"Nowhere on the Cape's shorelines has the sea kept busier
at her handiwork than among these storm-bitten sands. Directly to the
south of the bluff, Monomoy lies beckoning like the bony finger
"Nowhere on the Cape's shorelines has the sea kept busier
at her handiwork than among these storm-bitten sands. Directly to the
south of the bluff, Monomoy lies beckoning like the bony finger of
death which it has been to countless ships." -
Josef Berger, Cape Cod Pilot, 1937
nestled at Cape Cod's southeast corner, was named for an English
seaport and incorporated in 1712. Maritime traffic passing the Cape was
heavy by the nineteenth century. The waters off Chatham were a menace,
with strong currents and dangerous shoals. Mariners talked of a ghostly
rider on a white horse who appeared on stormy nights, swinging a
lantern that lured mariners to their doom.
- The 1841 towers
In April 1806, nine years after the establishment of the
Cape's first lighthouse at North Truro, Congress appropriated $5,000
for a second station at Chatham. A second appropriation of $2,000 was
made in 1808. In order to distinguish Chatham from Highland Light, it
was decided that the new station would have two fixed white lights. Two
octagonal wooden towers, each 40 feet tall and about 70 feet apart from
each other, were erected on moveable wooden skids about 70 feet apart.
A small dwelling house was also built, with only one bedroom. Samuel
Nye was approved as the first keeper by President Thomas Jefferson.
Lt. Edward D. Carpender of the U.S. Navy visited the station
in 1838. Carpender's report described the 1808 towers as "very much
shaken and decayed, so as to make it dangerous to ascend them in windy
weather." The lighting apparatus at the time consisted of six lamps
with and 8 1/2-inch reflectors, with green glass lenses in front of
An appropriation for the rebuilding of the station was
requested for the next two years. In late 1841, the Treasury Department
announced, "The two light-houses at Chatham... being entirely unfit
for use, were taken down and rebuilt at an expense of $6,750, out of
the general annual appropriation for the present year. They were fitted
upon the improved plan, with fourteen-inch reflectors."
The two new brick towers, completed in the summer of 1841,
were each 30 feet tall. A new brick dwelling was connected to both of
the towers by covered walkways. The contractor responsible for the
rebuilding of the station was Winslow Lewis. Collins Howe, a Cape Cod
fisherman who had lost a leg in an accident, became keeper of the
Chatham Lights shortly before the new towers were built, at a yearly
salary of $400.
Howe complained in 1842:
I expected to have a light-house, and every thing in
first-rate order, when these new buildings were put up; but I was
The house had such a poor foundation that rats had burrowed in
and infested the cellar. A storm in October 1841 broke 17 panes of
glass in the lanterns, which Keeper Howe blamed on poor construction.
Howe lost his job as keeper in 1845 for political reasons. The
next keeper was Simeon Nickerson. Nickerson died while keeper and his
wife, Angeline, took over his duties. Maybe the rats had subsided,
because Collins Howes decided he wanted his position back and tried to
have Angeline Nickerson removed from the station.
The 1841 towers with the
lanterns installed in 1857. Courtesy of Anna Woodland.
Joshua Nickerson of Chatham wro