A Keeper's Heritage
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The Thacher Island News VOLUME 12, ISSUE 2 NOVEMBER 2012 A KEEPER’S HERITAGE THAT’S ALMOST STRANGER THAN FICTION John Fulton, a Smyrna, Georgia, resident who has served as a volunteer keeper on Thacher Island for the past 10 summers, knew he had New England roots. Keepers Darlene and John Fulton The paternal side of his family hailed made the same decision other young They eventually settled in Weymouth. from Weymouth, Massachusetts, until women often did: She went home to her A month later, 6-year-old Howard Arey John’s father met a Georgia girl who parents for the birth of her first child. If the died of measles, and in December, was waitressing in a Martha’s Vineyard family legend wasn’t conclusively proved, it Eugenia, the family matriarch, married restaurant and followed her south. There at least seems likely that Addie Lincoln was her third husband. This time, perhaps was also a family legend that John’s born at a light station off the coast of Maine. hoping to escape the possibility of another great-grandmother had been born in a The search would have stopped there if widowhood, 47-year-old Eugenia married a lighthouse off the coast of Maine. “But we census and vital records hadn’t revealed an man two decades her junior -- 27-year-old don’t know which lighthouse, or even if it’s additional, unexpected fact: Addie Lincoln Nova Scotian immigrant George Barnes. true,” John’s wife, Darlene, told a fellow may have been born in Maine of Boston Their 25-year marriage ended in 1916 when keeper. “No one’s ever been able to find a residents, but she grew up in Gloucester, a George died of a cerebral hemorrhage, birth certificate for Addie Lincoln.” The port city from which she could have seen leaving Eugenia a widow for the next 15 fellow keeper offered to run Addie’s name the island on which her future southern years. When 94-year-old Eugenia died in through her ancestry.com account. The great-grandson would be discovering 1931, she was buried with her third husband, results were enlightening. the facts of her life. Addie was just a few George, son-in-law Charles Baker, and weeks short of her fifth birthday when her a 3-month-old grandson in Gloucester’s father died of dysentery in 1874. A few Cherry Hill Cemetery. years later, her mother married Joshua The story of Eugenia – lighthouse keeper’s Arey, a widower from Maine. Joshua was a daughter, schooner captain’s wife, master mariner, so it was logical for him to Gloucester widow – so ignited John and seek work in what was then New England’s Darlene Fulton’s imaginations they left pre-eminent fishing port. The 1880 census Thacher Island in the hands of the assistant shows a Gloucester household made up of keepers one day in August. Driving around Joshua Arey, his wife, Eugenia, 10-year- Gloucester, they found and photographed Curtis Island Lighthouse old stepdaughter, Addie Lincoln, and her all the local addresses listed in the new sibling, 1-year-old Blanche Arey. documents that pertained to John’s great- The birth of John Fulton’s great- Grace Arey joined the family in 1883 and great-grandmother’s life. grandmother, Addie Kimball Lincoln, was Howard Arey in 1884. In January 1887, Continued on page 2 registered in Boston, home of her parents, Joshua was the captain of the schooner Rufus Warren Lincoln and Eugenia Augusta H. Johnson when a storm washed Barbour. But the 1869 birth document him overboard on Georges Bank. He left reveals that Addie was actually born in a widow and four children who ranged in Camden, Maine. Eugenia’s father, Isaiah age from 16 to 3 years old. Barbour, was the lighthouse keeper on 1891 was an important year for the Camden’s Negro Island (later renamed Lincoln/Arey family. In February, Curtis Island) from 1861 to 1872. It’s 21-year-old Addie Lincoln married Kent probable that Eugenia Barbour Lincoln S. Fulton, a milk dealer from Norwood. Suellen Wedmore Holding Things Together – Literally Thacher Island volunteer John Bennett maintenance needs, so he sold it to is known as “welderman,” a reputation a Gloucester fisherman and used the gained from 30 years of fusing together proceeds to build a house in Rockport, or cutting apart most of the man-made where he and his wife, his hometown structures associated with Thacher and sweetheart Mary Rivers, raised two Straitsmouth islands. He started life in daughters. By then in his late 20s, John Dorchester, Massachusetts, though, as started Bennett Welding, the company he tells it, his childhood occurred on that would become his career. the weekends when he stayed with his He became involved with Thacher Island grandparents in Quincy, across the