By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
The recent announcement of the reopening of Point Bonita Lighthouse after a two-year closure
came as welcome news to fans of the 157-year-old landmark.
But it turns out the lighthouse was a flashpoint of controversy soon after it opened. In November of 1855, San Francisco’s Daily Alta California newspaper carried a letter to the editor stating: “The light on Point Bonita was entirely out last night, from five minutes past two o'clock, until twenty minutes past two. The fact that the light did not shine was also observed by the passengers, as well as the officers of the Laura Beven.” The letter was signed by Fred'k Morton Master of the schooner Laura Bevan.
The next day lighthouse keeper Howard Colson submitted an impassioned, sometimes snarkey, response:
Mr. Editor: I noticed, with some surprise, a card in your paper of this morning, complaining that on Friday night last there was no light exhibited in the lantern of this light house for the space of fifteen minutes. If the Captain of the Laura Bevan had understood the nature of the light of the point, he would not, without some other than a fair motive in view, have made this charge against me.
The light is a Fresnel of the second order --- lens light --- three separate wicks in one burner, covered with a glass chimney. The heat arising from these wicks is so great, that if the light is extinguished instantly, the glass chimney, by the sudden reaction of the cold air, would break in a thousand pieces. The light has been established about six months, and already over 100 of these glasses have been destroyed from this cause. To save this expenditure of glass, as well as time in trimming, we have to reduce the light gradually to allow the glass to cool off, but to trim the wicks of them the light has of course to be extinguished. How they can be trimmed, however, and at the same time the extinguished light shows as steady a flame as usual during the process, perhaps the very smart Captain of the Laura Bevan and his four passengers can tell better than myself. But to say that there was no light in the lantern for the space of fifteen minutes on the night in question, or any other night, supposes that I can see in the dark, for I actually do trim the wicks and adjust the machinery once in four hours at least, every night, which I possibly could not do, if I had not the benefit at the time of a very good light to show me how to do it.
For the benefit of the Captain of the Laura Bevan and his four passengers, as well as for the information of other matters of vessels generally (from whom I am happy to say I have as yet heard no whimper of complaint) I would say, that the operation of trimming occupies from 10 to 15 minutes; that the operation cannot be performed without some light in the lantern; that the work of trimming is done as quickly as any man alive can do it. and I assert that there is no light on this or any other coast that has more strict attention paid to it in every particular than the one I have the keeping of on Point Bonita. If the captain of the Laura Bevan imagines that the keeper of the light on Point Bonita has an easy and lucrative situation, and has a relative or friend he wishes to occupy that position, he is informed that if he will apply to Collector Latham to that effect, the undersigned will not stand for one moment in his way ; and if he should succeed in his object, the recipient of his favor will find to his satisfaction, before one month expires, that as to ease and emolument he never had less of both for the same amount of labor expended in any other position he ever occupied in his life.
Point Bonita was the last lighthouse in California to become automated, in 1981, according to the U.S. Lighthouse Society. The lighthouse was transferred to the National Park Service in 1984 and is operated by the U.S. Coast Guard.
COURTESY PHOTO
Point Bonita Lighthouse in 2018