DELAWARE KEEPERS

Tabler offers a history of Delaware’s lighthouses and their keepers.

The latest in the author’s series of books illuminating Delaware’s history focuses on the lighthouse keepers who warned sailors away from the Delaware coast for nearly two centuries, beginning in 1769 and extending through periods of war, revolution, and civil unrest. As in his earlier books, Tabler cites an enormous array of primary sources, from local newspaper accounts to genealogies, to flesh out in great detail the stories of the men and women who took on this job for around 170 years. Throughout, Tabler stresses that the stereotypical image of a lighthouse keeper held by most Americans, that of “the bearded hermit tending his lamp through howling storms, slowly losing his grip on sanity in the endless haze,” is completely wrong. The characters he describes in these pages are generally well-balanced family members and integral participants in their communities. The stories range from the 1760s (John and Elizabeth Dickerson kept the first beacons at Delaware’s Cape Henlopen) to the advent of lighthouse automation in the 1940s to the tales of men like William H. Johnson, the last keeper of the Christiana Lighthouse, whose duties by 1939 had been reduced to “little more than polishing lenses and keeping equipment in condition.” Each era and story is carefully grounded in footnoted sources, although none of those sources approach the comprehensive sweep of Tabler’s own accounts.

Far more so than in many of his earlier books, the author strikes a melancholy note in this work, frequently reminding readers that the story he’s telling comes to a sordid and ignominious ending. By his reckoning, Delaware has done a fairly shoddy job of honoring the history of these beacons that saved so many mariners’ lives over the years. Old lighthouses are neglected or torn down, and their accompanying residential structures are demolished in a casual erasure that Tabler views as an important loss: “As the towers fell and the houses were stripped for lumber, something more intangible was disappearing alongside them: the very idea of the lighthouse keeper as a meaningful figure in American life.” This somber note is effectively counterbalanced by the sheer abundance of fascinating historical detail the author provides, adroitly reminding readers that a good storyteller can make even obscure details fascinating. James H. Bell, for example, had been a transitional figure before his death at age 80 in 1906, the first of a new generation of lighthouse keepers who were far more prominent public figures. “His voice, captured in print and preserved,” Tabler writes, “bridges the quiet flame of the lantern with the wider world it illuminated.” The book’s many black-and-white photos inspire the same fascination as the stories they illustrate; Tabler brings the photos to vivid life, including copious details about the evolution of the types of equipment involved. Tabler is doing for Delaware’s regional history what Edward Rowe Snow did for Massachusetts-based lore a generation ago, retelling familiar stories and uncovering new ones to celebrate the ordinary people who have kept history moving forward. He keeps his narrative tempo smoothly balanced between broader history and personal detail, making this niche bit of history utterly gripping reading.

A fascinating collection of historical vignettes about the people who kept Delaware’s lighthouses running.