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Battery Point California
Harbour Lights #278
America’s western seashore holds some of the world’s most gorgeous coastline, but it is fraught with jagged rocks, sandy beaches and towering cliffs. Mariners have always relied on lighthouses to guide them along the unpredictable shoreline of California, especially in places where rivers fill the ocean floor with sand and where volcanic activity has raised basaltic rock to the surface. For mariners navigating near Crescent City, there is great danger to be avoided, with the guidance of a bright sentinel.
Crescent City Harbor lies midway between the Columbia River and San Francisco Bay. Protected by breakwaters, the community is host to a large fleet of commercial vessels and sports fishing boats. After several shipwrecks at the nearby St. George’s Reef and due to increasing traffic approaching the harbor, the Lighthouse Board commissioned the building of a beacon at Battery Point.
Originally known as Crescent City Lighthouse, the sentinel was lit in December of 1856. During high tide, Battery Point is an island that is otherwise connected with the mainland by a natural causeway.
The very first keeper was Mr. Van Court, who was temporarily assigned to the light for a couple of weeks until the official Lightkeeper arrived. Theophilis Magruder took his post on Christmas Day, armed with his standard issue supplies. Included were two lantern curtains and twelve brass rings (to protect the lens from sunlight), lantern rouge and applicator brush (for polishing the lens), scissors (to trim the wick), a wolfs head brush (for cleaning), a hand-held lantern, and various other housekeeping and bookkeeping items usually issued to the first keeper at a new lighthouse. He was hired at $1,000 per year, but the Lighthouse Board cut his salary to $600 before the end of the year. With only a short tenure under his belt, Magruder resigned.
Although the Battery Point lighthouse was of great help, mariners complained that the harbor entrance was too dangerous for travel at night, forcing ships to remain well at sea to avoid the treacherous St. George Reef, six miles offshore. When 200 souls were lost in the shipwreck of the SS Brother Jonathan at Northwest Seal Rock on July 30, 1865, officials had all the impetus they needed to build another lighthouse. When the Lighthouse Board planned the building of the St. George’s Reef Lighthouse in 1875, they considered closing Battery Point to avoid redundancy, but ultimately allowed the sentinel to remain.
Throughout its lifetime, Battery Point has survived intense weather including a massive waterspout, which skirted around the fringe of the lighthouse, and a battering by tidal waves caused by an Alaskan earthquake. The sentinel was automated in 1953 and discontinued in 1965, replaced with a flashing beacon at the end of the breakwater.
Re-lighted and reopened as a museum and private aid to navigation in 1982, Battery Point is under the care of the Del Norte County Historical Society. Tours are conducted from April thru September, tides permitting, and visitors can see the Fourth Order Fresnel lens used there. For more information, contact the Del Norte County Historical Society at 577 H Street, Crescent City, California, 95531.
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HL# |
Name |
MSRP |
Introduced |
Retired |
Edition |
|
HL278 |
Battery
Point CA |
$78 |
Jun 02 |
|
5,500 |
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