Description
Image of the keeper and the Fog Signal Station on Manana Island taken by Eric Hudson (1862-1932) In 1898, the lighthouse keeper was Daniel Stevens who served there between 1890-1902.
"Dressed in oilskins, the keeper of the U.S. Lighthouse Service's Fog Signal Station looks out to sea from his elevated vantage point on the west side of Manana Island. In 1854 Congress voted to establish a fog signal on Manana; it was installed the following year in the form of the large bell seen in this photograph. Cast in 1855 at Henry N. Hooper's foundry in Boston, the bell was struck by hand to give the warning. The historic bell was acquired from the U.S. Coast Guard by Monhegan Associates in 1969 and moved by helicopter to Lighthouse Hill on Monhegan Island in 1972, where it is displayed on the grounds of the Monhegan Museum. The bell is the subject of one of Eric Hudson's early Monhegan canvases, and it has become a familiar icon through the powerful simplicity of Jamie Wyeth's 1967 oil painting "Bronze Age." (Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr. in the book, "An Eye for the Coast: The Maritime and Monhegan Island Photographs of Eric Hudson", p. 130)
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