Support Your Sakonnet Lighthouse
Dear Friend.
I spend way too much time daydreaming about lighthouses, and particularly our lighthouse. At the apex of these musings is the unanswerable question: have previous generations of Little Comptonites adored Sakonnet Light as we do? Or are we just a sentimental lot, tethered to its history and stunning visual impact?
There are certain clues, however. The extraordinary poem you’ve just read was published in The New England Magazine, August 1897. She was then a working Light Station in a time when these structures were indispensable aids to navigation and more likely to be guiding whaling ships than Alden’s and Hinckley’s. Yet even then, 125 years ago, you can sense how this operational landmark stirred the soul and captured the collective imagination.
For almost 75 years her upkeep was handled by The United States Lighthouse Service, until 1954 when her light deck was rent and left inoperable by Hurricane Carol. Cost for repairs and the redundancy afforded by vastly improved layers of navigation spelled the end of her useful life and she was left to fend for herself in the most unforgiving of environments.
Thanks to the immortals, beginning with Carl Haffenreffer and running through the David Haffenreffer family, Orson St. John, Rod Perkins, Dick Bordeau, Bill Nightingale, Debbie Wiley, John Whitehead and a hundred other forward-thinking patrons, Sakonnet Lighthouse stands in great stead as the unrivaled symbol of our town, now and for generations to come.
This will be my final letter to you as President of FOSL and I am thrilled to let you know that David Osborn will be your Head Keeper after next summer’s Annual Meeting. Oz has been at my side since I came on board in 2009 and his counsel and friendship have been invaluable. With an outstanding group of officers and board behind him, the future of our light is bright!
I hope you will consider, in this time of giving, a tax-deductible donation to FOSL to help us keep our charge upright and resplendent for the poets, mariners and daydreamers of the future. To the Board, patrons like you and the immortals, I thank you for the privilege of my lifetime. It has been an honor to have led this outfit for some 15 years. Please continue to support this next generation of keepers who will carry on the selfless tradition of protecting this gift on our horizon. Hail, aud thrice hail, Sakonnet Light!
Best - Scott Brown
Friends of Sakonnet Lighthouse
P.O. Box 154
Little Compton, RI 02837
Please send your tax-deductible gifts to:
Friends of Sakonnet Lighthouse
P.O. Box 154
Little Compton, RI 02837
I spend way too much time daydreaming about lighthouses, and particularly our lighthouse. At the apex of these musings is the unanswerable question: have previous generations of Little Comptonites adored Sakonnet Light as we do? Or are we just a sentimental lot, tethered to its history and stunning visual impact?
There are certain clues, however. The extraordinary poem you’ve just read was published in The New England Magazine, August 1897. She was then a working Light Station in a time when these structures were indispensable aids to navigation and more likely to be guiding whaling ships than Alden’s and Hinckley’s. Yet even then, 125 years ago, you can sense how this operational landmark stirred the soul and captured the collective imagination.
For almost 75 years her upkeep was handled by The United States Lighthouse Service, until 1954 when her light deck was rent and left inoperable by Hurricane Carol. Cost for repairs and the redundancy afforded by vastly improved layers of navigation spelled the end of her useful life and she was left to fend for herself in the most unforgiving of environments.
Thanks to the immortals, beginning with Carl Haffenreffer and running through the David Haffenreffer family, Orson St. John, Rod Perkins, Dick Bordeau, Bill Nightingale, Debbie Wiley, John Whitehead and a hundred other forward-thinking patrons, Sakonnet Lighthouse stands in great stead as the unrivaled symbol of our town, now and for generations to come.
This will be my final letter to you as President of FOSL and I am thrilled to let you know that David Osborn will be your Head Keeper after next summer’s Annual Meeting. Oz has been at my side since I came on board in 2009 and his counsel and friendship have been invaluable. With an outstanding group of officers and board behind him, the future of our light is bright!
I hope you will consider, in this time of giving, a tax-deductible donation to FOSL to help us keep our charge upright and resplendent for the poets, mariners and daydreamers of the future. To the Board, patrons like you and the immortals, I thank you for the privilege of my lifetime. It has been an honor to have led this outfit for some 15 years. Please continue to support this next generation of keepers who will carry on the selfless tradition of protecting this gift on our horizon. Hail, aud thrice hail, Sakonnet Light!
Best - Scott Brown
Friends of Sakonnet Lighthouse
P.O. Box 154
Little Compton, RI 02837
Please send your tax-deductible gifts to:
Friends of Sakonnet Lighthouse
P.O. Box 154
Little Compton, RI 02837
