CatherineHennessey.com - A disoriented range light

A V I E W F R O M C H A R L O T T E T O W N , P R I N C E E D W A R D I S L A N D

A disoriented range light

Good news today. The Coast Guard is going to save the Range Light at Brighton Shore. It had been pushed off its base by that perculiar surge tide we had in January or February. When they first looked at it their inclination was to tear it down and put up one of those disinteresting steel beam ones that no artist worth his salt would ever paint. Their decision today gives one faith that hard-edged practical gov't departments can listen. I'd take a bet with them that they choose the route that will be less expensive and the MOST popular. Thank you, Thank you. What would the Atlantic Coast - or any coast be without lighthouses. The exact date of this light has been hard to find. It isn't in the 1880 Atlas, it doesn't even look as if its on the 1922 Insurance Map. It is strange. I do have a note in a December 1910, Examiner about new vapor lights having been placed in the "two Brighton Ranges". The same article as notes that "...a signaling gun shall be placed on St. Peter's Island to be used on certain occasions during the winter when the steamers are combating heavy ice or thick weather. The ammunition for this gun will be gun-cotton and it will make a report to be heard a distance of nine or ten miles" Don't you like that. We should get after The Coast Guard to replace that gun, too. Maps aren't going to solve this date problem obviously. We'll have to go after charts. You know we should do more planning of Charlotte Town out sitting on the Three Tides. It gives a whole different prespective. Note: Took an architect friend of mind to have a look at the building and he commented that the north wall had in its disorientation a "troncated trapezoid" look about. Now if our Federal friends had known that they might have been discouraged. In the meantime I'm sure you join me in contemplating such a description for such a dear simple little building.

Written Thursday, May 04, 2000 at 11:06 PM

Website design and construction by Reinvented Inc.

ISSN 1496-3108