Southwest Pacific: A Brief History Of U.s. Coast Guard Operations Part I

By the end of the Mexican War in 1848, the United States had taken possession of California, whose coastline was virtually unknown and devoid of any aids to navigation. In fact, not a single lighthouse existed along the entire West Coast. With gold fever running high and wagon trains full of pioneers pushing west towards California, the federal government tasked four small organizations to aid mariners and provide federal law enforcement in the wild Southwest. In time, these four agencies would combine to form the modern day U.S. Coast Guard.

The story of the U.S. Coast Guard in the Southwest, begins with the U.S. Lighthouse Service. Congress, realizing that aids to navigation were essential to maritime trade and the development of the West, authorized in 1848 the establishment of lighthouses along the coast. The primary problem at that time was that most of the Pacific coastline was unexplored, making it virtually impossible to locate sites and build lighthouses. The federal government mandated that an exploration survey be conducted to insure that the most advantageous lighthouse sites were located. The U.S. Coast Survey, later U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, was given the task. It was not until 1849, however, that a ship was able to conduct the survey. Eventually, Congress authorized the first group of lights in California at Fort Point, Fort Bonita, Alcatraz Island, Point Pinos, Point Loma, Santa Barbara, Point Conception, the Farallon Islands, Humboldt Harbor, and Cres

ent City, in addition to other locations on the West Coast. Between 1852 and 1858, sixteen lights were erected in what today is California, Oregon, and Washington.

The Treasury Department awarded the contract to build the lights to the Baltimore-based firm of Francis X. Kelly and Francis A. Gibbons. The ship Oriole was dispatched, with men and supplies, to San Francisco. In December 1852, the foundation for the first lighthouse in California was begun on Alcatraz Island. By 1854, the first light shined from the West Coast on Alcatraz Island.

The construction firm’s workers that arrived at the Farallon Islands met with an unexpected setback. The cost of eggs in San Francisco was so high that egg-pickers were gathering seabird eggs on the island and selling them for a nice profit. The entrepreneurs strongly felt that a lighthouse would drive away their source of income and prevented the construction crews from coming ashore. A Coast Survey ship, with armed sailors was dispatched to ascertain and mediate the situation. Upon seeing the armed landing party, the egg-pickers quickly surrendered, deciding that a lighthouse would not be harmful to the birds.

California, with its long coastline, needed more and more lights as trade increased throughout the nineteenth century. Some of the lighthouses were a real test of ingenuity and expertise for nineteenth century engineers. One of the most difficult to build was at St. George Reef. Built on Northwest Seal Rock, which is only 300 feet in diameter, it is one of the few wave-swept lights in the country. (A wave-swept light is exposed to the full force of the sea.) During construction, work could only be accomplished on every fifth day due to the cycle of the pounding seas. The foundation of St. George Reef Light is a pier in an irregular oval shape, 86 feet in diameter, faced with cut granite and filled with concrete. The tower is also constructed of granite with the smallest block weighing 17 tons. The light stands 144 feet above sea level and was first lit on October 20, 1892. All total, it took an incredible ten long years to successfully complete the project, yet after 97 years St. George Reef Light still stands today.

The life of a nineteenth century lighthouse keeper, manning a lighthouse away from the pressures of life may seem idyllic to most modern Americans. However, the words most used by keepers in their diaries and letters to describe their existence are "loneliness" and "monotony". A great deal of a keeper’s life centered on the mundane duties of keeping the station and its equipment clean.

Lighthouses were by necessity placed in areas of danger and were in isolated regions. Before the advent of electricity, the lighting device was a lamp. Fuel for illumination ranged from whale oil, lard oil, rapeseed oil, and petroleum products. The wick of the lamp had to be carefully trimmed to produce a strong light and watched constantly throughout the night. This constant attention to wicks led to lighthouse keepers earning the nickname "wickies.’

Unbeknownst to most people today, many light keepers were women. F Ross Holland, one of this country’s foremost authorities on lights, noted that lighthouses going back to the 1800’s "at one time or another had female assistant keepers; and a surprising number had women as principal keepers." This was not, however, because of an enlightened view on the part of the service. Rather, it was a means of saving money. It was not unusual to have a husband and wife team at a station. Both wives and children helped in running the light. For example, Mary Israel raised four children while assisting her husband at the Old Point Loma Light, near San Diego. Another example, Juliet Fish, keeper of the Angel Island station, in San Francisco Bay, once manually pounded a fog bell for twenty hours straight when the mechanical striker failed.

In addition to lighthouses along the California coast, there were two lightships stationed within the state’s coastal waters, at Blunt’s Reef, near Cape Mendocino, and outside of San Francisco Bay. These small, special ships guarded areas where it was impossible to build a light structure. If lighthouse duty was monotonous and lonely, light-ships were doubly so, with the added danger of being rammed by ships in foul weather and the hazard of sinking. Forced by duty to remain on station no matter how fierce the storm has caused more than one lightship to capsize and sink during heavy gales. The first lightship in California took station outside San Francisco Bay on April 7, 1898.

