![]() Harry Palmer, like the long line of keepers before him, night after night, climbed the 217 steps from the Oil House with two and one-half gallons of fuel to fire the light just before dusk and make sure it was extinguished just after dawn. It was especially perilous if weather forced the keeper to climb from the watch room to the lantern landing and remove snow and ice from the 16 windows 12 stories up. The duties were often lonely and tedious and could be downright dangerous when storms buffeted the lantern. The post of lighthouse keeper entailed a unique lifestyle for the keeper and his family. Calvin Coolidge occupied the White House, Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra introduced George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and daughter Ada was pulling grass from lighthouse brick walkways, dreaming of a flapper’s dress and hairdo. His first year at Cape May Light, Harry Palmer earned $960. Daughter Ada later told her son Charles Givens, “We were so seasick and scared that we were all happy to land safely, and start our new life at Cape May Light.” (Two years later in 1926, stormy waters undermined Cape Henlopen Lighthouse and the 45-foot ![]() They were sad to leave their beloved Delaware, but on crossing the hazardous shoals in Delaware Bay, a bad storm brewed with gale force winds. Nature forced them to depart the 1767 Cape Henlopen Lighthouse, which was teetering and tottering seaward. Mayhugh’s grandfather and family-wife, three daughters and son– arrived at their new home at the Cape May Light – the official name- in 1924. (One of the houses was later expanded to accommodate two keeper families. The first floor featured three rooms, front and back porches, and a stairway to four second floor bedrooms. The basement and walkways were red brick. The grounds that ran toward the sea were surrounded with white-washed fences. (It is now the private home of the Cape May Point State Park superintendent.) Originally there were two identical white clapboard cottages, one and one-half stories, with red trim and green shutters. This only surviving keeper’s house was built in 1860. They lived in that white house down there.” It is my peace to absorb the power of nature and stay connected to the Palmer family. “I come early for my watch at the top,” she says, “a half hour or so to meditate and enjoy the beauty, solitude and quiet my grandfather must have experienced at this high level. She is one of several contemporary keepers of the Cape May Lighthouse, a museum since 1988, telling its 148-year history and lore to the 100,000 visitors each year. Like her grandfather, she is a lighthouse keeper, and has been for 11 years. She is his descendant, his granddaughter– Mayhugh Palmer Tees, who inherited his proclivity for life at the top. ![]() She has a striking resemblance to Cape May’s last lighthouse keeper, Harry Hall Palmer. Who is this solitary figure? An apparition, the lost spirit of Florence Arabelle “Belle” Palmer who assumed keeper duties when her husband Harry suffered a serious heart attack in 1933?Ī surreal phantom she certainly is not. “Flounder must be running,” she says to herself, observing a village of vessels. She scans the horizon for oil tankers, fishing boats, sloops, schooners and ferries. She pauses, touches the rail, and circles the observation deck, absorbing the 360-degree view from 136 feet high. The light salty breezes rustle her log book as she writes. This July morning the sun splashes millions of diamonds on the sapphire sea. On a clear day she can see 20 miles in all directions. This is her ritual, no matter the sea-swept winds, rain and fog that sometimes shroud the red cap atop the cream tower that is Cape Island’s most visible landmark. Saturday mornings at 8:15 a.m., this slender dark haired woman, moving with a dancer’s grace, ascends the 199 steps to the look-out at the Cape May Lighthouse. Mayhugh Palmer Tees inside the lighthouse.
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