Sally Snowman - and she's retiring. One of those interesting New Yorker stories.
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As we cut through a sliver of water between Grape Island and Slate Island, the flash of Boston Light pulsed at the horizon. The tower, now a historic landmark, was built after urgent lobbying by Massachusetts merchants, who were alarmed by the loss of ships, goods, and “his majestie’s subjects” on the harbor’s many shoals and islands. The Massachusetts Bay Colony’s economy depended on international trade, so the general assembly swiftly authorized “a wave-swept light,” exposed on each side to wind and open ocean, and a keeper who “shall carefully and diligently attend his duty at all times.”
In Nantasket Roads—the narrow, hazard-strewn historic main route into the harbor—we passed above the sites of scores of early shipwrecks. Gradually, a classic tableau came into view: a tapering stone tower, a white clapboard keeper’s house with green trim, a small boathouse. As we stepped ashore, Snowman cautioned, “Watch out for seagull poop. The gulls have taken over.” Unlike the forested islands along the way, Little Brewster had no trees—presumably cut down long ago, for building material and fuel. A neon-orange No Trespassing sign was planted on the lawn, and the boathouse was empty; water rats have burrowed underneath. Snowman unlocked the keeper’s house, built in 1884 near the water’s edge. In the vestibule was a wooden sign painted with a beaming lighthouse and the legend “We will leave the light on for you.”
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