river when “Ned Cameron drug me out there from the Fore River Shipyard. When he in 1981, and I’ve been going almost every was “20 or so” he went to work in that Wednesday since.” John and Mary were Quarter scale model of Thacher Island donated same shipyard, where he learned the to the Association museum. WORK CREW PROFILE welder’s trade. John Bennett When World War II came along he By Paul St. Germain joined the US Navy. “I decided not As president of the Thacher Island Association, I lighthouse model,” said Perkins. When he contacted to tell them I could weld,” Bennett get my fair share of queries about how to access me in June 2011, I was happy to send him more said. “I figured I might as well let Continued from page 1 the Rockport, Massachusetts, island, but Donald than 100 drawings and photographs of buildings the Navy teach A KEEPER’S HERITAGE Perkins’s phone call was different. “I am bringing on the island. Eleven months later I was delighted me something.” the island to you,” the Pocasset, Massachusetts, to see how he had translated those images into a THAT’S ALMOST STRANGER THAN FICTION The Navy sent native promised. three-dimensional miniature construction. Two years earlier, the Fultons had assisted him to aviation amateur filmmaker Shaun Goulart, who mechanics school When Perkins and his wife of 57 years, Louise, The twin towers, which are more than 30 inches was shooting footage on Thacher Island. and then, in 1943, co-chairs of the Thacher Island Town arrived at Rockport Harbor on July 10, their van high, dominate the model. The windows in the “Devil’s Island,” an homage to movie to Pan American Committee, taking over from its first contained a 4-foot-by-8-foot model of Thacher lantern rooms are made of glass, and an electrical thrillers, includes a cameo appearance by at LaGuardia Field chairman, Ned Cameron, and passing Island’s current structures: two lighthouse towers, connection allows both towers to be illuminated, John as a boat captain landing the film’s in New York City, the torch to Syd Wedmore after 10 years two keeper residences, whistle house with fog with the South Tower flashing red, exactly like protagonist on the island’s ramp. And it before assigning of service. “Mary was really the chair,” signal, oil house, and boat house with skiff on its Thacher’s current navigational beacon. The model’s him to four-engine seaplanes, like the John claims. “She was the brains of the ramp. The model, compressed to accommodate towers are textured to resemble granite blocks; Coronado, that carried cargo and mail outfit. She was the brains of our business, all of the island’s buildings, is built to one-quarter windows and porches are rich with details, including across the South Pacific theater. As too,” he said, referring to her role as scale, with a quarter inch representing a foot of “gingerbread” trim on the rakes of the principal flight engineer, Bennett was responsible bookkeeper of his welding company. Donald Perkins is a the actual structures. The model was built in two keepers’ house; and doors on all the structures for inspecting the planes, keeping track Mary died in January 2010, and her ashes seasoned model builder. His of 200 gallons of gasoline an hour, were scattered off Thacher Island this sections so it could be transported, first by van open and close. The workmanship is precise, and 39 previous models, which which meant balancing the tanks, and past June. from the other Cape, Cape Cod, to Cape Ann then many of the materials Perkins used are common include Minot’s Ledge Light, by the Thacher Island II launch to the island’s ramp household items. For example, one half of a copper keeping tabs on the pressure and heat Ninety-one-year-old John Bennett Boston Light, Clark’s Point, and by the island’s electric cart to the Thacher toilet float forms the roof of each tower, and plastic in the carburetors. The latter wasn’t a is the oldest member of the Thacher Rockland Breakwater, White Island Museum, where it was installed for public pill bottles supply the lights’ red and amber lenses. matter of merely adjusting a setting, Island work crew and the one with the Island, Duxbury Pier Light, Bennett said, finessing a remembered longest continuous record of volunteer viewing. Don has done a marvelous job of recreating the control knob with his right hand. “You service to the island. He attends Scituate Lighthouse, Race Donald Perkins is a seasoned model builder. Thacher Island twin lights in miniature and has truly had to feel it. You had to get the right most town committee and Thacher Point in Provincetown, and His 39 previous models, which include Minot’s done justice to this National Historic Landmark site.