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Sunday, February 4, 2001 Fernandina light lives long, quiet lifeBy JIM TILLER | News-Journal Photojournalist DAYTONA BEACH — Misty rain fogged the corners of my windshield as I drove slowly through a middle-class subdivision west of Fernandina Beach. The entrance to Amelia Lighthouse, I was told, was a small unmarked service road lying between two homes. The lighthouse that for more than a century stood alone now seemed squeezed into a pocket of the past, a landmark rising from the lawns. Finding the service road, I drove up to the locked gate and waited for Helen O'Hagan Sintes, the daughter of Amelia Lighthouse's last keeper and granddaughter to a past Ponce Inlet Lighthouse keeper. She now serves with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which oversees the lighthouse's needs. The urge to jump the fence and explore was interrupted by a barking dog and the familiar sound of a garbage can being dragged to the curb nearby. Instead I waited. Less than 100 feet away, Amelia Lighthouse, Florida's northernmost light, remained hidden from sight by pine trees and a solitary oak laden with moss which hung motionless in the cold, damp morning air. Built in 1820, the lighthouse began its service as Georgia's southernmost light on the southern tip of Cumberland Island, where it guided ships through Cumberland Sound: between Georgia and Spanish Florida. In 1837, at a cost of $8,000, the light was dismantled and reestablished on Amelia Island. Helen arrived soon with her friend Bruce Magyar, and we walked up a blacktop path toward the lighthouse. She carried a scrapbook of photos from her childhood, a visual tour of growing up in the shadow of the light. The lightkeeper's house where she grew up was removed soon after automation in the mid-50s. No sign of the keeper's home remains except for a cistern well sunk into the ground. Entering the lighthouse was like walking into a freezer. The chill of the old brick and the still, night-cooled air dropped the temperature at least 20 degrees lower than outside. Facing me were 68 hand-carved granite spiral stairs, quarried in New England and assembled here in a fashion unkind to photographers. My cameras scraped the walls on the steep, claustrophobic climb, until we arrived at the cast-iron service gallery below the lantern room. It was here, 180 years ago, that the original lighting apparatus -- 15 whale oil lamps and reflectors -- was prepared each day. The power source became kerosene in 1881. In 1903, 15 lamps gave way to one -- surrounded by a glass prism known as a third-order Fresnel lens. The apparatus remains in place today, but the power source became electricity in 1935. In the glass-enclosed lantern room, the view to the east looks much as it has for two centuries. Rising 107 feet above a tidal marsh, the Amelia Lighthouse produces a white flash capable of being seen 23 miles at sea. The lighthouse still signals ships, but is closed to the public. |
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