Fuller Rock Light
![]() 1914 postcard image of Fuller Rock Light | |
![]() | |
Location | Providence River south of Kettle Point |
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Coordinates | 41°47′39″N 71°22′47″W / 41.7941°N 71.3797°W[1] |
Tower | |
Constructed | 1872 ![]() |
Foundation | granite pier[3] |
Construction | Wood[3] |
Automated | 1918 |
Height | 14 feet (4.3 m)[3] |
Shape | hexagonal pyramidal tower[3] |
Light | |
First lit | 1872[2] |
Deactivated | 1923[2] |
Focal height | 28 feet (8.5 m)[2] |
Lens | sixth order Fresnel lens[2] |
Characteristic | Iso R 6s ![]() |
The Fuller Rock Light was a lighthouse in Providence, Rhode Island. Destroyed in an explosion, it was replaced by a skeleton tower on the same foundation.
History
[edit]Fuller Rock sits adjacent to the channel in the Providence River, and as shipping traffic grew in the 1800s attention was drawn to improving navigational aids for the port.[4] An 1870 congressional appropriation provided for three lights in the area: one for Fuller Rock, another further upstream at Sassafras Point, and a third downstream at Pomham Rocks.[4] The last reused the design of the Colchester Reef Light in Vermont, but the other two were built to a much simpler plan for a short wooden tower resting on a granite pier.[4] These lights lacked dwellings; the keeper lived on shore and had to approach the lights by boat in order to tend them.[4] Funds were provided for a keeper's dwelling but property nearby could not be secured.[3]
Maintenance of the structure was a problem from early on, and 1879 the Lighthouse Board reported that the tower showed "considerable evidence of decay."[4] A request to appropriate funds to replace it with an iron tower, however, was not heeded.[4] In 1889 some repairs to the foundation were made including repointing of the pier and dumping of additional riprap at its base.[4]
Staffing this light was difficult and at least three keepers served no more than a year, so it was an early candidate for automation.[4] In 1918 it was converted to an automated acetylene beacon, with responsibility for its maintenance passing to the Pomham Rocks keeper.[4] This beacon would prove its undoing. On February 4, 1923, the tender Pansy brought a crew to replace the acetylene tanks. In the course of the work the old tanks exploded, injuring five of the men, though with no fatalities.[3][4] The tower, however, was completely destroyed. A skeleton tower was erected on the old pier; this was replaced in 1997 with a shorter tower on the same foundation.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ Light List, Volume I, Atlantic Coast, St. Croix River, Maine to Shrewsbury River, New Jersey (PDF). Light List. United States Coast Guard. 2010. This light is listed there as #18580 (Channel Light 42).
- ^ a b c d "Fuller Rock Lighthouse". Jeremy D'Entremont. Retrieved 2011-01-06.
- ^ a b c d e f "Fuller Rock Lighthouse". R. Holmes. Retrieved 2011-01-06.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Fuller Rock Lighthouse History". Jeremy D'Entremont. Retrieved 2011-01-06.