Crews of lighthouses and lightships were also instrumental in saving lives of those in distress near their locations. The annual reports of the U.S. Lighthouse Service are filled with accounts of rescues. ln 1916, for example, the small Blunt’s Reef Lightship somehow managed to squeeze on board 150 survivors of the liner Bear. The San Francisco lightship, in 1902, had an unusual assistance case. Forest fires were sweeping Northern California, with a heavy pall of smoke over the entire region. The ship suddenly found itself a haven for land birds ranging from humming birds to owls. When the smoke finally cleared, the birds returned to their natural habitat. Jefferson M. Brown and Sam Miller, of the Point Arena Light, along with a civilian volunteer, won the Gold Life Saving Medal, the highest award for lifesaving, for their rescue attempt on November 22, 1896. The men tried to assist the San Benito wrecked near the light. Three times the men attempted to reach the ship in a small boat, "only to be hurled back by the force of the sea."

The Lighthouse Service also operated their own fleet of ships, called Lighthouse Tenders. The tenders provided supplies and work parties to the scattered and isolated lighthouses, in addition to maintaining other lesser aids to navigation. The work was dangerous, as lighthouses were located in hazardous areas. The tenders and their crew were expected to go where no other vessel could get to and work through storm, darkness and sunshine. The first tender along the Southwest coast was also the first steam powered tender, Shubrick. She arrived in San Francisco on May 27, 1858.

The next predecessor agency of the modern day U.S. Coast Guard to be stationed along the Southwest coast was the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service. Established in 1790 by Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, the service was formed to stop the loss of badly needed revenue by sea-going smugglers. The first ten small cutters were deployed from Maine to Georgia. The Service also soon found itself with a military role, participating in the Quasi-War with France (1798-1800). In fact, because the U.S. Navy was disbanded after the Revolutionary War, the U.S. Coast Guard, through the Revenue Cutter Service, is the oldest, continuous federal sea-going force in the United States. In addition to its law enforcement and military duties, the Service, in 1836, was assigned "winter cruising" or performing lifesaving duties on the high seas.

When the first ship of the U. S. Revenue Cutter Service, Lawrence, arrived in San Francisco, on October 3, 1849, the duties of the agency were well established. The newest maritime organization in the early Southwestern Region soon began a wide variety of duties, including the added task of exploring and reporting back to Washington D.C. on the economic possibilities of the area. Well into the twentieth century, the vast majority of the cutters were stationed in the San Francisco Bay area.

The duties of the early cuttermen was as varied then as they are today. A good example of life on board a cutter in the 1800’s is the crew of Argus. LT. William C. Pease, the cutter’s commanding officer patrolled between San Francisco and Benicia, near the entrance to the Sacramento River. From March 8 to May 30, 1852, Pease boarded three ships, calmed a mutineer aboard another ship, helped free a grounded vessel, plus conducted normal patrolling. The Argus’ work was so efficient that Capt. William Hunter, the senior Revenue Cutter Service officer, noted that "it would be almost impossible to smuggle goods by sea to Sacramento, or Stockton, as the entrance to those places are so well guarded" by Argus.

Not all craft in the Service were sea-going. Customs duties also entailed the use of small harbor craft. One of the more venerable ships to serve in the Southwest was the Golden Gate. The 110-foot cutter was built in Seattle in 1896 and arrived in San Francisco on May 13, 1897. Golden Gate performed law enforcement boardings, towing, helped fumigate vessels, and patrolled regattas in the Bay area. One of her most unusual duties came during the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The ensuing fires caused a great deal of the city’s destruction. The cuttermen of Golden Gate served as firefighters and transporting officials and refugees. Then, in the midst of their work, the commanding officer of the cutter was given the added responsibility of taking on board the gold reserve from the Federal Bank in San Francisco. The cutter remained a floating bank until the fire danger was over. The skipper of Golden Gate breathed a great sigh of relief when the gold was carefully counted and removed from his ship. The small cutter, after serving forty-eight years in San Francisco was decommissioned in 1945.

By 1914, the cutters of the Revenue Cutter Service were a regular sight in the Southwest, especially in the San Francisco Bay area. San Francisco served as the primary winter port along the Pacific coast. Many of the cutters would spend the winters patrolling California’s coastal waters and in the summer sail for several months of sea duty on the Bering Sea Patrol. Some of the legendary cutters, such as Bear and Thetis, well known for their dramatic rescues of whalers and explorers trapped in the Arctic ice, dropped their anchors in San Francisco’s harbor. To seamen, the gambling halls and bars of San Francisco’s infamous Barbary Coast were paradise. The monotony of weeks and months at sea magnified the pleasures of shore leave, and San Francisco more than any other port in the world was the zenith of debauchery at the turn of the century. The crews of the Revenue Cutters, although they often stuck together when in port, were not immune to San Francisco’s attractions.



By: Lewis Lowe