Through the years, Rose Island has been used by the military due to its strategic location at the entrance to Newport Harbor. During the Revolutionary War, both British and colonial troops used the island at different times to defend Newport. From 1798 to 1800, a military outpost named Fort Hamilton was under construction on the island, but it was never finished. In 1889, part of the island served as a rifle range, and during World War I and II it was used for storage of explosives by the U.S. Navy’s torpedo manufacturing plant in nearby Newport. Keepers stationed at Rose Island could definitely not expect peace and quiet all the time.

Lighthouse before addition was made in 1912 – note location of chimney. Photograph courtesy National Archives

The wood-framed lighthouse that stands on the island today was built in 1869 using $7,500 allocated by Congress the previous year. Activated on January 20, 1870, Rose Island Lighthouse stands atop Fort Hamilton’s South Battery on the southwestern point of the island and replaced a private light maintained by the Bristol Steam Boat Company. A short, octagonal tower is centered on western end of the keeper’s dwelling, which is two stories tall and topped with a mansard roof. The optic in the lantern room was originally a sixth-order Fresnel lens that displayed a fixed red light to guide mariners traveling along the East Passage of Narragansett Bay and those entering Newport Harbor. Rose Island Lighthouse resembles other lighthouses built in New England in the early 1870s, including Pomham Rocks, Rhode Island (1871), Penfield Reef, Connecticut (1874), Esopus Meadows, New York (1872), and Colchester Reef, Vermont (1871).

An A-frame tower was erected on the island in 1885 and fitted with a bell and automatic striking mechanism. The bell was placed in operation on August 10, 1885 and was struck a double-blow every fifteen seconds during thick weather.

Because of its proximity to Newport, Rose Island was not as isolated as many lighthouse stations. However, keepers on duty there still had to deal with extreme weather at times. On February 2, 1876, the wind reached near-hurricane force and shook the tower violently. Two weeks later, another storm dragged the station’s boat and its 600-pound mooring onto the beach, damaging the boat. The wind moved the tower “1 ½ inches each way so that it broke the plaster inside of the house and the glass chimney in the lantern.”

On April 4 of the same year, yet another storm took the tower’s chimney down, and the roof leaked so badly that it was almost “as wet inside as out.” In November, a storm flooded the lighthouse, ruining the entire winter supply of vegetables stored there. The following month was no better according to the lighthouse log: “Stormiest December on record, much damage to property and according to report, much loss of life at sea.”

In 1894, Captain Elijah Davis, who was nicknamed the Fog Eater for his skill at navigating in zero visibility, met his match when he ran his steamer Plymouth aground on the south shore of Rose Island. The 700 passengers on board were offloaded with no injuries, but the ship remained stranded on the island for several weeks.

A brick oil house was added to the station in 1901, and in 1912 a brick fog signal building, home to a third-class reed horn, was built on a rock just west of and below the lighthouse. Julius Johansen was hired as the station’s first assistant keeper in 1912 to help with the extra workload created by the new fog signal. He joined Head Keeper Charles S. Curtis, who had been in charge of the lighthouse since 1887.

1912 photograph showing bell and new fog signal Photograph courtesy National Archives

Wanton Chase was born on May 15, 1909 and as a baby was sent to live on Rose Island with his grandparents, Charles and Christina Curtis. Wanton was a sickly baby, and his mother Mabel thought the fresh salt air might do him good. Mabel grew up on Rose Island, and one time when her parents went to Newport and left her alone at the station, fog came in, and she bravely struck the fog bell its prescribed signal for four or five hours with a hammer until they returned.

Wanton remembered that using the station’s outhouse during the winter was a frigid experience, as the wind would blow up through the opening in the bricked cavity on which the facility sat. One time, a visitor to the station became sick and lost his false teeth as he was vomiting in the outhouse. Keeper Curtis grabbed a ladder, climbed down into the outhouse, and retrieved the teeth, which were just like new after a good washing.

Wanton’s grandmother was a wonderful cook and would often make his favorite treat – blancmange or “Sea Moss Pudding.” Wanton would gather white seaweed from the beach near the lighthouse, and his grandmother would tie it up in cheesecloth and then boil it with milk, sugar, and vanilla. The moss was a source of carrageenans, which served as a thickening agent for the pudding.

Wanton lived on Rose Island until he was about seven and had to go to Newport to attend school. The night before leaving the island, he stood at the screen door facing the big city and cried. He didn’t want to leave the island, as his grandparents felt more like family than his own parents and siblings in Newport.

