Boston Light love began early for harbor island's first and last female keeper

HULL − Say the name "Sally Snowman," and many people will think of Boston Light, the nation's first lighthouse, on Little Brewster Island in Boston's outer harbor.

Some may have been greeted by Snowman, smiling and waving her handkerchief, dressed in an 18th-century costume that she made herself, coming down to the dock from the keeper's house when tour boats arrived.

Some were once civilian volunteers, members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, who helped her with her many chores and felt fortunate to be there. Others heard her speak about the island's history at mainland programs.

For 20 years, from 2003 to 2023, Sally Snowman was the official keeper of Boston Light. In many ways, its history defined her. She was the first female lighthouse keeper in the country and, this past Sunday, the final lighthouse keeper nationwide to step down.

Snowman, 72, would have kept on "keeping" at the lighthouse as long as she was physically able, but change has come to the U.S. Coast Guard. The federal agency has eliminated the keeper position and is turning all of the nation's lighthouses over to owners ranging from state and federal agencies to nonprofits and individuals, such as Dave Waller at Graves Light Station.

Boston Light, established in 1716, the first lighthouse in the Colonies, was blown up by the British in 1776 and rebuilt in 1783. It is being transferred to a new owner, who will be required to preserve the property, Snowman said. No official announcement has been made.

For Snowman, this is a life-changing transition.

"My soul is out there," she said a week ago, standing by the shore near the Hull Lifesaving Museum as the Boston Light beacon flashed every 10 seconds on a foggy morning. She had two work days left.

Starting in the fall, as her retirement date of Dec. 31 crept closer, Snowman began showing up on TV and radio news, in magazines and newspaper and social media. Reporters from around the country and overseas were eager to capture the moment, intrigued with Boston's maritime history. She clocked 30 hours of time for one interview alone.

She has been a gracious presence, mixing Boston Light and Coast Guard facts with heartfelt, sometimes mystical memories and tributes. After all, she basically lived on the island, with her husband there on weekends, from 2003 to 2018, and then made day trips.

With a quiet intensity, she has spoken of her love for Little Brewster and Boston Light, the place she would rather be over any other. This is where she is at peace, where she finds the sounds of the waves energizing, the expanse of the ocean comforting, and a spiritual connection in both the solitude and in the company of wildlife.

"I love being outdoors, being in nature," she said.

She feels exuberant watching seals in the water and calmed by the sound of the waves and winds, transported by the changing colors and cloud patterns of sunrises and sunsets.

Keeper Sally, a doyenne of practical detail, threw herself into managing all the tasks that the Coast Guard Auxiliaries and assistant keepers helped her to do. She cleaned brass fixtures and windows, whitewashed buildings, painted trim.

She had to leave the lighthouse. It hasn't left her.

How do you walk away from something that has been the center of your life for so long − a lighthouse that you announced was your heartthrob when you were 10?

"The past few weeks, I have had so many loose ends to tie up, I haven't seriously thought about it," she said.

Then she quietly continued.

"Because of the rules and regulations of the Coast Guard, I don't usually share this part of myself. The whole spiritual side of me, free-flowing.

"I have a small private practice, in my home, called the Harmonic Sanctuary of Enlightenment. I practice healing by sound, using sound to move energy out of the body, drumming circles."

The sanctuary is in the long, rectangular living room of the home she and her husband, Jay Thomson, own in North Weymouth. It is the house where she grew up.

She speaks of spiritual journeys she has made − to Egypt, Peru, Bolivia, England, sacred sites in New England − drumming, chanting, creating rhythms with rattles, metal bells and glass bowls.

In retirement, Keeper Sally is turning in a new direction but still hopes to volunteer on the islands.

With determination, she graduated in 1969 from Weymouth High School and persisted through courses to graduate from Bridgewater State College in 1993, with majors in education and music. She obtained a master's in education from Curry College in Milton and a Ph.D. in psycholinguistics from online Walden University, became a learning disability specialist, taught at Curry College in Milton for 17 years, and wrote three books, including "Boston Light: A Historical Perspective," with Thomson.

In 1961, when she was 10, her father, Roger Snowman, a marine engineer and a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, took her for a ride in his dinghy from North Weymouth out to Little Brewster Island. Both her parents loved being on the water. Roger had met Sally's mother, Virginia, at the Wessagussett Yacht Club.

Sally stepped onto shore, looked up at the lighthouse, and was so moved she announced she wanted to be married there someday. And she was, in 1994, to Thomson, a civil engineer for the town of Plymouth and, like Snowman, a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Both love history.

Snowman described herself as a sensitive child who made up her own songs and was always drumming on soda bottles, who struggled in school and was diagnosed in her 30s with her own learning issues.

"I do hear the beat of a different drummer," she said.

She joined the auxiliary in 1976 and in 1994 began frequent trips to Boston Light. Once she landed the keeper's job at age 52, it became her home. After the island buildings failed a public safety check in 2018, she and Jay lived in Weymouth and traveled back and forth by boat.

The U.S. Park Service tours stopped in 2018, but the public could still pull up at the Little Brewster dock on "tour days" and come on land to see the tower and enjoy the views.

One day, she was waiting for a Boston tour boat to arrive when a large yacht, 55 feet long, pulled up to the 50-foot dock, leaving no space. She ran down to the dock and told the captain, as nicely as she could, that he would have to leave. Then she realized Gov. Charlie Baker was the passenger.

"He started to laugh and said that I was right, that I was just doing my job," she said.

Snowman resisted suggestions that she could retire in 2019; she wanted to stay for her full 20-years until it was transferred to a private owner.

Snowman once described her job as "You work! You show ingenuity."

No doubt she will find new ways to keep doing just that. For now, Boston Light and its beacon, automated since 1998, are visible nearly a mile away in Hull.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Sally Snowman retires from post as Boston Light's keeper