Linda Osborne Cynowa

The 1900 Galveston Hurricane

Linda’s Monthly Monday Morning Moaning’s for Monday December 2, 2024

The house is all lit up with Christmas trees, and the effect always brings a sense of peace and long ago memories, to my life. I received my new cover image last week, for this last lighthouse book, ‘Lighthouses of the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States’, and since it won’t see the light of day till summer 2025, it will be a wait before I can see the cover wrapped around the 128 pages of postcards and writing that has been my preoccupation for some time now.

‘Lighthouses of the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States’

While researching these books, I have come across stories, both happy and regrettable sad tales of life for the dedicated people who chose the profession of lighthouse keeping. This edition about the southern states, for me was even more interesting to write as I was able to bring into the stories and the writing a lot more history, because of what came about with these lighthouses along the southern Atlantic coast. The Civil War and HURRICANES, hurricanes in abundance. Here is one such story:

Telegram: Houston, Texas, 7:37pm, September 9, 1900 To: Willis Moore, Chief US Weather Bureau, Washington DC. “We have been absolutely unable to hear a word from Galveston since 4:00pm yesterday…..” GL Vaughan, Manager, Western Union, Houston.

In the early morning of September 8, 1900, a hurricane of massive force struck the Gulf Coast, a Super Storm, just west of Galveston, Texas, this “Great Galveston Hurricane” was very well named, because it would prove to be the deadliest environmental disaster than any thing man made could ever come up with. With the approximately 8,000 and the roughly 2,000 more that would be lost in the other areas of the Gulf Coast, the death toll was greater than the combined Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the devastating hurricane Ike that struck the Galveston area in 2008.

At nearby Bolivar Point Lighthouse, the storm flooded the the low-lying peninsula and water broke against the base of the light. 125 people would seek protection from the approaching water and refuge from the storm as the water began to rise. The flood waters brought a halt to the train approaching the Bolivar Point Ferry Terminal. Of the more than 100 passengers and crew aboard the train, only nine waded into the waist high water to try and get to the safety of the light tower, soon the flood water surrounded the train, trapping the other souls and saw to their death. The many weary men, women and children rode out the stormy night sitting on the spiral steps that lead to the lantern room at Bolivar Point Lighthouse, and the next morning the survivors left the tower to walk upon a scene that resembled a massacre.

At Fort Point Lighthouse, a screw pile style light, located at the entrance to Galveston Bay, a row boat was sent 200 yards from the nearby Fort San Jacinto, to evacuate the light keeper Captain Anderson, his wife, Lucy and his assistant, but because of the high winds and water conditions, they would have to turn back before reaching the lighthouse. The occupants of the light were in for the fight of their lives. Many of the Fort San Jacinto personnel would ultimately drown, while many survived by hanging onto wooden doors as they floated out across Galveston Bay. Captain Anderson, kept his light burning throughout the storm, but late that evening the floodwaters carried away their storage tanks with fresh water and their lifeboat. With wind speeds at 200 miles per hour, the slate, roof shingles began to give way. The flying roof shingles would soon break the lantern glass and extinguish the light. With the first floor flooded, the light keepers made their way to the second floor, and with their hope gone they waited for the flood waters to over take them. By Sunday morning the Andersons, would see first hand the toll this hurricane brought to Galveston. They would always say the description was beyond all belief, with bodies floating everywhere as only a small part of the devastation. Unlike what Anderson had seen in the Civil War, it was not only men dying it was women and children also. An image of Fort Point Lighthouse below.

The US Light-Saving Service which at the time, was in charge of lighthouse, before the US Coast Guard took over responsibility in 1940’s, stated their motto was “You have to go out, but you do not have to come back”. Meaning that many Life-Saving Service personnel served in the worst sea and weather conditions to save the lives of many in need people. Many of their personnel would loose their lives trying to save as many lives as possible.

This is the last blog for 2024, and my hope for you is a good and healthy Christmas season and that there is great hope that new adventures will be awaiting all of us in 2025.

Many thanks to William H. Thiesen PhD, Coast Guard Atlantic Area Historian, US Lighthouse Society’s the Keepers Log, The Maritime Executive, for the informative information.

