Lighthouses
The four lighthouses on this puzzle are:
The Boston Harbor Lighthouse in Massachusetts, erected in 1716, was the first lighthouse build in the United States, destroyed by the British during the Revolutionary War, it was rebuilt in 1783.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina, was build in 1803 by former U.S. Congressman and future Secretary of War, Henry Dearborn, originally built 95 feet high, it was raised to 150 feet in the mid-19th Century and was replaced in 1870 with a 191 foot tower and painted with a black spiral band for better daytime visibility; it is the tallest lighthouse in the United States.
The Goderich Lighthouse in Canada's Ontario Province, was build in 1847 on a 100 foot cliff above the southeast corner of Lake Huron; its 33-foot square tower was the first lighthouse build on Lake Huron.
The Yaquina Head Lighthouse on the Oregon coast was built in 1873 four miles south of its intended location at Cape Foulweather, because the ship carrying the construction materials mistakenly unloaded its cargo on the current site.
For many centuries, lighthouses have aided navigation by warning mariners of
coastal hazards and by guiding ships to port. Having become in the 20th Century
more picturesque and romantic architectural exclamation marks to nature's
awesome beauty and power than navigational necessities, often on desolate
coasts, lighthouses are now cultural symbols of solitude, the rugged seafaring
life and of technological development.
The world's first lighthouse, The Pharos of Alexandria,
Egypt, was build by Sostratus for the Macedonian ruler Ptolemy in the 3rd
Century BC and at 450 feet high, topped by a container of fire for light, was
one of the Seven Wonders of The Ancient World. After guiding mariners for more
than 1,500 years, The Pharos of Alexandria was finally destroyed by an
earthquake in the 14th Century. Although there is no evidence that another of
the Seven Wonders, the Colossus of Rhodes, was intended as a lighthouse, myths
persist that this enormous statue in Ancient Greece at the time of the Roman
Empire held a cauldron of fire aloft in one hand and had fires blazing from both
eyes.
In 1812, Winslow Lewis demonstrated his patened Argand lamp
and parabolic reflector at the Boston Harbor Lighthouse for U.S. government
officials, and at the urging of Boston Customs Collector, Henry Dearborn, and
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, Congress provided $60,000 for
the purchase of Lewis' patent, the installation of the Argand light in all U.S.
lighthouses and the maintenance of these lights for seven years. Lewis installed
his Argand lamp in all but nine lighthouses before the British invasion of the
War of 1812 and finished the remaining installations in 1815. According to
lighthouse historians and his own nephew, Lewis had, in fact, copied his
"invention" from the system in use at the South Stack Lighthouse in
England, a system which had been abandoned by all other British lighthouses. In
1852 the newly established United States Lighthouse Board chose the Fresnel
light, developed in 1822 by Frenchman Augustin Jean Fresnel, for United States
lighthouses, and the Secretary of the Treasury ordered the installation of
Fresnel lenses in all U.S. lighthouses. By the outbreak of the American Civil
War, these installations had been completed.
Lighthouse "keepers" have tended lighthouses for
the past 2,000 years. Ida Lewis, keeper of the Lime Rock Lighthouse in Rhode
Island, became a 19th Century hero for her many rescues and was celebrated with
visits by Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral Dewey. Technology has finally replaced
the often lonely and dangerous life of the lighthouse keeper. Most lighthouses
today are fully automated, many operating self-sufficiently on solar power.