Bill Younger says he became interested in lighthouses when his uncle took him fishing on Chesapeake Bay near Thomas Point Lighthouse.

My earliest recollection of a lighthouse was probably of Fort Gratiot light in my then hometown of Port Huron MI. The lighthouse is next to a public beach - but the current of the lake is so strong there that I wasn't allowed to go swimming in that park.

I do recall visiting Portland Head Light while on a family vacation to New England. I was probably about 8-9.

So what is your earliest recollection of a lighthouse?
[This message has been edited by JChidester (edited 07-25-2001).]

Actually I believe it was the Superman episode-"The Haunted Lighthouse" back in the 50's. For real lighthouses it was Nauset Light on Cape Cod.

The Lightkeeper
Mike

For the first 25 years of my life my family would always spend the summer on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. The highlight of the trip north for me was always stopping in Mackinaw City, MI and having a picnic lunch on the grounds of Old Mackinac Point lighthouse. Of course at that time I always thought of it as a "Neat" old castle put there to protect the Mackinaw bridge from invading indians. To this day, we still find time to visit the old lighthouse every year, still a highlight and still a castle!

My uncle took me on an outing in Lake Erie to MArblehead when I was 6 years old (1951). It was then that myinterest began and continues today.


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[This message has been edited by pharologst (edited 07-25-2001).]

I believe the earliest memory of actualy seeing a light house in the flesh was rounding into the english channel standing on the bow of the army transport Gen Squiers and caught a glimpse of Eddystone going by plymouth on our way to southhampton.Bill O'Brien

My earliest memory would be when my parents used to take me out to Montauk Point every summer. I try to make it out there when I go back to LI. I should have time to see it again in a few weeks .

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Wave after wave will flow in the tide and bury the world as it does.

Same lighthouse, different circumstances John. My grandfather ran the J.W. Westcott service in Port Huron. For others, J.W.Westcott service delivered mail, newspapers, laundry, etc. to the lake freighters as they passed Port Huron. Riding the company boats was an occasional benefit of this relationship.

On two or three occasions we went North of the Bluewater Bridge between Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron and I saw Fort Gratiot Light little realizing that one day I would live there, or that I would owe my life to it.

Oh for the good old days.

Rich

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Not exactly a lighthouse but close, it was the Portland Observatory.

Took a trip through New England with my parents when I was a kid. One stop was Portland, Maine which was going to be my first opportunity to see the ocean. Well that didn't happen as it was so foggy I couldn't see it, but when we got close I could at least hear it!

I remember walking down a street in town with my Dad, and him saying "Let's go in here." (I think my Mom was shopping for warmer clothes as the weather had turned quite cool.) I remember talking to whomever was inside and walking up what I believe was a spiral stairway. And that the structure was wooden. I suppose we went to the top for the view that wasn't, due to the fog. Well I sure thought I was in a lighthouse!

Shortly after I started collecting HL's I kept trying to figure out what lighthouse that had been. After reading an article in Lighthouse Digest and lookin on the web I finally figured out where I had been. Looks like a neat place and it has now reopened after having been closed for renovations. The webcam is down but if you click on it in the above site you can see a view from the top.

Now when my kids were small I went back with them looking for that "lighthouse". We didn't find it but managed to find Portland Head! All the while I kept thinking about the first "lighthouse" I had been to!

Hey - that's really cool! I can see how it would easily be mistaken for a lighthouse!

Probably Montauk Point Lighthouse. We used to go camping at Hither Hills State Park every year since I was around 5...and we always saw the lighthouse. Dad used to take pictures of us (his wonderful children) every year for Christmas cards...and I can remember two of the Christmas card pictures being "the kids at Montauk Point Lighthouse"...actually, Dad just gave me a copy of one of them...I'll have to scan it so you can see how cute we were.

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KRISTIN ERIN SCROOPE
kristin@scroope.net
http://www.scroope.net/lighthouses/lhlist.htm

Scroopes at Montauk Point circa 1983


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KRISTIN ERIN SCROOPE
kristin@scroope.net
http://www.scroope.net/lighthouses/lhlist.htm

[This message has been edited by kscroope (edited 07-27-2001).]