For exceptional reading to further your hopefully awaken interest, ‘Isaac’s Storm’ by Erik Larson, about a meteorologist who watched helplessly, not being able to get a warning out for help. Very well written.

Thank you for visiting and reading today. Please if you haven’t already, enter your email address in the subscription form below to receive my blog by email on the first Monday of each month. Thank you.

Finding those cover images!

Linda’s Monthly Monday Morning Moaning’s for Monday November 4, 2024.

After deciding on what your subject for the book will be, coming up with a name is one of the first items you have to decide on. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes not so easy. And in spite of how brilliant a name you have come up with you also have an editor, who also has to think it’s brilliant. With my Great Lakes book, ‘Lighthouse and Lifesaving on the Great Lakes’, turned out to be a bit too much of a mouth full when they added the ‘lifesaving’ word to the title. Although to be fair, there was a chapter on the lifesaving stations. Ok my editor could have been right.

Next finding images for the front and back cover is the next really important task. You want the images to ‘sell’ the content inside the book to the public, as that front image is really one of the first things you see. And for the author, you are going to be looking at that cover for a long time to come. With Arcadia’s Images of America Series, you have to use images that will be the entire cover and their are requirements as to how big the main image is and is there room for the title where it’s not covering an important part of the image. I have been fortunate as they usually ask for 5 or 6 choices for them to choose, when any one who knows me, can pretty much figure, this is going to be my choice, and they have never turned me down with my choice. As in the farming book below, nothing could have been better to do a book on farming families than use the image of Mr Schoenherr and his son on their tractors!

When I moved on to work on their Postcard History Series for my lighthouse series, these covers had different requirements. One image for the front and one image for the back cover, and they have to be styled as horizontal no vertical at all.

These covers have the look of the postcards that are to be used as the images to tell your stories. I have found with each of these previous lighthouse books finding the correct images to use was hardly an issue, as Arcadia prefers RPPC (Real Photo Postcards), oppose to linen types, that have a texture. They want them as sharp as can be, and they want an image that fills the area correctly from a photographic point of view. No problem with these three previous books, plenty to choose from that pretty much meet all the requirements need.

Now working on the ‘Lighthouses of the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States’, my problems started! After finishing the North Atlantic book, I would have gone on to the Southern Atlantic next, but finding the postcards I needed over a period of two years was more difficult than any of the other areas I would search in. Never figured out why, as the lighthouses in the southern and gulf states are as magnificent as any where else in the country, and when I did find them they didn’t always meet the correct requirements for the cover images. Until I settled on these two.

These two images have been submitted to my editor, and I should see the new cover along with my written material for the back cover in the next few weeks. Fingers crossed. Your covers front and back will sell your book, will it make people want to look beyond that cover to see what is inside? The hope is, it will.

On that ‘wee note’ till next month, Monday December 2, 2024.

‘Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast’

Linda’s Monthly Monday Morning Moaning’s for Monday October 7, 2024

Well fall is here, the weather is cooling, the leaves are turning warm colors and the sun is lowering in the sky. As mentioned last month, my third lighthouse book was published by Arcadia on September 16th. The lights on the Pacific coast have a rather different look to the lights on the Atlantic or even the Great Lakes lights. The type of lighthouses used always took the terrain of the area into thought. Most of these lights would be built on high cliffs or bluffs opposed to our sand beaches. Sometimes that would be an advantage, but many times not, with taking the usual erosion into consideration.

Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast will explore many of the lighthouse and breakwater, piers and reef lights in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii. Whether it is Eldred Rock Lighthouse in Alaska or Diamond Head in Hawaii, then as now, people have loved to visit the lights while on holiday and to send postcards back home. Many of these lights are still in existence and can be visited, thanks to the historical societies and associations that still maintain them.

I have also found that many times after the book has been sent to the publisher, I find that elusive vintage card, that I have spent so much time trying to acquire, and as in this case that was once again most true.

