St. Simons Lighthouse shines through the years: 150 and counting

Aug. 18—As far as beloved landmarks go, the 104-foot-high glimmering white tower of bricks and mortar that comprises the St. Simons Lighthouse stacks up with the best of them.

It is enduring too. This quaintly majestic lighthouse that commands the skyline overlooking the sprawling oak-draped waterfront quad at Neptune Park is 150 years old this year. While hosting thousands of visitors annually, the lighthouse continues to serve the same maritime function today that it first performed upon its completion in 1872.

And not only that. The original French-cut, 7-foot-high crystal lens that first transmitted a welcoming light from an oil-and-wick lamp atop the lighthouse back then is still on the job today. Nowadays, that Fresnel lens sends an electronic, computerized flash to beckon incoming sea captains from as far as 23 miles out.

The glimpse of that guiding light, casting itself oceanward from a spire on the horizon, is as encouraging to captains of massive contemporary turbo-charged freighters as it was to steamship and sailing mariners during the 19th century timber boom hereabouts.

Just ask Bruce Fendig, a Brunswick harbor pilot who hails from a family of Brunswick harbor pilots.

"It's been a working aid to navigation as long as it's been here," Fendig said. "There are a lot of technological tools in the toolbox these days, and of course there's GPS. But that lighthouse is still as viable as ever. Nothing replaces actually seeing a terrestrial object."

The tapered conical edifice that presides over the entrance to the St. Simons Sound also radiates a certain galvanizing reassurance to those of us who call this port home. But its prominent architectural features might strike a familiar chord with folks from the Great Lakes region as well. It was, after all, Orlando Poe's signature design during his post-Civil War tenure as the chief architect of the U.S. Lighthouse Board. At places like Grosse Point on Lake Michigan and Spectacle Reef on Lake Huron, they are known even today simply as a "Poe Lighthouse."

But we could fill this entire space with accolades for the St. Simons Lighthouse's visual charms and functional relevance, yet still never get off the ground, so to speak. It is about like saying St. Simons Island is a barrier island on the Georgia Coast that is 12 miles long and 3 miles wide with 14,000 residents.

Likewise, it would be folly to describe the lighthouse thusly and leave it at that.

Our lighthouse is a veritable melting pot of the Golden Isles' history, attributes and character. Sure, Poe designed it, and Georgia architect Charles Cluskey built it. But the St. Simons Lighthouse's more ephemeral qualities are conjured from the essence of all that we are now and what we once were. It a truly American story.

Within the bricks and spiraling 129-step staircase of the St. Simons Lighthouse, there is love and prosperity, acrimony and war, life and death, hope and despair. No way you have all this human striving without stumbling across a good ghost story. And the tale of the St. Simons Lighthouse phantom is a real doozy, perhaps one of the most intriguing ghost stories along the entire Atlantic coast.

Heck, the lighthouse itself was built atop the ghost of its predecessor — a 75-foot-tall structure that held enough of the above human elements to fill a historical romance novel. And it did.

Eugenia Price's beloved St. Simons Island trilogy begins with the novel "Lighthouse." This piece of fiction tells the true-life story of James Gould's efforts to build the island's first lighthouse. To save money for such an endeavor on this frontier outpost of the fledgling nation, Gould recycled the tabby ruins of Fort Frederica (est. 1736) to build the thing.

And Gould became so enamored with the project that he promptly applied to be the first lighthouse keeper upon its completion in 1810. It is all there in Price's novel. While her sappy prose sticks to the romance novel formula, even the most discerning local literature devotees admire her attention to accurate historical detail.

Gould served as the original lighthouse keeper for the next 27 years. He and wife Janie then moved to St. Clair Plantation on the island, where Gould presided until his death in 1852.

War came in 1861

Retreating Confederates put a powder keg to Gould's lighthouse shortly after, better to blow it up than to render it into the hands of the occupying Union forces.

James Gould's son Horace Gould was among those who entered the burgeoning timber boom that rose from the local ashes of Southern defeat. With ships calling on our coast from throughout the nation and the world for the lumber and naval stores thus produced, we would need a new lighthouse.

Enter Poe and Cluskey

Taking Poe's blueprint and a $45,000 contract from the U.S. government, Cluskey and his team went to work in late 1869. The builder of the Greek revival-style Governor's Mansion in Milledgeville and the Medical College of Augusta, Cluskey would not live to see completion of the St. Simons Lighthouse. Malaria struck him down in 1871, but the lighthouse construction crew soldiered on.

