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Captain Brown went on to explain that although his employer, the Bay State Steamboat Company, had established a lighted wooden tower on the point of Bristol Neck in 1846, this private light did not have the necessary elevation or brightness to help one safely navigate the channel. The Bay State Steamboat Company was chartered in 1846 and operated steamboat service from Fall River to New York City.
A ferry, known as the Bristol Ferry, commenced operation between Bristol and Portsmouth around 1680 and afforded the most direct route between Newport and Boston by way of Providence. The ferry ceased operating in 1865, when a railroad line opened between Fall River and Newport, but the name Bristol Ferry remained associated with the narrow passage linking Narragansett Bay and Mount Hope Bay.
The strait at Bristol Ferry was nearly 3,000 feet wide, but coming through from Narragansett Bay was especially treacherous due to Hog Island Shoal protruding into the passage on one side and Musselbed Shoals extending from the opposites shore. (Both of these hazards would eventually have lighthouses placed on them.) Congress responded to Captain Brown’s impassioned plea and approved $1,500 on August 3, 1854 for a lighthouse at Bristol Ferry.
The lighthouse consisted of a keeper’s house with an attached twenty-eight-foot-tall tower, both made of brick. The tower was topped with a wooden deck and lantern. The front door of the house was on the west side and opened to a narrow hall with stairs leading to the second floor. To the right was a six-foot-square room in the base of the tower. To the left was a sitting room that led to the dining room, and then to the kitchen. There were three bedrooms upstairs.
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The first keeper of Bristol Ferry Lighthouse was George Pearse, who had sold the property for the lighthouse to the government for $100. He apparently didn’t fancy his new occupation, as two months later Henry Diman became keeper. Diman had a short tenure at the lighthouse as well, dying less than a year after taking the position. His widow, Elizabeth, assumed responsibility for the light, but the only female keeper to work at Bristol Ferry Lighthouse served an even shorter time than her late husband, dying within six months.
In 1888, a copper ribbon lightning rod was placed atop the tower, and a new woodshed was built. A fifth-order Fresnel lens, which produced an omnidirectional fixed white light, was installed in the tower in 1902. When the original wooden tower and lantern were found to be rotten and not worth repairing, a cast-iron lantern was brought from the retired Rondout Lighthouse on the Hudson River in 1918. The brick tower was raised six feet when the new lantern room was added.
Edward Sherman had the longest stint as keeper of Bristol Ferry Lighthouse, serving from 1886 until his passing in 1916 at the age of seventy-four. At the time of his death, he was the oldest lighthouse keeper on Narragansett Bay. In March 1895, Keeper Sherman discovered a body floating in the water near the lighthouse. A newspaper account of the discovery speculated that the body was one of two men who went out gunning on Thanksgiving Day and hadn’t been heard from since.
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Leo R. Roode served as keeper of Bristol Ferry Lighthouse from 1925 until August 31, 1927, when the lighthouse was discontinued as a residence lighthouse. At this time, the illuminant was changed from oil to acetylene, eliminating the need of a residence keeper. The keys to the lighthouse were given to Keeper Patrick J. Brides of nearby Musselbed Shoals Lighthouse, and Keeper Roode was transferred to Gull Rocks Lighthouse. Shortly after Bristol Ferry Lighthouse was automated, work began on Mount Hope River Bridge that would tower above Bristol Ferry Lighthouse.
In 1929, Bristol Ferry Lighthouse, minus its lantern room, was put up for public auction by the Lighthouse Service, and sold to a local resident named Anna Santulli for a high bid of $2,050. This sum was much less than the property’s assessed value of $3,900, but the Lighthouse Service had heavily advertised the auction, and apparently felt that further advertising was not likely to bring any significantly higher bidding. A light atop a metal tower served mariners from the time Bristol Ferry Lighthouse was deactivated until the suspension bridge was finished in 1930.
After the lighthouse had fallen into disrepair following years of neglect, new owners Robert and Carol Lundin refurbished the historic building during the early 1990s and installed a mahogany lantern room on the tower. The lighthouse was put up for sale with an asking price of $469,000 in 1999 and sold the following year. The lighthouse was sold in 2022 for $805,000 and is now offered as a vacation rental. Bristol Ferry Lighthouse, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, remains private property today and is not open to the general public.
Head Keepers: George Griswold Pearse (1854 – 1855), Henry Diman (1855 – 1856), Elizabeth Diman (1856 – 1857), Daniel W. Coggeshall (1857 – 1861), Charles Sanford (1861 – 1870), George T. Gladding (1870 – 1871), James W. Waldron (1871 – 1875), William Dunwell (1875 – 1882), Edward P. Hoxie (1882 – 1886), Edward Sherman (1886 – 1916), Arthur J. Baldwin (1916 – 1925), Leo R. Roode (1925 – 1927).
References