The Islands: Lighthouses: Snake Island: An Eves Perspective


Snake Island Lighthouse : An Eves Perspective

Copyright 2004 by Pat McAvoy-Costin. All rights reserved.





The following information was obtained from Simcoe Island, An Eves Perspective by Sanford Syndey Eves �In 1858, the first navigational aid to be erected in the area of Four Mile Point was of stone construction. It was located on the north side of the channel between Simcoe Island and Snake Island. It was built in the shallow water on the plane that surrounds the east south and west sides of the Island.

A report by the Superintendent of lights above Montreal at the time describes the light as being:

Latitude North 44 11 30
Longitude West 44 9 20 (1871 76 33 0)
No of lights�One: Fixed or steady
Colour of light: red
Miles seen in clear weather�6
Lighthouse�square, stone
Height of light above high water�35 feet
Height of building from base to vane �35 feet
Year Lighted 1858
Character of illuminating apparatus�catoptric or by metal reflectors.

The pier was large enough that it could accommodate a dwelling attached to the lighthouse.

In 1858, the first person to be put in charge of the light was a man by the name of L. WARTMAN. Before the year was up, WARTMAN gave up the post and Lawrence HERCHEMER took over and stayed on the job until 1868 when Nathaniel ORR was appointed to as the light keeper. It is known if HERCHEMER or WARTMAN lived all summer in the house on the pier, but it is known that ORR bought some land on Simcoe Island in 1874 where raised his family.

Where the lighthouse was located near Snake Island (a small mostly rocky area of a few acres) would be considered rather remote in the days when a small sail or row boat was the only way to travel over the water and the pier was not much of a place for a long walk, so the inhabitants probably quite often rowed or sailed the mile and a half to Simcoe Island to visit and pick up food supplies such as milk, meat and garden produce.

Living on Simcoe Island while tending the light on the pier required that the trip to be made twice a day unless one stayed over night or all day at the lighthouse. The weather played a part in that decision when there are very strong winds and high running seas in the area and waves breaking high as they meet the shallow waters around Snake Island. It was one such trip that was the cause of Nathaniel and his wife Eliza ORR being stricken with pneumonia and dying within a day of each other in November, 1887.

Editor�s Note: Actually according to the newspapers of the day, the ORRs died in May, 1888.

Their son William Breden ORR was appointed to keeper of the light and served until 1899. During his tenure some very major changes were made into this Mariners Land Mark. A new lighthouse was built on a new pier nearer to the ship channel.

The following is from reports of the Department of Marine and Fisheries:

1898 Accounts�William Breden ORR; July 2, 1888 $350.00 --Steel casing for a concrete pier to serve as a foundation for a lighthouse at a point nearer the channel than the existing lighthouse, which with its pier is in a very bad state of repair, was prepared last winter at a cost of $438.18, but the ice wasn�t strong enough to work on and completion was deferred until this winter.

1899 Accounts�William Breden ORR; $350.00 (salary)

Lighthouse was erected on Snake Island reef during last season. Will begin operation beginning of navigation in 1900. Stands on cylindrical steel and concrete pier built near the south end of the shoal surrounding Snake Island at a distance of 850 feet south-east by east, from the existing lighthouse on the shoal. Cost $1309.07.

1900 Accounts�John WHITMARSH appointed July, 1900 $350.00

--New lighthouse put in operation and old stone one taken down. New tower is wooden with sloping sides, painted white, surmounted by an octagonal iron lantern painted red. It is 39 feet high from its base on the pier to the ventilator on the lantern and the top of the steel pier is 6 feet above water level. Light is fixed red, 8 feet above lake level. Illuminating apparatus is ciatropic of the 7th order.

1901 Accounts�John WHITMARSH $350.00 (salary)

--The circular steel pier supporting the lighthouse has had timber work, protective breakwater, 75 feet long built around it. It has a pointed nose on the west side and stands four feet above the water. A small boat house stands on it at the side of the tower. Work done by day�s labor under supervision of W. B. Lindsay and under the foremanship of P. Asselstine costing $4919.34.

There were no provisions for living in the new lighthouse so the keeper lived on Simcoe Island. John WHITMARSH bought the house and lot from the ORR family and lived there until he gave up the light keepers jobs and left the Island.

C.V. SUDDS was appointed in March of 1912 at a salary of $260.00 and $25.00 for operating a fog horn from Four Mile Point on Simcoe Island. The fog horn was housed in a small building and was operated by pumping air with a hand lever to compress it to a point that it would push a blast of air through a horn. It had to be manned whenever there was a heavy fog to answer ship signals. The fog horn was established in 1910.

The Department of Marine and Fisheries purchased .97 acres from Richard and Lydia EVES (brother and sister) and moved the lighthouse from the pier and placed it on the bluff at Four Mile Point. This was during the winter of 1918, a year when there was plenty of snow and a thick body of ice in the river. C.V. (Victor) SUDDS contracted to move the tower and placed it on concrete butts on the bluff. It was loaded on two round timber skids that were 60 feet long and 16 inches in diameter at the butt end. This was drawn across the ice by 24 horses. The lowest slope on the shoreline was a raise of around eight feet, from there a long slope to the bluff at the same rise. When Victor was told he could never haul the load up that great a rise, he answered that he would do it with one horse, and he did, with a capstan with one horse on the sweep. The slope had been prepared to an easier rise by wetting and packing the snow to a hard surface.

Victor operated the lighthouse until it was discontinued in 1941.

The iron bound concrete caisson that the lighthouse had sat on was supported under water by four square groins built of oak timber and filled with rock. The fear that the groins could be deteriorating and Victors urging that to have a tower on Simcoe Island would be more convenient to operate, was in the end a wise move.

In the late winter of 1925 a weather phenomena would have caused its destruction had it remained where it was. A heavy rolling sea coming down Lake Ontario broke the ice into floes that were still eight inches thick and fairly solid. The wind then changed to the northeast and pushed the ice into the lake beyond the horizon. The wind then swung to the southwest and developed into a gale force when the ice floes struck the Islands in the river and piled up into huge masses along the shore.

One place on Simcoe Island where clay bluff is about 20 feet above the water, the ice was piled 10 to 12 feet above it. At this point children at the public school could watch as the ice cakes moving like a glacier in reverse reached the top of the pile and slid down the other side. When the storm was over, the former lighthouse pier had disappeared, the ice having pushed it off its moorings. The protective breaker that was erected in 1901 had long since vanished.

After the light was discontinued in 1941, the building sat idle until 1958 when it burned to the ground. It was winter and tracks were seen in the snow leading towards Kingston. No one was ever charged with the act and whether it was caused deliberately or accidentally by someone trying to get warm will probably never be know. The land later passed to private ownership.�


This book is available at the Wolfe Island Library.
Transcribed by Pat McAvoy-Costin





The Islands: Lighthouses: Snake Island: An Eves Perspective
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