While at anchor in the harbor at Matanzas on Cuba’s northeast coast, Lt. Allen was informed that pirates were holding several ships for ransom in a nearby bay. The following morning, the Alligator surprised the pirates and dispatched its launches to confront them. In the ensuing battle, Lt. Allen took two musket balls but led his comrades to a rout of the pirates before succumbing to his wounds. Now under the command of Lt. John M. Dale, the Alligator escorted the small flotilla of liberated vessels north to the states.

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With ships of varying speeds, keeping them together proved difficult. The Alligator would occasionally tack back and forth to slow her progress. Still, by the evening of November 19, no other ships were in sight. In the darkness, a lead line was thrown out at regular intervals to measure the depth of the surrounding water. Notwithstanding this precaution, at 9:30 p.m. the vessel ran aground on Matacumbee Reef at a speed of about five knots. Several heavy items were tossed overboard in a futile attempt to refloat the ship. Finally, around midday on November 21, the Anna Maria, one of the vessels traveling with the Alligator, was sighted and successfully hailed. All government property, including the cannons, was transferred to the Anna Maria and the unfortunate Alligator was set afire to prevent pirates from claiming her. The reef was subsequently known as Alligator Reef in honor of its victim. A few surviving hull timbers from the Alligator still lie in shallow water just offshore from Islamorada.

The first effort at marking the dangerous reef was made in 1852 by Lieutenant James Totten of the U.S. Army Coast Survey. Under his direction, one of fifteen iron shaft daymarkers being placed along the reefs was erected on a screwpile foundation at Alligator Reef and topped by a black barrel. Five years later, the barrel was replaced by a white hoop-iron cylinder and a red vane displaying the letter C to uniquely identify the reef.

In 1857, the Lighthouse Board recommended an iron skeletal lighthouse be placed on Alligator Reef, which would allow for the reef to be as “perfectly lighted as it is believed any capable and intelligent mariner could desire. In a distance of three hundred miles there will then be Dry Tortugas, Sand Key, Dry Bank (Sombrero Key), Alligator Reef, Carysfort Reef, Cape Florida, and Jupiter Inlet seacoast lights.” Congress failed to make the necessary appropriations that year, and its attentions were soon turned elsewhere as the nation spent the next decade planning for, fighting in, and recovering from the Civil War.

The Lighthouse Board resurrected its request for the Alligator Reef Lighthouse in 1868. The petition was repeated in 1869, and the following year Congress finally responded with funds for the project. Indian Key, situated four miles from the reef, was selected as the staging area for the construction effort.

The iron pile lighthouse was forged by Paulding Kemble of Cold Spring, New York, and then transported to Indian Key. The lighthouse would be situated thirty yards from daymarker C, and about two hundred yards from the deep Gulf Stream waters.

To receive the lighthouse, the reef was leveled and nine heavy cast-iron disks were arranged on the coral, eight at the corners of an octagon and one at its center. The foundation piles that would pass through the disks were twenty-six feet in length and twelve inches in diameter. A steam-powered pile driver raised a two-thousand-pound “hammer” eighteen feet in the air before gravity brought it crashing down on the pile. Each blow would drive the pile about an inch further in its 10-foot descent into the coral.

Atop the vertical foundation piles, eight lengths of piles slopped upwards to the lantern and watch rooms. Running horizontally and diagonally between the piles, a network of braces held the structures together like the filaments in a spider’s web. A one-story square dwelling was built on a platform high above the water to keep it safe from even mountainous seas. A spiral staircase sheathed with iron served as the tower’s spine, providing structural support and linking the dwelling to the lantern room, over 130 feet above the water.

The light was finished on November 25, 1873, at an expense of $185,000. A revolving first-order Fresnel lens filled the lantern room and produced a series of five white flashes separated by a single red flash.

The Alligator Reef Lighthouse warned ships of the invisible danger posed by the submerged reef, but early on there was little to no warning of another danger that threatened ship traffic and even the crew on the lighthouse – hurricanes. The most devastating storm to strike the Alligator Reef Lighthouse spoiled the Labor Day festivities of 1935. Keeper Jones A. Pervis left a detailed account of the event.

September 1st Quiet duty
2 Securing against tropical hurricanes. On the afternoon of the second day the Barometer began falling. Normal rating 29.98 fell as low as 27.35 by 9:30 P.M. Same day 10 P.M. the barometer began to rise and on the third day of this month at one o’clock P.M. the barometer reading was 29.38 with very bad rainy weather. Strong wind from the south the second day. The wind was from the north east blowing a fresh breeze and increased to gale force by 4 P.M. 6 P.M. was a regular hurricane. 6:30 P.M. while lighting the lamp for the night, the lantern glass began to break, red sectors began to break, flying glass was danger to life. I left the watch room and hurried to living quarters, the doors began to break in, the keeper, and second assistant room, was badly damaged to doors and water soaked beds and clothing. I managed to save doors in first assistant room, and the kitchen, the lens was completely wrecked, and other damage done by wind and water to the watch room, and property there in. The row boat washed away about 8 P.M. The launch no. 34 was in fair condition at 9:30 P.M. This was the last time we were able to be out side until the next day. The platform landing was completely wrecked and launch no. 34 gone. This is the worst hurricane I have experienced during the eleven years of service. The light will be out of commission until temporarily repaired.

Accompanied with winds in excess of 200 mph, the hurricane devastated the nearby keys. 423 people lost their lives in the storm - 163 civilians and 259 World War I veterans who were employed in the area building a bridge to replace the ferry boats. As the Upper Keys were not densely populated in 1935, the death toll represented nearly 25% of the population. The hurricane produced the lowest barometric reading ever recorded in the U.S.: 26.35.

When a hurricane wasn’t threatening the tower, the life of a keeper could be relaxing. Dick Gooravin served on the reef in the 1950s, after it came under the control of the Coast Guard in 1939, and described a more idyllic and likely more typical time at the lighthouse: “The water around the lighthouse on most days was calm and gin clear. You could see the formation of the reefs perfectly, the sand spots in between, and the deep waters of the Gulf Stream just a few hundred yards away. When you looked down you would see all kinds of fish. There were always lots of barracudas cruising lazily around the lighthouse.” A few hours before dinner, a keeper, equipped with a spear, simply had to step of his back porch to procure his choice of a main course: lobster, snapper, or yellow-tail.

In 1963, the lighthouse was automated. The Coast Guardsmen must have been a bit disappointed to leave their home with an elevated 360° ocean view, but at least no one would have to endure another hurricane trapped on the lighthouse.

The central portion of the Alligator Reef Lighthouse is kept a bright white, a striking contrast to the black lantern, black foundation piles, and the surrounding aquamarine waters, which still provide plenty of interest for fishermen, snorkelers, and divers. If you don't make an excursion out to the lighthouse, keep an eye out for it when you are near Islamorada as the lighthouse is the most readily visible of Florida’s reef lights from the overseas highway.

References

1. Lighthouses of the Florida Keys, Love Dean, 1998.