The lighthouse officially opened to serve maritime navigation on Sept. 1, 1872. The structure includes the two-story lightkeeper's dwelling that serves today as a museum at the visitors' entrance to the lighthouse tower. This adjoining house included living quarters for the lighthouse keeper on the first floor and the assistant keeper above. A large brick storage bin for lamp oil is attached to the western base of the tower. Cluskey employed Savannah gray brick in the lighthouse's construction.

A succession of lighthouse keepers and assistants occupied the dwelling until the lighthouse became completely automated in 1950s. Ascending and descending the stairs several times daily to keep the lamp oiled and its rotation-chain wound required a special breed of person.

Perhaps the most efficient team to occupy the lighthouse was the husband-and-wife duo of Isaac and Dora Beckham, the keeper and assistant keeper from 1883-93. Isaac had ridden with the Confederacy's 4th Georgia Cavalry. Dora's family remained in Glynn County and out of the war until its final days. Then, her father, John Lasserre, in an act of intrigue and trepidation, slipped past Confederate lines to deliver a sailing sloop and 20 bales of contraband cotton to the Union naval blockade offshore.

Dora and Isaac met on nearby Little Cumberland Island when both resided there after the war. The couple apparently never quibbled about their opposing sides during the war years.

They lived happily at the lighthouse, drawing much praise as one of the best lighthouse teams in the Division of Lighthouse Service's 6th District, according to accounts from the Brunswick Advertiser and Appeal. The paper of record back then also praised Dora's marksmanship and cooking skills, the former providing fowl for the latter. Meanwhile, the affable Isaac's green thumb begat a bounty of prize-worthy produce and praise. The couple retired from lighthouse keeping to farm a plot on the island's north end, according to newspaper accounts.

Not nearly so harmonious was the light-keeping team of Frederick Osborne and assistant John Stephens, 1874-80. Both were married men. The foursome so comprised made for decidedly cramped quarters. Osborne could be abrupt, perhaps petty. He had no problem noting perceived shortcomings in others. Stephens was among several assistants who suffered under Osborne's tenure.

Whatever personal slights Stephens may have endured, he could not abide a barb Osborne aimed at his wife. The two men stepped outside the lighthouse to air their grievances.

Tempers flared. Osborne pulled a pistol, demanding his subordinate stand down. Stephens walked away, stepping inside. He emerged with a double-barreled shotgun.

The shot hit his boss in four places, including the gut. Osborne died several days later.

"It is an affair very much regretted by many friends of both parties," The Advertiser and Appeal reported.

Stephens also expressed regret. His sincere contrition no doubt influenced the jury that later acquitted him of murder in courtroom proceedings over in Brunswick. Since no one else knew the workings of the lighthouse, Stephens returned to work.

Apparitions of the slain lighthouse keeper and the plod of his footsteps naturally emerged among the ensuing generations of lightkeepers and visitors. Stephens too reported hearing his former boss's boots thumping upon the stone steps.

Osborne's poltergeist spooked a couple of pooches as well, including Stephens' dog and Jinx, the family dog of turn-of-the-century lighthouse keeper Carl Svendsen. And it was in the aid of Svendsen's wife that the ghost of Osborne shined its brightest.

Yes, it really was a dark and stormy night that fateful evening Annie Svendsen ascended the shadowy lighthouse stairs in her husband's absence. She reached the top amid banshee howls of offshore gusts through the tower's open windows only to discover a glitch in the mechanism.

Sensing Osborne's eerie presence in her midst, Annie made a seemingly feeble request.

"Well, come and fix it now," she said.

Osborne suddenly appeared to Annie, clear as day. Annie fainted on the spot, so the story goes. He then obliged her request. The lighthouse was in fine working order when she came to.

It was in all the papers, the retelling of this ghost tale making headlines across the country.

These days, the lighthouse's winding staircase is the benign haunt of tourists and locals, visitors both domestic and international, young and old. Operated under the auspices of the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, the lighthouse hosts some 50,000 visitors annually.

On any given Saturday, youngsters scamper past the not-so-young in a spiraling pilgrimage to the top. There the visitors step out onto the encircling promenade, rewarded with what is easily one of the best panoramic views in all the Golden Isles.

Meanwhile, on this very night a flash of light from these shores will beckon to a ship many miles out into the ocean. The ship's captain will not know all that we know about the light's source, or what it means to us. But the beacon's glow will give the captain a sense of comfort unlike anything we ourselves might imagine.

"People from all over the world take comfort in seeing that light," Fendig said.