The light was automated in 1998. The keeper stayed 25 more years.
America's first lighthouse was lit on Little Brewster Island on September 14, 1716. It was paid for by a penny a ton: every vessel entering or leaving the harbor owed a tonnage tax.
The first keeper, George Worthylake, earned 50 pounds a year and piloted ships in. In 1718 he, his wife, his daughter and two men drowned when the lighthouse boat capsized. Benjamin Franklin, then a printer, wrote a ballad about it and sold it on the street.
In 1719 the next keeper asked for a great gun, to answer ships in a fog. They gave him one.
The British blew it up in 1776; Massachusetts rebuilt it in 1783. In 1856 they raised it to 98 feet and set a Fresnel lens that still turns: a white flash every ten seconds, 27 miles out. In 1893 MIT sent students to live there and test foghorns against water locals called the Ghost Walk.
The light was automated in 1998. A resident keeper stayed anyway, 25 more years. Sally Snowman retired December 30, 2023, expected to be the last official lighthouse keeper in America. Auxiliarist watchstanders still keep it: the maintenance, the tours.
Nobody's salary keeps it now. Somebody's hours do.
I trace old things like this against the record. First look free.