Book: Women Who Kept the Lights NEWS SCAN -- Honorary Subscriber:
Abbie
Burgess Grant.
The remarkable American woman, Abbie
Burgess Grant (1839-1892), spent 38 of the 53 years of her life as a
lighthouse keeper, a highly atypical occupation for a
woman. Burgess's career tending lighthouse lamps began in 1853 one
week after her father, Sam Burgess, was appointed Lighthouse Keeper at the
Matinicus Rock Light Station, a windswept 32-acre granite island 18 miles
off the Maine shoreline and 25 miles from Rockland, the nearest
port. Although her father held the title of Lighthouse Keeper, she
was the one
actually doing the work. Her father was often off lobstering to augment his
income, and she became responsible for lighting the whale oil lamps and
performing other duties around the island. As one of ten children living in
an isolated environment, her invalid mother mostly home schooled her, but
the limited education she received did enable her to read and
write. When Captain John Grant, a friend of the family, succeeded Sam
Burgess as the Matinicus lighthouse keeper, Abbie stayed on to help train
Grant. The new keeper's son, Isaac, was the assistant keeper. A romance
quickly developed between Abbie Burgess and Isaac Grant and they were
married within a year. Abbie was officially appointed assistant keeper at
$440 per year. The couple had four children at the Rock before Isaac Grant
was appointed keeper of the White Head Light Station in 1875. Abbie
was a heroine upon several occasions, risking her safety and
well-being for the sake of her family and "those that go down to the sea
ships." In January 1856 her father left in his sailboat to pick up supplies
in Rockland, leaving Abbie alone with her mother and younger sisters. By
the afternoon a storm began with large waves and gale winds and increasing
over the next three days, leaving Matinicus Rock practically underwater.
Abbie moved her mother and sisters to the island's north lighthouse
tower
only a short time before a gigantic wave swept the island and destroyed the
original keeper's house. The island remained inaccessible for the next four
weeks, during which time Abbie kept the lights burning and cared for her
mother and sisters. Again in 1857 her father was away for three weeks
during a stormy period. That time the family's food supply was reduced to
one egg and a cup of corn meal mush a day before supplies
arrived. She died in 1892 in a house on Maple Street, Portland,
Maine. In 1960 historian Edward Rowe Snow organized a gathering at her
grave. A little metal lighthouse was unveiled at the foot of her grave, and
Poet Wilbert Snow read a poem that called her "the friend and guide of
sailors through dark nights."
["Women
Who Kept the Lights: An Illustrated History of Female Lighthouse
Keepers" by Mary Louise Clifford and J. Candace.]
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