1/22/2024 0 Comments Old lighthouse keeper paintingPatrick Kough, Superintendent of Lighthouses, recommended that a stone and brick tower be built within the lighthouse to support the weighty lantern room, and this was carried out in 1850.Ī small addition was made on the east side of the lighthouse in 1865 to provide two comfortable rooms for the assistant keeper. Each of the lighthouse’s four corners was subsequently chained to the rock, but still a fearful Keeper Cantwell complained that the lighthouse trembled whenever a strong wind blew. The lantern room, supported by a wooden framework within the lighthouse, was so contorted that nearly every pane of glass was broken. On September 19, 1846, a tremendous gale struck Cape Spear and blew with such violence that it lifted one side of the lighthouse several inches off the foundation. When Emanuel Warren, the first keeper at Cape Spear, passed away in 1846, the position was indeed given to James Cantwell, and six generations of the family subsequently looked after the light. ![]() After a brief hesitation, Cantwell responded, “Your Highness, I would like to be the lightkeeper at Cape Spear.” The prince was able to procure the position with the added stipulation that it would belong to the Cantwell heirs as long as they desired. Cantwell boarded the frigate and, despite the poor visibility, safely piloted the vessel through the Narrows to Queen’s Wharf.Ī grateful Prince Henry presented Cantwell with a signed testimonial and asked him to name his reward. Six oared pilot boats were dispatched to find the prince, and it was James Cantwell’s boat that eventually spied the Rhine through a hole in the fog. Eager crowds lined both sides of the flag-draped route leading from Queen’s Wharf to Government House, but there was just one problem – the prince’s frigate Rhine was lost in dense fog that shrouded the approach to St. On the morning of August 9, 1845, the arrival of Prince Henry of the Netherlands, the first foreign potentate to visit Newfoundland, was highly anticipated at St. Initially fueled by sperm whale oil, the lighting apparatus had seven Argand burners set in silvered reflectors and revolved to produce a brilliant flash of light each minute. Each face of the building was divided into three bays or sections, using pilasters, and “false” windows were used to obtain a balanced facade. ![]() To cover all the expenses, the government was forced to pass an act in 1835 authorizing an additional £500 to be raised by loan.Ĭape Spear Lighthouse in 1969 with its many additionsĪ square, two-storey, wooden residence, was completed in 1835, but the lighthouse could not be activated until September 1, 1836, due to the time needed for the lantern and lighting apparatus to arrive and be mounted atop the center of the lighthouse’s hipped roof. Stevenson and Sons of Scotland provided a copper domed lantern room with a diameter of ten feet for £335, and a twenty-eight-year-old lighting apparatus from Inchkeith Lighthouse on the Firth of Forth in Scotland was refurbished by the Scottish firm of McBride and Kerr at a cost of £628 for use at Cape Spear. ![]() John’s builders Nichoals Croke and William Parker commenced work on the lighthouse that year, using plans from the Northern Lighthouse Board in Scotland. Governor Cochrane, accompanied by the Commissioners, the Commanding Royal Engineer, and the Surveyor General, visited Cape Spear in 1834 and selected a site for the lighthouse near the edge of a vertical seventy-three-metre sandstone cliff. In 1834, the newly formed representative government under Governor Thomas Cochrane passed “An Act for the Establishment of Lighthouses,” which among many things appointed five persons to serve as Commissioners of Lighthouses and authorized £1000 to be raised by loan for a lighthouse at Cape Spear. A corruption of the French noun esperance, meaning hope, Cape Spear was likely named after the emotion felt by sailors upon reaching land after a lengthy ocean voyage. John’s Harbour and was a natural place to construct Newfoundland’s first coastal lighthouse. Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America, is situated just south of the entrance to St.
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