If we’re being honest, it’s a miracle that Sally Snowman’s job survived as long as it did.
Nearly a quarter century ago, Congress passed the National Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. It gave the government a way to “dispose” of lighthouses—to transfer their general-care costs and responsibilities off the federal books. The idea was that the U.S. Coast Guard’s mission should include maintaining only the lights and fog signals as aids to navigation. Other people, such as those running nonprofits, could better handle upkeep and restoration of the lighthouse structures and broader historical sites.
Some lighthouse lovers took the news better than others. Consternation was particularly loud about Boston Light. Of the 850 or so lighthouses in the United States, Boston Light is the oldest to be continually used and staffed. It dates back to the Revolutionary War. It’s been a National Historic Landmark since 1964, and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966. The public, quite simply, wanted it to remain staffed.
Thus, in 2003, Snowman became the 70th keeper of Boston Light. She’d live out on Little Brewster Island for about five and a half months each year, waving to the passing boats and giving tours, and hanging tough during nor’easters and hurricanes. Even after 2018, when Boston Light failed a safety inspection and Snowman had to move fully ashore to her home in North Weymouth, Massachusetts, she’d still get out to Little Brewster Island to check on Boston Light maybe twice a week, whenever the tides, weather and sea state allowed—since there’s no dock for an easy landing.
On December 31, though, Snowman retired. Coast Guardsmen from Station Point Allerton in Hull, Massachusetts, took the 72-year-old lightkeeper out on their 29-footer for one final check, a “last hurrah” on the island, she says, that lasted about 45 minutes.
And then, Boston Light officially joined all the other formerly manned (or womanned, as Snowman says) lighthouses in the country with no official Coast Guard staff. There was news of a property-ownership transfer in the works, albeit without any details yet released about who would be taking over.
All of that is fine by Snowman, who, about a week into her retirement, told Soundings there’s nothing wrong with her profession going the way of linotype operators and streetlamp lighters. “The Coast Guard’s existence is for safety of our shores and our mammals and the water. There’s nowhere in the Coast Guard’s mission that says it must maintain historic lighthouses, and there are organizations out there that specifically do that,” Snowman says. “People taking the lighthouses, they have done absolutely fabulous work. There’s been approximately 150 successful transfers so far. They’re opening up as museums and B&Bs. They’re giving them the honor that they deserve.”
Truth be told, she says, much of the outcry about needing to preserve lighthouses is coming from people of all ages who are onshore, not asea. “With the amount of correspondence I get, it’s from children to senior citizens,” she says. “But a lot of those people aren’t necessarily boaters. A lot of the people who love lighthouses don’t even go into the water.”
With the advent of GPS, chartplotters, radar and, increasingly, AI-based collision-avoidance systems, the big Fresnel lenses like the one atop Boston Light are no longer the blinking aid to navigation that boaters turn to first. Technological advancements make it hard, Snowman says, to justify all the time and effort that goes into maintaining Boston Light’s lens, which still has its original gear works. If boaters need a light for navigation, there are now much easier ways to build that shining beacon.
“Does the Coast Guard have to have a 137-year-old crystal at the top of a tower? No. All it needs is a light that flashes every 10 seconds that can be seen 27 miles out to sea,” Snowman says. “With the LED technology we have today, that’s easy, and the cost of it is more economical.”
Snowman says she hopes to resume giving tours of Boston Light as a volunteer, just as soon as the new owners, whoever they turn out to be, mitigate the safety problems noted in the 2018 inspection. Until then, she plans to be out and about in Boston Harbor as a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary—a role in which she has served for 47 years, in addition to her 20 years of being paid as the lighthouse keeper.
Snowman and her husband, Jay Thomson, tool around on their 20-foot Maritime skiff, which has a 115-hp Yamaha outboard. The boat’s name is SBLS, an acronym for Sally’s Boston Light Shuttle. “When we bought the boat, I was managing the Auxiliary volunteers and using the boat to get them out to the island,” she says. “Here we are 24 years later, and the boat still runs. We take really good care of it.”
Now, she uses the boat to help with whatever kinds of assistance boaters out in the harbor might need. She duly informed the guardsmen who took her out to Boston Light on her last day that they could still count on her for anything they need.
“They asked if my boat was still going to be around,” Snowman recalls. “I said, ‘Oh yes, have no fear, Sally will still be out there.’”
This article was originally published in the March 2024 issue.
