Honoring Women Lighthouse Keepers for Women’s History Month

A great many women have kept the lights burning at lighthouses across the United States for hundreds of years, beginning as family affairs with wives and daughters sharing the duties of husbands and fathers. After Hannah Thomas took up the mantle of principal lighthouse keeper for Plymouth Lighthouse in 1776, the rest, as they say, is history, with 507 women listed as keepers at the United States Lighthouse Society.

For Women’s History Month, the Twin Lights Historical Society would like to recognize and honor two women who served in our region; Nancy Rose and Kate Walker. 

KATHERINE WALKER

Called “a home-stayer of the most chronic type”, Mrs. Katherine Walker was suited to the solitary nature of being a lighthouse keeper. Similar to Nancy Rose, Kate took up the mantle after her husband died, spending fourteen years of her twenty three in service as sole keeper of Robbin’s Reef lighthouse just north of Staten Island. 

If you thought Nancy Rose’s home was small, Kate’s was purely a lighthouse set on top of a sheer cliff of rocks though she did have a spectacular view of the New York skyline. She often looked on in wonder but claimed to never want to visit, feeling unable to cope with the pace of New York. 

Kate Walker - Photo courtesy of The Candace J. Clifford Lighthouse Research Catalog

Her day began at night with a gunshot alert from Governor’s Island, signaling sunset. From then on, the light would blink every six seconds, able to be seen from twenty miles away. She would check wicks, keep logs, polish brass, and keep constant vigil for fog. When it did roll in, Kate would start an engine in the basement that blasted a fog horn every three seconds to guide ships through the sometimes treacherous New York Harbor. By her count, Kate had rescued fifty people and a dog from the New York Harbor throughout her service and had to be rescued herself as least once when a sudden storm nearly sunk her rowboat. 

After thirty-three years of service, in 1919 her son took over and Kate Walker retired to a small cottage on Staten Island with a garden. Hurricane Sandy damaged the lighthouse in 2012 and is currently being restored as a museum dedicated to her life and service.

NANCY ROSE

When Nancy Rose passed away at the age of eighty, she had been working for forty-five years as sole keeper of The Stony Point Lighthouse, and before that for five years beside her husband. Her hard work and dedication included keeping lights lit through clear weather and storms, each month of the year, even in the depths of winter when ice built up thick on the Hudson River. Lamps in the biggest of the two lighthouses would have to be changed at midnight atop a large hill. In the densest of fog, the lower tower clockwork would have to be wound nearly every two hours so that the fog bell continuously rang every fifteen seconds to alert ships blinded by the fog. Mrs. Rose recalls a time where the machinery malfunctioned and she spent fifty-six hours straight manually ringing the bell in freezing winter, without food or sleep, until the fog dissipated.  

Nancy Rose - Photo courtesy of The Candace J. Clifford Lighthouse Research Catalog

Some might consider such a life as hard and lonesome, and perhaps it was, though Nancy lived with her daughter and son in a little cottage surrounded by flowers and garden beds with chickens and a cow. Melinda, her daughter, said the cow's death was the only point of excitement during her time there, her son claiming in the same article that he would rather pick huckleberries on a mountain than become a lighthouse keeper like their parents before.

With half a century of service under her belt, not only is Nancy one of the longest serving female keepers, but a rather apt defender! According to a newspaper clipping from 1903, “Mrs. Nancy Rose… is the heroine of a combat in the historic lighthouse at Stony Point on the Hudson, in which she was pitted against a lunatic. Armed only with a poker, the woman… bravely stood her ground and drove back her assailant... He climbed into the tower, and exclaiming that the light must be torn down, started to demolish things. Mrs. Rose seized a poker and belabored him. He stood the rain of blows a moment and then fled, locking the door as he went. The old lady sounded the fog bell and secured aid.”

In another article of the same year Nancy was asked if she could tell them of an interesting experience of her career to which she replied, “No, there haven’t been any.” 

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Over a hundred years later, it doesn’t feel as shocking to hear that women held positions such as this, but after Hannah Thomas began her duties it was impossible at times for women to be fully recognized as a lighthouse keeper by title nor by pay, making merely a few hundreds dollar a year for these rigorous and dangerous jobs. A headline from 1916 reads “New Occupation for Women Found by Mrs. Walker: She Goes Shopping Only Four Times a Year,” and yet articles highlighted Kate Walker’s shopping habits, saying “...she doesn’t have to buy much because she has no neighbors to talk about her if she wears last year’s dress this year.” The previously mentioned 1903 article on Nancy Rose made sure to mention that she was still a good homemaker and wife through her service, and that the government inspector said she kept a tidy house.

For decades before the time of Nancy Rose and Kate Walker, women fought for the right to vote beside men while some women worked beside them and in their place such as these keepers. To learn more about these trailblazers visit the United States Lighthouse Society website and visit Twin Lights to learn more about the duties of a lighthouse keeper first hand.

Visit Twin Lights to see the new exhibit A Guiding Light, and learn more about the women lighthouse keepers of the Raritan Bay, New York Harbor and Lower Hudson Valley.