1898, and in 1926, the U. S. Lighthouse Service abandoned the lighthouse. The light was active until 1939, when the Coast Guard replaced it with an automated light on top of a skeletal tower.

Green Island eventually became a wildlife refuge, managed by the Department of Natural Resources, and is no longer open to the public. Vandals have set fire to the lighthouse, leaving behind only a shell of limestone, which is now surrounded by thick vegetation. The remains of the old oil house still stand behind the lighthouse, and what looks like a well is located in front of the lighthouse.

Though Green Island is no longer famous for its strontium, and its lighthouse is part of the Lighthouse Digest Doomsday List, the island is still a unique part of Ohio's history, for no one in the area will ever forget the story of Colonel Drake and the night that Green Island Lighthouse lit up the entire sky.

References

1. "A Forgotten Lighthouse Now Nearly Obscure," Timothy Harrison, Lighthouse Digest, June, 1998.
2. "Green Island and Its Lighthouses", Michael Gora, 2006.