|
Seacow Head Lighthouse was
built during the summer of 1864 under a contract
of £314 by David McFarlane and John Rankin.
Besides the cost of constructing the tower, £86
was paid for the land and right-of-way, Malcolm
McFarlane was given £30 for clearing the land,
Thomas Robinson was paid £85 for the lantern,
and £300 was expended for copper, lamps, glass,
and materials for the frame.
The octagonal, heavy-framed lighthouse, 18.3
metres (60 feet) in height and measuring 3.4
metres (11 feet 3 inches) on each side at the
base, originally stood on a stone foundation and
exhibited its light at a focal plane of about 27
meters (88 feet) above the surrounding water.
Situated on the coast near the turning point for
reaching Summerside Harbour, the Seacow Head
Lighthouse serves as both a harbour light and a
gulf light.
|
In 1877, William Mitchell,
the agent for the Department of Marine and
Fisheries on Prince Edward Island, visited
Seacow Lighthouse with the General
Superintendent of Lighthouses of Canada and had
five of Sibler’s patent lamps and burners, with
deep reflectors, placed in the lantern room. At
that time, the keeper, Peter O’Ronaghan, was
living in the lighthouse, which was very
uncomfortable, and Mitchell encouraged the
Department to consider constructing a keeper’s
dwelling. Tenders were invited for the
construction of the requested dwelling in 1879,
and a contract for the sum of $777 was awarded
to James Barclay of Ellerslie. The new dwelling
was built at the station in 1880. |
Old
Keepers Dwelling, removed in 1967 |
A new cast-iron lantern was
placed atop the tower in 1902 replacing a
worn-out, inferior lantern. The tower was also
reshingled, and a new platform deck built. In
1906, the system of lamps and reflectors was
replaced by a fourth-order Fresnel lens,
supplied by Barbier, Benard & Turenne, of Paris,
France. The lens consisted of two groups of two
panels each with each panel subtending 90° in
the horizontal plane. Every ten seconds, the
lens would produce the following pattern: flash
of 0.638 seconds, short eclipse of 1.862
seconds, second flash of 0.638 seconds, and long
eclipse of 6.862 seconds. The lens completed one
revolution every twenty seconds, and petroleum
vapour burned under a mantle was used as the
illuminant.
Malcolm McFarlane served as the first keeper of
Seacow Head Lighthouse starting in 1865. In
1867, after McFarlane was no longer keeper, two
commissioners were appointed by the House of
Assembly of Prince Edward Island to investigate
chargers against the former keeper. The
commissioners found that the evidence presented
to support a charge that McFarlane had embezzled
public property were so trifling that it would
not have been sustained in a court of law, and
thus Keeper McFarlane was cleared.
Keepers: Malcolm McFarlane (1865 – 1867), Thomas
P. Huestis (1867 – 1872), James Wright (1872 –
1873), Peter (Patrick) O’Ronaghan (1873 – 1917),
E. O’Ronaghan (1917 – 1919), Thomas J. Ranahan
(1919 – 1946), Walter Richards (1946 – 1959),
William Sherry (1959 - 1967) |
