Beekmantown's oldest monument: Point au Roche Lighthouse

BEEKMANTOWN | There's a rocky outcrop near the surface of northern Lake Champlain that all 19th-century boatmen feared: it's called La Roche Reef. Located just south of Isle La Motte, Vermont, in New York waters, this shoal was a worry to commercial and private navigators on the big lake, especially at night. Experienced skippers learned to steer their vessels east of La Roche Reef to avoid its siren call, but the record shows many a vessel still hit it, sometimes with disastrous results. And so an effort was mounted to build a lighthouse nearby to illuminate a safe way past this infamous "menace to navigation." On Aug. 31, 1852, Congress approved $5,000 to build a modest lighthouse on the New York shore near the reef. Within a few months, 10.4 acres of land owned by Nathan Perry was acquired for the station. By today's standard, $440 paid for 10.4 acres sounds like a steal deal, but in those days it was a more-than-a-reasonable purchase price. While the headland site was secured for the Point Au Roche Lighthouse (sometimes spelled Point Aux Roches), it languished for nearly seven years until a permanent lighthouse was erected. It wasn't even until 1856 that a small beacon was set up at the site while the slow wheels of bureaucracy moved to select a contractor to begin the heavy construction work. Finally, after considerable dickering, in 1859, work on the big light began. The year 1859 was a busy one for building lighthouses on the New York shore of Lake Champlain. While work was underway at Point au Roche, two other lighthouses were under construction at Windmill Point and Crown Point. "Point Au Roche Lighthouse consisted of an octagonal blue limestone tower connected to a wooden cottage, and like its sister lights, had trapezoidal panes in its lantern room," according to a history compiled by the enthusiast group Lighthouse Friends. "A sixth-order Fresnel lens was used to produce a fixed white light that from its focal plane of 54 feet above the surface of the lake could be seen for 13 miles. A barn and stable were erected for the keeper in 1868, and in 1879 a cistern was built in the dwelling's cellar." Fossils and whale oil According to Beekmantown municipal records, the lighthouse was constructed of fossil-bearing Isle La Motte limestone. The lighthouse is an octagonal-shaped structure with unusual trapezoid panes. Fired by oil, the Point Au Roche light burned bright between 1859 and 1919. In many early to mid-19th-century lighthouses, whale oil (derived from whale blubber) was the best fuel for the big lanterns. The whaling industries of New York and New England provided the oil used by many lighthouses around the nation, including several Lake Champlain lights during the early to mid-1800s. But as American whalers began to senselessly hunt the great marine mammals to extinction for profit, petroleum oil (even vegetable oil) became the fuel for many coastal and inland lights. It was the decline of whaling, with a steep rise in price for the "biofuel", that prompted the U.S. Lighthouse Service to discontinue its use on Lake Champlain in 1919. However, light stations with fog horns or bells were exempted and paid the higher cost. All other stations started installing acetylene lights although the complete transition to more modern fuels staggered on into the 1920s. But the writing was on the lighthouse walls up and down the lake; the end of the traditional manned lighthouse era on the lake was fast approaching. "At Point Au Roche, an electric light was installed atop the limestone tower in 1933," Lighthouse Friends reports. "All the lighthouse property at the point, save a 50-foot-square lot surrounding the tower, was then sold for $2,100 in 1934 to Grover C. Oliver, a former keeper, who moved the keeper's cottage just north of the tower and used it as a private residence. Grover C. Oliver served as first assistant keeper at Eaton's Neck on Long Island Sound for several years before being placed in charge of Point au Roche Lighthouse in 1919." The demise of Point Au Roche as a beacon of navigation on Lake Champlain was a slow one. A monument to the past Over several years, the shoreline base below the tower was battered by storm-tossed waves, and bit by bit, the shore began to crumble threatening the integrity of the lighthouse. At one point, a section of the lighthouse fell, threatening to topple the entire tower. By 1989, the once-proud lighthouse was closed. "The Coast Guard determined the tower was unsafe and replaced Point au Roche Lighthouse with a buoy on La Roche Reef," according to Lighthouse Friends. "...All the lighthouse property at the point, save a 50-foot-square lot surrounding the tower, was... sold for $2,100 in 1934 to Grover C. Oliver." The penultimate Point Au Roche lightkeeper, Oliver eventually moved the old lighthouse cottage and turned it into a cozy, private residence. Located north of the 856-acre Point Au Roche State Park, the lighthouse stands as the first monument to be erected in Beekmantown. Head Keepers: Warren Clark (1856–1859), Allen Ormes (1859–1861), E.F. Chamberlin (1861–1865), Ambrose Gillette (1865–1866), William A. Nicholls (1866–1886), Amos Walker (1886–1892), Frank E. Diamond (1892–1901), Peter Savage (1901–1919), Grover C. Oliver (1919–1921), William H. Bailey (1925–1930?). Sources and special thanks: Lighthousefriends.com, "Lake Champlain Lighthouses, An Illustrated Guide...," the U.S. Coast Guard's "Historically Famous Lighthouses," and Helen Nerska, director, Clinton County Historical Association.

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Beekmantown's oldest monument: Point au Roche Lighthouse

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