Don’t miss lighthouse keeper at Blackstone Public Library
BLACKSTONE — Sally Snowman, the U.S. Coast Guard’s only remaining assigned lighthouse keeper, is coming to the Blackstone Public Library in March.
Snowman, who became the 70th Boston Lighthouse keeper in 2003 and the first woman to hold the position, will conduct a PowerPoint presentation of illustrations and photographs chronicling the lighthouse’s 302 years of service.
During the presentation to be held March 8 at 6:30 p.m., Snowman will be dressed in formal clothes from 1783, the year that the Boston Lighthouse was rebuilt. Snowman, a Coast Guard Auxiliarist and native of Weymouth, Mass., wears the same garb during the Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park’s weekend tours of the Boston Lighthouse in the summer.
Space for the Blackstone Library event is limited and reservation is required by calling (508) 883-1931 or by email at tcollier@cwmars.org.
As a part of her duties, Snowman manages more than 70 volunteers and maintains the lighthouse, keeper’s cottage and other buildings on the three-acre Little Brewster Harbor in Boston Harbor.
Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1964, the Boston Light is one of nine lighthouses honored by having an elevator named after it in the Coast Guard Headquar- ters in Washington. It is the nation’s first and oldest lighthouse.
On Aug. 7, 1789, the ninth law passed by Congress created the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment to provide “support, maintenance and repairs of all lighthouses, beacons, [and] buoys.” The service would later be called the U.S. Lighthouse Service or Bureau of Lighthouses. Aug. 7 is designated as National Lighthouse Day in the United States.
After 150 years of keeping the lights shining, the Lighthouse Service was incorporated into the Coast Guard in 1939.
From the lone Boston Light, the Coast Guard Aids to Navigation system has grown to include more than 48,000 federal buoys, beacons and electronic aids that mark the more than 25,000 miles of waterways that make up the Marine Transportation System or MTS.
The Coast Guard has phased out resident keepers at all light stations save for Boston Light because Congress in 1989 mandated the Guard specifically staff and keep the light public in perpetuity.
Snowman, who holds two doctorate degrees and taught at Curry College in Milton, Mass., started volunteering there over 20 years ago and became a paid civilian employee in 2004.
She and her husband, Jay Thomson, married on the island in 1994 and have written three books about the lighthouse.