Lighthouse a landmark near Brockville since 1856
Wooden structure a navigation aid and landmark after lights went out
A long-standing piece of Canadiana was forever lost on Monday evening when the Cole Shoal lighthouse, just west of Brockville in the Thousand Islands, burned to the ground after presumably being struck by lightning. It was the last remaining of nine Canadian lighthouses built in the Thousand Islands in 1856.
“It was no longer a navigation aid, but it’s certainly a piece of history,” says conservation biologist and historian Mary Alice Snetsinger, who has extensively researched and written about the 19th-century St. Lawrence lighthouses, including Cole Shoal. “It’s been there since before Confederation.
“There have been various times when someone’s wanted to pull it down, and the local reaction has been very much, ‘No!’ ” she adds. “People really appreciate it. It’s been a local landmark, and on Facebook you’re seeing all these comments like, ‘I used to play there when I was a kid.’
“For me it’s sad because I’m interested in those lighthouses, and it’s sad to see the last one of them go. And it’s been very sad to see the Canadian side of the river — there seems to be a lot less appreciation for (the lighthouses), whereas the ones that were built on the American side are all still standing.”
Part of the reason for that, she explains, was that the British government was unwilling, unlike its U.S. counterpart, to spend money on limestone or steel lighthouses, instead using cheaper wood, which was vulnerable to the weather and fire, and more dependent on regular maintenance.
“The Americans seem to have more interest in that history.”
More commonly known as Five Mile Light for its distance from Brockville, and also Coleman’s Creek or Cole’s Shoal light for its proximity to land settled by Adam Cole at Cole’s Ferry, the lighthouse was the easternmost of these original, largely identical structures in the Thousand Islands.
Five keepers tended its light during the 71 years that it was in operation, starting with Richard Elliott in 1856 and ending with David Hodge, who last turned out the light when it was decommissioned in 1927 (according to one resident, some records suggest it may have been 1931).
According to Snetsinger, little is known about Cole Shoal’s lightkeepers apart from a very few scattered details — Hodge in 1917, for example, had asked for a new boat because his leaked “about a pailful every time I go to the light. I do not consider it safe in a big wind.” Five years later, he reported that a duck had broken one of the lantern’s lights of glass and that he was unable to repair it.
The lighthouse remained in place after it was officially removed from service, largely at the request of ship operators who wanted it as a daytime beacon.
Over the years, various offers were made, without success, to purchase the lighthouse. In 1948, the Department of Transport invested just over $200 — the equivalent today of about $2,400 — to repair damage from weather and vandalism.
In 1972, says Snetsinger, the Ontario Heritage Foundation (now Ontario Heritage Trust), performed some maintenance on the building. In 2001, the lighthouse received a $15,600 upgrade that was intended to keep it in one piece for another 30 to 40 years.
For area residents and cottagers, the lighthouse’s demise ends a memorable period.
“It’s very sad,” says Hugh Billings, who grew up in Brockville and who now owns the original lighthouse keeper’s cottage, which his grandfather bought at a public auction more than 80 years ago. The various lightkeepers, he says, used to row out each night to the shoal to light the beacon’s kerosene lamp. As a youngster at the cottage, Billings also used to row out to the shoal, just for fun.
“I grew up at that cottage, and the lighthouse is known by everybody in the area,” he says. “The lighthouse keeper’s cottage has been in our family since 1935, so to lose the actual lighthouse is especially heartbreaking. It’s something that will never come back.”
Another cottage resident, Mike Milne, has spent each of his 59 summers near the lighthouse, and also laments its loss. He and other residents gathered together on Monday night and watched as the lighthouse burned.
“We had a terrific storm (Monday) night,” he says. “And there was one bolt of lightning, and that was it. And it hit the lighthouse, and it literally went up like a Roman candle.”
According to Milne, the local fire department responded, but couldn’t do anything to put out the blaze because it lacked access to a barge.
“It was like losing a member of the family,” Milne says, “and we felt even worse because there was nothing we could do.”
As a youngster, he says, he and friends use to go out to the lighthouse almost daily, ignoring their mothers’ repeated warnings to not climb to the top (not to mention their mothers’ repeated admonishments for having done so the day before, using a rope tied to a nearby shipwreck to climb to the top).
There is some bitter irony in the current situation, he adds, as a representative from Ontario Heritage Trust was coming to inspect the lighthouse on Thursday to determine what needed to be done to preserve it. According to Milne, the visit is still expected to happen — he’s hoping that, at the very least, a commemorative plaque will be erected on the shoal. But another option is to rebuild the post-and-beam structure — numerous residents met on Tuesday morning to discuss the possibility of starting a GoFundMe campaign to raise the needed money.
Londoner Richard Hone, whose family has been vacationing within sight of the lighthouse for three generations, says he’ll also miss the familiar nine-metre structure. “First of all, it’s a navigation aid for small craft. When we go out on our boats, we use the Five Mile Light as the crossover point out of the main channel and into the smallcraft channel that goes straight up through the Thousand Islands on the Canadian side.
“And one of the first things that we do when we come to the cottage, and it’s a family tradition, everybody meets on the seawall, where the view looks upriver to the Five Mile Light. It frames our reference point in a historical view.”
To lose the actual lighthouse is especially heartbreaking. It’s something that will never come back.