O.K. Hall's First Day At Work

An excerpt from the forthcoming book,
Lamps In The Wilderness:
The Story Of the Apostle Islands Lighthouses

Orator K. Hall was feeling a distinct sense of relief. It was his first day on a challenging new job, and things seemed to be going his way.

This was no ordinary job that Hall was starting: he had managed to secure appointment as keeper of the new light station on Outer Island. Though lacking lighthouse experience, he now found himself in charge of one of the most important lights on Lake Superior.

Construction had begun on the lighthouse more than a year before, and on this day, September 17, 1874, work was nearly done. The elegant tower, designed not just for utility, but with grace and beauty in mind, rose to its full height of eighty feet. With nearly fifty more feet of elevation gained by its blufftop setting, the large third-order Fresnel lens would soon cast its beam nineteen miles across the lake. More than just a guidepost to a single harbor, the Outer Island light would become a key reference point for navigation on Lake Superior.

Outer Island Lighthouse

O.K. Hall would have to learn his duties on the job, and he'd have to do it quickly: once the construction crew was finished with last-minute chores, they'd pile into a boat and leave Hall to run the station on his own. From then on, twenty-two miles from the mainland, lacking any means of contact with his superiors or fellow lightkeepers, Hall would have to figure things out on his own.

Although Hall would have an assistant to share the work, the fact offered little comfort. John Drouillard had no more experience than his boss did. Later on, Hall would recall that he hired Drouillard with reluctance; wages for the position were low, and he could not seem to find an experienced man who would take the job.

Good luck seemed to be with O.K. Hall on his first day, though. In the morning, at Bayfield, just as he got ready to load his household goods onto a sailboat for the journey to Outer Island, he encountered three workers who were heading out to his lighthouse to install the fog signal. Forsaking the slow sailboat, he joined the crew on a steam tug, and rode to the island in comparative speed and comfort.

On arrival, he found he'd gotten an even bigger break: Mr. Crump, the "lampist," had just turned up at Outer Island, and was planning on staying for several days. Crump would be able to give the new keeper expert instruction on the workings of the beacon; as Hall noted, "I was just in time to learn and improve all I could in running it."

Hall watched the lamp technician closely as he set up the illuminating apparatus and adjusted the clockwork so that the third-order lens would revolve smoothly and precisely. The lampist's skill impressed him; he later noted, diffidently, "Mr.Crump worked diligently and completed it in a workman-like manner with pleasure to himself and honor to the craft - if I am any judge."

Then came an opportunity to practice trimming the wick, adjusting the valves, and winding the clockwork so that the lighthouse would show a clear and steady light, flashing at precise intervals. The task was not easy, but after several hours of work, Hall finally decided he had mastered the lamp. He recorded his accomplishment with wry pride on the first page of the new station's logbook:

"I ran it one-half day to see if I could handle the critter. I put on a good light, but my overflow was too great, which I remedied. After a good deal of sweat and anxiety I conquered the kicking critter."

How did a man who found a lighthouse lamp so intimidating gain the position of keeper at an important new light? How was it that the arrival of the lampist and the fog signal crew came as a surprise to the man ostensibly in charge of the station?

Evidence suggests that Hall, like many other keepers of his time, may have secured his appointment through political influence. Though more than twenty years had passed since the creation of the U.S. Lighthouse Board, with its mandate to improve the administration of the lighthouse service, the system was still infected by cronyism and patronage. Several other less-than-qualified individuals had gotten keepers' posts in the Apostle Islands on the strength of recommendations from prominent politicians, and subsequent events were to demonstrate that Hall could call on influential friends when the need arose.

If Outer Island's first keeper had indeed been handed his job as a patronage plum, it would not be the only time the establishment and construction of the station was sullied by questionable practices. While the early difficulties at Outer Island were not so egregious as the misplacing of the LaPointe light on Michigan Island, nonetheless, the station did not have an easy birth.

A Lighthouse On The Outermost Island

The construction of a lighthouse at the northern tip of the outermost Apostle Island represented a substantial shift in siting philosophy. The first three Apostles lights had been located to guide ships through the archipelago; now one would be built to guide traffic past the island chain. The lights on Michigan and Long Islands served to direct ships heading for the venerable settlement at LaPointe, while the Raspberry Island lighthouse was built to mark the passage to the new port of Bayfield. In contrast, the Outer Island tower would shine its beam toward the open lake, lighting the way for ships traveling directly from the Soo locks to the ports of Duluth and Superior at the lake's west end.

Duluth, Superior, Bayfield, and Ashland had all been founded within a three-year period in the mid-1850s, and for a time, it seemed an open question which would gain pre-eminence as the dominant port of western Lake Superior. The commercial decline of LaPointe appeared certain; its island location might have served well enough for a wilderness trading post, but ruled it out as a serious contender in an industrial age. The future lay with a port that could connect to the nation's expanding railroad network.

In March, 1868, the Wisconsin State Legislature presented a petition to the U.S. Senate seeking the construction of a lighthouse that would serve the interests of Wisconsin's westernmost Lake Superior port:

Your memorialists, the legislature of the state of Wisconsin, would most respectfully ask for the location of a lighthouse on Outer Island, Lake Superior. This island is the easternmost of a dangerous group of islands lying off a point the right on the course of vessels bound in and out of the important and much frequented harbor of Superior.

Your memorialists further respectfully represent that consideration for the safety of the many lives and vessels exposed to the perils of these dangerous islands urgently demand that Outer Island should be supplied as speedily as possible with a suitable lighthouse.

Instructions to assess this request were duly forwarded to T. H. Stevens, Inspector in the Eleventh District. In his reply, Stevens disputed the petitioners' view of the importance of the port at Superior:

...as the whole number of vessels arriving at Superior City, as represented in a former report for the months of May, June and July of the present season was less than 25 of all descriptions. I do not consider an addition to the number of the lights already established in this portion of the Lakes as required.

There was no pressing need, he concluded, for a light on Outer Island. Stevens did leave the door open in case of changing conditions:

When the channels of commerce or established in the country better developed, a light at this point would be of value to vessels bound outside of the Apostles directly to the lower and Western ends of the lake.

 

In just three years, however, it seemed that the Lighthouse Board had concluded that this change had already come. The agency's annual report for 1871 contains this recommendation:

The through commerce to and from the western end of Lake Superior, increasing so rapidly as railroads having termini at Duluth are extended to westward, all passes outside of the Apostle Islands, and is greatly in need of lighthouse on the northern end of Outer Island.

Events quickly underscored the contentions of the Lighthouse Board. Duluth had won the race for rail connections in 1870, beating out its Wisconsin rivals. The city's first grain elevator was built the same year. Though fluctuations in the national economy would deal Duluth a series of temporary setbacks, the decade of the 1870s saw the city's emergence as a major shipping center for grain from the booming wheat farms of Minnesota and the Dakotas. Lumber and iron ore cargoes would rise in importance shortly after. Nonetheless, the recommendation for a lighthouse was not heeded, and the request was repeated in 1872, again without result.

In February, 1873, though, a respected voice was added to the chorus. Major Orlando M. Poe, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, wrote:

"The proposed light on Outer Island is of importance to all that portion of the through commerce of Lake Superior passing to or from the westward of the Apostle Islands, that is to say the commerce of Duluth and Superior City. It is demanded by a much larger commerce than will use L'Anse and will be a Lake Coast light instead of a harbor light."

Less than ten days after the date of Poe's letter, Congress appropriated funds for the construction of a lighthouse on Outer Island.

That was the last time anything having to do with the Outer Island Lighthouse went quickly, or smoothly.

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