OK Kristin...which one is you?
What a cute picture. But it doesn't look like Christmas to me. Where's the snow...and Santa?

I'm the 2nd one from the right. You're right, it wasn't Christmas in this picture...it was the summer...my dad just used the picture anyway for a Christmas postcard type of thing. A lot of our Christmas card pictures were family pictures taken on Thanksgiving...and then two of them were summer pictures from Montauk...funny how my parents escaped every picture though...We had some other summer pictures, now that I'm thinking of it, for Chistmas cards...One was a summer picture in Maine, I think (not by a lighthouse though)...the four of us were standing on these steps...and then another was taken up state somewhere by Cooperstown by this big tree. Oh geez, it's all coming back to me now.

I believe my first encounter with a lighthouse was when I was 3 years old. It was Cape Henry. I just remember standing at the bottom and looking up, up, and up. My Dad said I was in total awe.

Sheryl

In 1971 our family visited the east coast and included a trip out to Martha's Vineyard. Pretty exciting stuff for a landlocked midwesterner! We went to Gay Head and saw what was left of the lighthouse. I took a picture of it, but didn't remember doing so until I found the picture while going through my mom's old photos! It is not a very good picture- I was only 11 years old- but it is the first LH picture that I ever took. Little did I know what would occur later in life!

chris g

I grew up in the Baltimore/Annapolis area and everywhere you go you are bound to find something with a lighthouse on it. So, it is probally no big surprise that my parents house was decorated in a nautical theme featuring lights from all over the country- not that they had ever seen a single one in person.
And, it wasn't until I moved up to New York that I really gave lighthouses any thought. I saw an ad in the Pennysaver for a tour of the Tarrytown lighthouse which is only 5 minutes away from where I live and that hardly anyone from the town seems to know about. I didn't have anything else to do that do so why not? So, off I went on a cold, rainy day to take the tour. Once I got to the park which is hidden away in a residential area, I instantly fell in love when I saw the lighthouse. And from there the obsession that keeps me out of New York practically every weekend blossomed.


shirin

My first "real" lighthouse memory is not as romantic as some of the others. I had been out to Nabisco's Toledo, OH, flour mill on business. The plant closes at 3:00 and I was traveling alone. I asked a few people what there was to do around there and somebody suggested I drive out to Marblehead. I drove like crazy to get there before sundown (which at that time of year was about 5:00). When I arrived I was overwhelmed by the beautiful ligthhouse and Lake Erie. Now I had seen lighthouses before on the Hudson but was never as smitten as I was that day. From that point on I have become a WACKO in every sense of the word.

My first Lighthouse memory just came back to me reading these other stories.

We spent our Honeymoon in Cape Cod in Oct 1974. Columbus Day Weekend 12-13-14.

I recall seeing Nobska from the Ferry over to Martha's Vineyard. I just went and looked at our pictures and I had none of nobska, but I did find pictures of Edgartown which we saw from the ferry over to Chappiquidick.

And yes I made it over the bridge in one piece.

I found a nice picture of East Chop. We did a circuit of Martha's Vineyard, but somehow never made it to Gay Head.

I must have driven right by Cape cod and Nauset Lights as we went out to Provincetown.

We have a picture of Nobska that we bought while there. It's been on our walls in all of our apartments/ houses for almost 27 years.

I'm going to try and delve backwards in the recesses of my memory and see if I can remember being at any other lighthouses earlier.

I did not get hit with the lighthouse bug until about 25 years after seeing those Cape Cod Lighthouses. I've been back and seen almost all of them on the Cape since then.

Along with a few others elswhere.

Dennis

Originally from St.Louis, it took until I was 18 and on my own to see my first lighthouse (that I can remember). And it was Portland Head. I can still remember how great I thought the setting was. What a classic lighthouse.
Now I'm hooked. Every vacation has got to have at least 15 lights on it. Is it a disease?

Ken