When he was in his advanced years, Wanton contracted pneumonia and was treated at the Newport Hospital where a CT scan was ordered. Wanton had been told his heart was on the wrong side of his chest when he had an X-ray during World War II, so he was prepared for the doctors to be surprised at his scan, but he wasn’t expecting to learn that he had only one lung! His mother had done well in sending him to Rose Island for his childhood, and perhaps all that fresh air helped him live such a long and productive life. Wanton Chase passed away in Newport in 2008 at the age of ninety-nine, but not before passing on his memories of a childhood spent on Rose Island.

Keeper Curtis, Wanton’s grandfather, served longer than any other keeper on Rose Island and earned two life-saving medals during his tenure. In 1914, he was recognized for rescuing men in a disabled powerboat that was fast going out to sea. Congress passed a bill in 1918 mandating that all officers and employees of the Lighthouse Service that reached the age of seventy had to compulsorily retire. As he was approaching his seventy-ninth birthday, Keeper Curtis was forced to retire, but he did receive the maximum possible retirement, which was three-fourths of his average pay for the final five years of his service.

Rose Island Lighthouse circa 1916 - long before the completion of the Newport Bridge in 1969 Photograph courtesy Rob Wrenn

In February 1917, Assistant Keeper Julius Johansen drowned just after leaving Rose Island to obtain provisions in Newport. Two months later, lifeguards in New Jersey pulled a body from the ocean that was later identified as the missing keeper.

Lighthouse keepers were not well paid, and they sometimes had to be creative to feed their families. At Rose Island, the keepers grew crops and kept farm animals, which sometimes wandered from the lighthouse grounds into the military compound, much to the officers’ annoyance. Two head keepers at Rose Island, Charles Curtis and Jesse Orton, both kept cows at the light station to supply milk. Curtis kept his cow in a long building behind the lighthouse that was also used for storing explosives.

Paul Stedman, one of Jesse Orton’s grandsons, tells the story of how his grandfather went ashore, bought a cow, and then brought it to the island aboard the Jamestown ferry. The ferry captain tried to maneuver his vessel close enough to the island to let down a gangplank to walk the cow ashore but was unable to find a suitable spot in the shallows. The ferry crew was thus forced to lower the cow into the water and have the bovine paddle her way to shore. With everyone on the ferry shouting their encouragement, the cow barely made it to the island, where she collapsed to the ground. Twenty-four hours passed before she had the strength to stand up and graze.

Rose Island Lighthouse narrowly avoided destruction on August 7, 1958 when two tankers collided in heavy fog near Fort Adams and burst into flames. One of the ships, the Graham, floated into Newport Harbor with the tide, ablaze and with her engines dead, and passed within 200 yards of Rose Island Lighthouse. The walls of the lighthouse became so hot that the keepers were forced to flee the station. Finally, the tide and wind turned and took the ship away from the lighthouse. Eighteen men from the two ships were killed in the incident.

Aerial view of Rose Island Lighthouse Photograph courtesy Library of Congress

When the Newport Bridge was opened in 1969, both Gould Island Lighthouse north of the bridge and Rose Island Lighthouse became obsolete. Rose Island was deactivated in 1971. In 1976, the lighthouse and surrounding one-and-a-half acres were given to the University of Rhode Island to use for marine research, but the school was unable to maintain the property, and the decrepit, badly vandalized lighthouse was returned to the federal government. When the lighthouse was declared surplus property in 1984, the City of Newport took it over.

A local group, the Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation, was formed in July 1984, and with the help of public and private funding, the ambitious organization completely restored the lighthouse over the next several years. Much of the credit for the group’s success is due to Charlotte Johnson, who devoted untold hours to the project. The exterior of the lighthouse was completely refurbished in 1990, and the interior received new wiring, plumbing, and plaster walls, as well as an energy-efficient in-floor radiant heating system. A septic field, a water cistern, and a landing dock were also installed. Altogether the restoration cost over a million dollars.

The lighthouse was opened to the public in 1992, and the following year, it once again became an active aid to navigation on August 7, 1993, showing a white light flashing every six seconds. In 1999, the Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation acquired the rest of the island.

The bottom floor of the restored lighthouse serves as a museum, while the upper floor, formerly used by the assistant keeper, is an apartment for modern-day keepers, who live on the island for a week and have the option of working from one to eight hours a day. Those interested in staying just a night or two can stay in the downstairs bedroom. Guests can now stay reserve a stay in the fog signal building and the nearby Fort Hamilton Barracks.