Destruction Island Lighthouse Circa mid 1900’s

Destruction Island Lighthouse is a decommissioned lighthouse on Destruction Island, a rocky island that is part of the Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge situated about 3 miles off the coast of Jefferson County, Washington, in the northwest area of the United States. After the 94-foot conical tower was complete, it was covered in iron plating to protect it from the elements. The tower’s first order Fresnel lens stood 147 feet above sea level and had a visible of 24 miles. The US Coast Guard assumed responsibility for the lighthouse in 1939, till its automation in November 1968. This young keeper and his family would live a very desolate life on this island as with many other lighthouse positions for most keepers, but having pride in what they accomplished was forefront in all the keepers and their young families.

This week I was contacted by my publisher with the news, I have been granted a contract to complete the fourth of my set of lighthouses postcards books, with ‘Lighthouse of the Southern Atlantic and Gulf State’. This one will encompass the states of Maryland down to Florida and around to coast to the state of Texas. As I have found, that in researching the different areas of these books, there were usual different situations, such as in the Pacific, you would be dealing with earthquakes and the tsunamis that always seemed to accompany the quakes. Now on the southern Atlantic and Gulf area, it seems to be Hurricanes and the Civil War that have left their devilish marks on these lights. The finished book will be due at Arcadia by mid January, with a publication date of mid summer.

All images used are from the author’s collection, and on that ‘wee note’ till next month, Monday November 4th, 2024

Lighthouses of California

Linda’s Monthly Monday Morning Moaning’s for Monday September 2, 2024

September is an exciting month for me as an author, as my 6th book and 3rd vintage postcard lighthouse book will drop from Arcadia Publishing, ‘Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast’ on Monday the 16th. Here is a sample of Chapter 4.

Along the over 800 miles of California coastline, more than 35 lighthouses still stand proudly above the shore. And while the Global Positioning System (GPS) has rendered them all but obsolete, these iconic structures still serve as nostalgic reminders of a time when only a beacon of light and the booming echo of a foghorn guided mariners along their way. I hope, that here, I can give you a sample of three lighthouses that California has to still to offer.

Alcatraz Island Lighthouse, San Francisco Bay. In 1854, Alcatraz became one of seven lights to be constructed along the Pacific Coast using the same plans for a one-and-a-half-story school house type building with a tower rising from he pitched roof. Stairs were used to get to the second floor and the lanterns room. A third-order Fresnel lens was used to light the tower. There was a head keeper and an assistant. It was during the Civil War that Alcatraz was first used as a prison. With the completion of the lighthouse, the island was soon used as a military base. With the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, the buildings chimneys falling and a crack in the tower brought concern. In 1909, a new reinforced concrete cell house was built with 600 cells. The need for a taller light at ninety-feet was built, using the original fourth-order lens, at the base of the tower, two, two-story wings were added for the use of the keeper and his assistants for housing. Having been used as a military prison until 1933, it was transferred to the US Justice Department to be used as a penitentiary for federal prisoners. Many prison guards and their families lived on what was now called ‘The Rock’. The prison closed as a penitentiary in 1963. After a Native American Indian occupation of the island in 1970, some damage occurred to the housing and tower, where in 1971 the light was once again relit.

Los Angeles Harbor Lighthouse, Los Angeles. The San Pedro Breakwater in Los Angeles Harbor is where you will find the light once known as Angles Gate Light. In 1913 a structural steel frame was erected on the pierhead, and a octagonal structure was built and encased in steel plates, with a cylindrical tower build in concrete. Styled with twelve pilaster columns, that would be painted black making the day mark more visible, to be seen against the white tower. The lantern room had a fourth-order Fresnel lens with a visibility of fourteen miles. A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit the area in 1933, but the tower sustained the tremors. In 1966 a three-foot-long sea, named Charlie by the keepers, seemed to move in and kept them company for a while. The light was automated in 1975. A modern beacon was installed after the removal of the Fresnel lens in 1987.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse, Pigeon Point. The first to be built was the Victorian styled four-plex and a fog signal in 1871. Then a 115-foot brick tower was built with numerous delays, from difficulty with the spiral staircase, and getting the first-order Fresnel lens, assembled in the lantern room. Both Pigeon Point Light and Port Arena Light share the title of being the tallest lighthouse towers in California. In 1878 one of the children of a keeper fell over the bluff into the sea, so safety was causing anxious times for the families stationed there. By 1906 there were four keepers and their families living at the point, and additional living quarters were needed. In 1960 the original four-plex was demolished to be replaced by four ranch-style dwellings. The name for the point came about when in 1853 a ship named the Carrier Pigeon would run aground at the point and from that time on the point of land closest to where the ship had wrecked was called Pigeon Point. The station was automated in 1974 after a rotating-beacon was placed in the balcony of the lantern room when the Fresnel lens was deactivated. The tower was closed to the public after pieces of the brick and iron cornice fell to the ground in 2001. The lighthouse was transferred to the State of California in 2005 to help with restoration and the reopening of the light to the public. In 2011 the Fresnel lens was removed from the lantern room and is now displayed in the fog signal building.

