ELSIE AT GANNET ROCK
Louise and Elsie 1899
We went down to Gannet Rock about the first of May in
1898. Sam was six weeks old and my sister Louise was
four. I was six. I don't remember the trip down, but I remember Mrs. Kent came down from the house when we landed and she gave me a slice of bread - a whole slice of bread and I had never had a whole slice of bread before....
Our hired man was Andrew Chitley- don't know where he came from or where he went- he was a queer one....
We were on Gannet Rock until June 1904. My father got $700 a year and had to pay the hired man. A hired man was a nuisance. My mother had to cook for them and they were always complaining. Other hired men were Uncle Barney Benson, Emery Forsythe, Albert Kent and James Collingwood Hall - 6 feet 3 inces- an Englishman - one of those English immigrants - he'd been quite well educated in England....
My mother taught me to read and write, my father taught me to cipher. I learned History and geography from books. In 1906 they sent me to Seal Cove to school - I had a sick headache - I was nervous and afraid of everything....
I was afraid of the water. One day there was a freak wave at Gannet Rock. We'd been up in the light with my father and mother and it was a bad storm. Louise and I ran downstairs, through the livingroom into the kitchen and got up in the sink. - I don't know why. There were two little square windows and I looked out and said "Oh look, Pa, it's all green." It was a freak wave and the middle door wasn't closed and the water rushed into the kitchen. It took seven coal hogs across the floor and moved the stove. My father was coming down the stairs carrying Sam, my mother was behind him. The water was about two feet high - up to his knees. He shut the door to. We went upstairs and it was cold. My father drilled holes in the floor and the water went down. I still have nightmares about it....
Another thing I was scared of was the lightning. Gannet Rock seemed to draw lightning. It broke off parts of the rock. One time Mother and father and Sam were alone on Gannet Rock when a bad lightning storm came. Father sat in a wooden rocking chair and held Mother and Sam until the storm was over. They decided that if the lightning hit Father, that Mother didn't want to be left alone with father dead - I remember those awful stories. ....
When the "Velma" went ashore, Ruth Cheney said the light was out at Gannet, but it wasn't....
When the fog came, we fired the gun, exploded the cotton bomb. When I was a kid, I used to load those bombs - my father told me never to put metal in them - just that wooden stick. When he went there he had to go out to the little building to fire the gun, explode the bomb, but later le led a wire into the house and he had a battery in there and he attached it to the battery and pushed the button, because when it stormed it was hard to get out to the building. He'd put two or four in and every thirty minutes he'd have to go out and put more in. One day there was thick fog and there was a big ship heading right for Gannet Rock and father went out and waved a towel or something. My mother just had her under petticoat on, you know, her short flannel petticoat and my father said, "Go in the house, Wessie, those men might see you."....
The house was the original. (NB. Actually it was the
second house which had been rebuilt in 1887) It was
timbered up like a ship - made with beams just like
the beams on a ship - two beams came out on the floor
about two feet. I remember sitting on them in front of
the stove. The stove was off a vessel, the Gertrude E.
Smith, I think, and was made of thick iron - it burned
soft coal. [NB. In 1883 the "Gertrude E. Smith", a
three masted schooner, going from Rockland to Windsor
ran ashore on Gannet Rock. All hands were saved,
including the wife and daughter of the captain.
They were all looked after by the keeper until they
could be picked up] The kitchen was about eighteen feet long. The sink was near the door and there was a little porch outside the kitchen. All around was a wooden platform built of two inch plank. There was a kitchen table and dining room table. The living room wasn't so big and from there was a big thick door into the lighthouse. Stairs went up from the kitchen. Upstairs was one big bedroom. From that room you went down a long hallway into the lighthouse. There was a big bedroom on the second floor of the lighthouse and two big closets. Then on the third floor of the lighhouse was another smaller
bedroom. [NB. In 1991, while working on a wall in the
lighthouse, keeper Chris Mills found the remnants of
very old wallpaper.] Then there was another room on
the next level, then up six or so steps into the
lantern....
The down storey of the lighthouse was for storage -
big water tanks, storeroom for vegetables, barrels
of flour, etc. Another storeroom for kerosene....
My mother wasn't a Christmas person. Father kept at
her and she always made a fruitcake. Father made a
tree one year and he painted it green and we hung
things on it. We usually had wild ducks for Christmas
dinner. The year 1899 Grandfather Benson died, so we
were off Gannet for Christmas. Hattie and Aunt Julia
sent mince meat and we had mince pie. One Christmas
Father made beds for Louise and me, and beds for our
dolls. I remember the first parcel we got from
Eaton's - it was a book of Longfellow's poems - my
daughter Jean has it now....
We left Gannet Rock in July 1904 and went to
Seal Island. They put twenty seven feet on the
lighthouse after my father left and put in a new
lantern - not too long ago - they put twenty seven
feet on it....
That's about what I remember. One thing I wonder if
you can find out for me. A man named Robertson,
I think, came to Gannet Rock to dynamite to make a
shelter long before my time. He was killed while
dynamiting. His wife might have stayed. I would like
to
know about that.
Elsie at age 18
Elsie and Andrew Harvey,
grandson of Elsie's brother Sam
PRINCIPAL KEEPERS
GANNET ROCK