In 2013, a sixth-order Fresnel lens was installed in the lantern room at Rose Island Lighthouse – not the station’s original lens, whose whereabouts are unknown, but a modern replica fabricated by Artworks Florida. The lens was placed atop a new pedestal manufactured by Superior Lighthouse Restoration. With a Fresnel lens beaming from the lantern room once again, Wanton Chase would feel right at home in the lighthouse, except for the noisy foghorn that was located just outside his bedroom.

Keepers:

• Head: John Bailey Cozzens (1869 – 1872), George C. Williams (1872 – 1879), Charles F. Williams (1879), Gustavus A. Clarke (1879 – 1887), Charles S. Curtis (1887 – 1919), Thomas Pickup (1919 – 1921), Jesse Orton (1921 – 1936), Charles H. Eldridge (1936 – 1940), George S. Bell, Jr. (1940 – 1952), Robert E. Pierson (at least 1959 – 1960), Joseph Martel (1960), J.W. Owens (1960 – 1961), Vincent R. Roy (1961 – 1962), Bobby G. McWilliams (1962), John R. Nardone (1962 – 1963), Robert Albert (1963 – 1965), Russell R. Barnhart (1965 – at least 1966).
• Assistant: Julius Johansen (1912 – 1915), Charles C. Fletcher (1915 – 1917), Delanoy E. Roode (1917 – 1920), Arthur B. Bessett (1920 – 1921), Edward W. Newton (1921 – 1926), Charles H. Eldridge (1926 – 1936), George S. Bell, Jr. (1936 – 1940).
• USCG: David Richardson (at least 1959 – 1960), Thomas I. Sixma (1960), R.L. Sutton (1961), Louis G. White (1961 – 1962), L.M. Adams (1961 – 1962), Walter J. Murphy (1961 – 1962), Richard E. Hagert (1962), Walter C. Gadomski (1962 – 1963), Richard H. Brown (1962), R.A. Heath (1962 – 1963), Floyd E. Guyette (1962 – 1963), George A. Boley (1963), Stephen Gliniewicz (1963), John O. Loetell (1963 – 1964), Ronald J. Cyr (1963 – 1965), Joseph J. Bressel (1963 – 1964), David L. Ganley (1964 – at least 1966), Joseph H. Fischer (1965), Rinder D. Lingley (1965), Richard A. Workman (1965), Harold A. Roys (1965 – at least 1966).

References

1. Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board, various years.
2. “Boyhood Life at Rose Island,” Rose Island Beacon, Wanton Chase, 2001.
3. America’s Atlantic Coast Lighthouses, Kenneth Kochel, 1996.
4. Northeast Lights: Lighthouses and Lightships, Rhode Island to Cape May, New Jersey, Robert Bachand, 1989.

The lighthouse and grounds are open daily between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., April through October. Transportation to the island is available aboard the Jamestown-Newport Ferry, which also makes stops at Jamestown, Newport, and Fort Adams. Guests can also spend the night in one of two rooms located on the first floor of the lighthouse, an apartment on the upper floor, the fog signal building, and in Fort Hamilton Barracks. See the Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation website for information on daytrips or overnight stays.

The lighthouse is owned by the City of Newport and managed by the Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation. Grounds open, dwelling/tower open during tours.

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Kraig writes:

Although you are separated from the city of Newport and its opulent mansions by just a mile-wide channel, you still feel as if you were living in a different era when you stay at the Rose Island Lighthouse. This is intentional, as the lighthouse has been restored to reflect life in the early 1900s. Overnighters stay in rooms on the ground floor, which double as a museum during the day. A player piano, phonograph, and a coal stove are part of the authentic furnishings. The station’s water source is rainfall captured off the lighthouse’s roof and stored in a 3,000-gallon cistern in the basement, while a three-armed windmill mounted atop a skeletal tower provides the needed electricity. Life for the week-long keepers who live upstairs isn’t quite as rustic, since they have access to running water, appliances and even a color TV. However, they do have to perform some light chores in return. A stay at the lighthouse is a great way to escape a busy, modern life and step back to a simpler time.

Marilyn writes:

Kraig accurately describes a stay there well -- it was just plain fun to crank up the phonograph, play tunes on the player piano, put a puzzle together and hike around the small island where the world really was shut out for a day or two. The needlepoint in the bathroom "Two pees and a poo" before flushing summed up how far from civilization we really were!