On NPR I heard a report on the Newshour about lighthouses and their women keepers.

One lighthouse featured was the Point Pinos Lighthouse in Pacific Grove, just northwest of Monterey. What I didn’t know but learned from the report was that the lighthouse is the oldest light in continuous use on the West Coast. So it seemed like a great Saturday morning sketch adventure.

The light first shown its beam on February 1, 1855. The current lens is a 3rd-order Fresnel Lens that was built in Paris, France in 1853 which is the lighthouse’s original lens. In clear weather the light can be seen from 17 miles at sea. In dense fog the foghorns are activated.

The first woman lighthouse keeper was Charlotte Layton. She became keeper when her husband, the first keeper at Point Pinos, was murdered by while taking part in a posse to capture the bandit Anastasio Garcia. Garcia got Layton first. She was the keeper from 1856-1860.

Perhaps the lighthouse’s most famous female keeper is Emily Fish, known as the “Socialite Keeper” for her entertaining at the lighthouse. She served as keeper from 1893 to 1914. While she was not the first woman lighthouse keeper at Pt. Pinos, she was the last.

When I arrived at the lighthouse just after 11, I was greeted by Nancy, the docent interviewed on the Newshour. I told her I was here because of seeing the lighthouse featured on the news.

I jokingly asked her if she had signed many autographs yet.

I walked around the lighthouse to look for a sketching perspective and thought the view from the front would do just fine (featured sketch).

On the lighthouse grounds is the only remainder of the freighter Gipsy: her anchor. This is a reminder of why lighthouses exist, to let sailors at sea know where they are and that land is near. And hopefully the two shall not meet, well not at speed anyway.

The Gipsy hauled freight and people up and down the California Coast from San Francisco to San Diego. The ship was known as “Old Perpetual Motion”. On a foggy night on September 27, 1905, the ship was going from San Francisco to Monterey when the inexperienced relief captain mistook a red marker construction light for the marker at the end of Monterey wharf. The ship was wrecked on the rocks near McAbee Beach. The ship was a total loss.