Fourteen Foot Bank Lightkeeper Shares Memories
By Sue Clark on Oct 9, 2007 in Lighthouse Keeper Jobs 
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After the recent purchase of Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse by Michael Gabriel, a California attorney, the Delaware News Journal has located the last lightkeeper of the station for a recent interview. Matthew Lomot, who pulled duty at the lighthouse from February 1967 until January 1970 shares his three top tips for living in a lighthouse.
- Bring along plenty of food, water and fuel. You might be out there longer than you expect.
- Make friends with the local fishermen. They might bring you the Sunday paper.
- Whatever you do, do not walk in front of the foghorn.
“I walked in front of it one time, and that was the last time I ever did that,” he said. “Oh God, it was horrible. My ears hurt, and I never did that again.” He, like other lightkeepers before him, soon found himself so accustomed to the horn that he would forget it was on, and conversations on the lighthouse took on an unusual cadence: Speak. Pause for the horn. Speak. Pause for the horn.
“I liked the lighthouse. It was good duty,” Lomot said. “Most of the people didn’t like it. They associated it with being isolated and loneliness, and also tales from the old lightships they had. They (lightships) were rougher duty than the lighthouse. Them fellows really had it hard.”
Lomot was previously stationed aboard a Coast Guard Cutter, but when one of the lightkeepers wanted off Fourteen Foot Bank, he took it in a heartbeat. At first it was four men crews that tended the light, but it was eventually downsized to three, with two weeks on and one week off. This way, two would be on the light at all times, with twelve hour shifts. However, it didn’t always work that way, especially in the winter, when the fierce weather could prevent their relief from arriving.
On hint number two, Lomot recalls the local fishermen would come to visit, with one bringing the Sunday paper, doughnuts and beverages faithfully every week. The quarters were comfortable, he says in the story, and mentions that the Coast Guard had installed a head to replace the outhouse perched precariously at the edge (seen in the photo). “I went out to the outhouse one time, and I walked inside it and looked down and seen the water and said, ‘No way.’ It looked kind of scary from in there,” Lomot said.
So for those contemplating a purchase of a lighthouse (there’s another one available…more on that in the next post), it will be wise to heed the words of USCG lightkeeper Matthew Lomot, and NEVER walk in front of the foghorn!
Originally posted on October 9, 2007.
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