As I have ‘followed’ these lighthouse around the country in my research, I have always been amazed depending on where you are in the country the styles used to construct these lighthouses is always different, mostly in California these lighthouses are based on high bluffs or cliffs, with always the hope of less erosion over time, and because they are so high on the cliffs the towers can be made shorter, unlike the east coast lights that are built predominately in sand, where the erosion has had a major damaging effect on many of the lights, and being level with the water their tower are usually taller.

On that ‘wee note’ till next month, Monday October 7, 2024

All images used are from the author’s collection.

‘How Fast Can Uncle Billy Run?’

Linda’s Month Monday Morning Mornings for August 5, 2024

While waiting for the ‘Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast’ to be published I have been researching and working on the last of the lighthouse books for Arcadia Publishing, no firm title yet, but’ Lighthouse of the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States’ is probably a good start. While research North Carolina lights, I came across an amusing story written some time ago, and wanted to share this article, worthy of a smile.

A new lighthouse was built in 1812, in the Outer Banks area of treacherous shoals and beautiful safe harbor. The lighthouse was constructed with an inner brick core and an outer wooden structure, with cedar shingles painted in red and white diagonal stripes. It didn’t take long for it to be realized, that the light tower was not tall enough or bright enough. It wouldn’t be until 1859 before a new and very much improved light tower was constructed called Cape Lookout Lighthouse. With the two lighthouses only 100 feet apart, what should be done with the old light?

A contractor was hired to demolish the structure, normally using dynamite, with the keepers house and the new light, stable and barnes so closed that idea wasn’t good. It was then thought of ‘Uncle Billy Hancock’ considered to be the ‘fastest man in North Carolina’. But, could he out run a falling brick lighthouse? Piece of cake, bragged Billy, “If’n I can get that last brick out, I can outrun her”.

The date was set, the word was put out, Uncle Billy was going to knock down the old lighthouse. People would come from all around, school was let out early and it became a public holiday. This would be the biggest event in those parts for some time.

Uncle Billy set his plan. “I’ll swing with all me might, and when the last brick goes out, then I’ll let go of the hammer and right on aturnin’, then I’ll cut on back to the house, and pocket my five dollars”. Well Billy’s plan worked just fine, he swung the hammer, the brick fell out and the hammer dropped. But while he was aturnin’ his feet got tangled up and he fell onto his hands and knees, right beneath the falling lighthouse……

This story picks up the next day, when Buddy Earl, who had witnessed the event, was over at the Harkers Island ‘Beehive’ the local general store and post office. People were anxious to hear what happened, so when Buddy got to the point where Billy fell, one of the impatient listens said, “hurry up, tell us”, HOW FAST DID UNCLE BILLY RUN? The storyteller spit out his chew of tobacco, took a long pull on his long necked Pepsi then paused for effect. “Wal” he said slowly, “don’t rightly know how fast he kin run- but he kin shore as the devil crawl 35 miles and hour”!

On that ‘wee note’ till next month Monday September 2nd, 2024.

Courtesy of ‘Fishhouse Lies’ by Sonny Williamson, 1996, courtesy of the Carteret County Historical Society, Morehead City, North Carolina, courtesy of Lighthouse Digest, 2023. Artist rendition of the first Cape Lookout, courtesy of Karen Duggan, Cape Lookout National Seashore.

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