In 1822, French scientist Augustin-Jean Fresnel developed a new kind of lens. He made it with specially arranged glass pieces that could beam light miles farther than had ever been possible. Fresnel lenses were then mounted within tall lighthouses, revolutionizing maritime navigation all around the world.
More recently, three of these lenses were housed for display inside Hooper Strait Lighthouse, which dates to 1879, and which has stood on the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s Navy Point since being moved there in 1966. These three Fresnel lenses were all different sizes, and the museum wanted to move the largest one—essentially, the equivalent of moving a chandelier built of 300 or so glass pieces arranged in panels that weigh 75 to 100 pounds each. The goal was to take this Fresnel lens from the second floor of the lighthouse to the museum’s new Welcome Center that’s scheduled to open this fall.
The museum needed a reputable lampist. A man named Kurt Fosburg got the call.
“Lampist is an old-world term for the gentleman who went to a lighthouse and worked just on the lens,” Fosburg says. “The lighthouse keeper maintained the site and the facility, but he was only allowed to clean the lens and oil it and things of that nature. He wasn’t allowed to repair it. It’s delicate, fairly sophisticated technology.”
While hundreds of Fresnel lenses remain today, precious few lampists are still around to take care of them. There are private lampists, Fosburg says, but the U.S. Coast Guard owns most of the remaining lenses, whether they’re in use or not. Most of the Fresnel lenses in museums are on loan, as is the case with the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum lens that Fosburg was hired to move. His name is on the Coast Guard’s trusted list of what he thinks is just seven or so lampists, many near retirement age, whom the Coast Guard trusts when it comes to preserving these historical gems.
“Everybody loves lighthouses. It’s a universal thing,” Fosburg says. “But most people don’t realize that the lighthouses were only there to support that lens. The entire purpose of the beautiful building was to put that lens high up in the air and protect it from the elements.”
At college, Fosburg studied mechanical engineering, but then became a jeweler, a job he held for decades. He got interested in the Fresnel lenses through his work as vice president of Marquette Maritime Museum in Michigan, which brought in a lampist to work on a lens from the Stannard Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior. “He was one of the last lampists trained from a real lampist, before the last ones died years ago,” Fosburg says.
Fosburg then did an apprenticeship and worked on enough Fresnel lens jobs to earn the Coast Guard’s trust. “There’s no piece of paper that says you’re certified,” he says. “They just put your name on the list.”
For the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Fosburg disassembled the lens, used a clear solution to stabilize the litharge—a mineral that’s kind of like caulk for the glass pieces—moved the whole shebang across the museum campus, cleaned and replaced every piece that needed restoration, and then reassembled the lens.
The lens will now be one of the first things visitors see when they enter the Welcome Center, part of an orientation exhibition that introduces people to the stories and artifacts they will find across the museum’s campus.
“Now it’s right where you walk in, on display,” Fosburg says, adding that he believes moving the lenses out of lighthouses is good for their preservation. “There is a push from some historians to get them back in the tower, but despite the fact that they started life there, it’s the worst place for them. The keeper had so many things to do, and one of them was to close the curtains every morning because the sun damages them. Unless you deal with UV resistance, it wouldn’t be compatible for the long term. But in museums, they can be in an accessible spot. A lot of people can’t get to the top of a lighthouse anyway, especially if you’re older or have a disability. Having the lens in a museum is good for everybody.”
Moving Fresnel lenses like the one at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, he adds, is something of a hotbed controversy in the world of lighthouse enthusiasts.
“There are purists who say you’re stealing the soul out of a lighthouse when you take the lens from it,” Fosburg says, “but they’re not the ones maintaining them.”
Looking to the next generation, Fosburg is now hoping to take on an apprentice of his own. It’s a struggle, he says, because “kids don’t want to do this anymore.”
So, for now, he’ll keep up the work, which he finds interesting and important. “This is a niche job preserving history,” he says. “I hope to be doing this for a long time.”
This article was originally published in the September 2023 issue.
