Sixth Grader Picks Lost Lighthouse For Project

A lighthouse in Sea Isle City, New Jersey, decommissioned in 1924, sold for scrap after being damaged by a fire and multiple storms, has found an unlikely group of supporters in two middle school groups in Nashville, Tennessee. According to a story in the Press of Atlantic City, 12 year old Diana Branch, a sixth grader at Meigs Magnet Middle School was taking part in the recent New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge with her grandmother, and visited the former Ludlum Beach Lighthouse, now a six room summer rental unit that sits two blocks away from the ocean (photo below from www.lighthousefriends.com).

When she returned home, she wrote a paper about the trip, and through 4-H, chose the lighthouse as a service learning project to raise funds for its restoration. Denise Branch, the girl’s grandmother said in the story, “The children are all for it. Most of the people in this school are connected to the music industry. The parents are behind this also, which tickled me because I didn’t think anybody but me liked lighthouses. In this state, you see hills and cows.” Her grandson, Anthony, age 11, is also doing something similiar at his school, she said.

Lighthouse Had Eventful Service

Ludlum Beach Lighthouse was commissioned in the early 1880s when the Lighthouse Board determined the need for a light between Absecon Lighthouse in Atlantic City and the Hereford Inlet Lightstation in North Wildwood. Built on the beach, it was battered with flooding during almost every storm, but most particularly during one in 1889, recorded in the Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board.

Much damage was done to this station by the storm of September 19, 1889, and the danger of its destruction was such that it became necessary to take out the illuminating apparatus [4th order Fresnel lens] and to abandon the light-house during the continuance of the storm [hurricane]. A new wooden sea-wall on the ocean front … had just been completed and was not apparently hurt, but the old wall connecting with it and extending around the rear of the site, was broken on both its upper and lower sides, most of the filling was washed out and the upper and part of the rear and front foundation walls of the lighthouse and dwelling were undermined. The foundation walls were rebuilt and the chimney was underpinned. A new wooden sea-wall, extending across the rear of the light-house lot, with a return of 50 feet on each side connecting it with the wall on the front, was built and filled in with sand and a top dressing of gravel.

Although the wooden seawall was replaced with concrete one, the damage continued. So much so that a Lighthouse Service Superintendent wrote in a report that “This station is not a very important station and it is not considered that a great deal should be expended in protecting same, until more urgent cases have been cared for elsewhere.”

A fire however, was the ultimate downfall for the light. The keeper’s pet knocked over a kerosene lamp in the kitchen. By the time help arrived, the kitchen and roof were burnt. The Lighthouse Service sold the remains of the station at an auction, after removing the Fresnel Lamp, and put up a steel tower as a replacement light. Pictured above is how the the lighthouse originally looked (public domain photo of the old lighthouse from the Coast Guard).

Owner Wants Building Demolished or Moved

The lighthouse was moved twice, until it came to rest at its current location. Its current owner, Charles Adams, who has owned the property for 15 years, wants to demolish it and put up more modern lodging on the site. He says the building is not much to look at. “It’s an old, old building. I don’t want to flatter myself. It’s not like I tell anybody I’m living in an old lighthouse,” he said. “I’m living in a building that should have been in a landfill 80 years ago, and it’s not.”

After hearing this, the Friends of Ludlum Beach Lighthouse was formed by Bob Urhmann, and Adams said he’ll donate the building to them if they can move it. It’s a long process for raising funds, however, but Adams said that he’s willing to wait. “I am sensitive to their needs. By the time I get approval (to build), if they want me to wait a year or two years, I can wait,” he said in the story.

A New Generation of Lighthouse Lovers?

This type of support for lighthouses is great to read. Although this particular building doesn’t resemble a lighthouse anymore, it may, if the kids in Tennessee and Uhrmann have any say in the matter, be rebuilt to the way it used to look. A great great grandson of the first keeper has been found, and he’s come forth with old photos to be used as a guide. It was a surprise to him, as he’d been told the lighthouse had been lost to a hurricane.

Between projects like this, and the Lighthouse Kids in New Hampshire, who helped save White Island Lighthouse, the future of our beacons looks bright.

Do you know of any other kids who are involved in lighthouse preservation somehow? Let us know, wither in the comments to this story, or through the contact page.

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