His fears were realized, and he had to convince the Lighthouse Board that the foundation was not stable enough to support the proposed superstructure and that a concrete foundation was needed instead. After workers noticed that some of the giant outer rocks had disappeared, Smith donned diving gear and personally examined the foundation. Smith’s other work includes the foundation for the Statue of Liberty, a breakwater at Block Island, Rhode Island, a seawall at the Lighthouse Service’s depot on Staten Island, and the design of Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse in Florida.Ī riprap foundation, consisting of ten thousand tons of irregular stones weighing from three to five tons, was completed in November 1871. Francis Hopkinson Smith, a well-known and highly regarded structural engineer, as well as a painter and author, was contracted for the project. The Lighthouse Board had $90,000 on hand from the 1866 appropriation but this sum, by an act of Congress in July 1870, was returned to the treasury, and a mere $10,000 was provided on Jto pursue the work.Ĭonstruction of the foundation for Race Rock Lighthouse began in April 1871 after Congress provided an additional $150,000 that March. Lighthouse topped by a second lantern room This improved plan did come at a price, namely $200,000, which was quite the sum for that time. First, the pier would be of greater diameter and thus be more capable of resisting the pressure of storm waves and pack ice, and second, the keepers would always be at hand to attend to their duties and not located nearly a mile away on Fishers Island. This plan had two advantages over the original. The Lighthouse Board came up with a new design that called for a granite pier topped by a two-story, octagonal, granite keeper’s dwelling and a lantern. The prior soundings were found to be inadequate as the new apparatus determined that the area upon which the tower was to be constructed was made up of not just one giant rock but an aggregation of boulders smaller in size than Race Rock itself, which made the use of a cofferdam to construct the foundation impractical. However, due to the difficulty of the proposed construction it was thought prudent to make a more careful examination of the site and to this end, an “apparatus” was contrived to provide more reliable soundings. Plans for a granite tower for the rock were adopted by the Lighthouse Board based on soundings made with an iron rod from a vessel trying to navigate in the strong currents surrounding the rock. Records indicate that this day-beacon was completed in 1856, but it was “thrown down” in 1863 and then temporarily replaced by a first-class iron buoy.Ī lighted aid was deemed necessary to mark the rock, and on Ja sum of $90,000 was allocated for the erection of lighthouse on Race Rock or on the southwest end of Fishers Island. As the rock would not permit a structure of much lateral magnitude, a “beacon” with a central shaft of iron, sunk four feet into the rock and topped with a globular iron cage at a height of twenty feet above high water, was recommended. The Board requested $7,000 to mark Race Rock with “some material which will resist the action of the sea and ice,” and Congress granted this amount on March 3, 1853.Īn examination of Race Rock was made in 1854 to determine “its character and the proper plan to be adopted in the erection of a beacon thereon.” The rock was found to be a large boulder, about 200 feet in diameter that rested upon a rocky ledge and was covered with just five feet of water at low tide. Buoys would often be swept away by the strong currents, and spindles, two of which had been sunk eighteen inches into the rock, would only last until the breaking up of ice the following spring. In 1852, the Lighthouse Board noted that Race Rock was “one of the most dangerous obstructions to navigation on the coast,” and that various efforts had “been made, and numerous appropriations expended, in endeavoring to place an efficient and permanent mark” near the location. There, the current can reach five knots, which contributed to the stranding of eight vessels during an eight-year period in the early 1800s. The deepest of these openings, known as “The Race,” is just off the western end of Fisher Island near Race Rock. Numerous vessels pass through the gaps in the islands, as well as a large volume of water as the tide ebbs and flows. At the eastern end of Long Island Sound, a string of islands, Fishers, Little Gull, Great Gull, and Plum, span most of the distance between Orient Point on Long Island and Watch Hill in Rhode Island.
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