Latimer Reef was apparently one of the more uncomfortable stations for its keepers. The white towers at Montauk Point, Stratford Point, and Execution Rocks also received their central brown bands at the same time. Two significant changes were made to the lighthouse in 1899: A fourth-order lens, which revolved on ball bearings rather than wheels, replaced the original fifth-order lens, and the white tower was given a brown band about its midsection. Besides minding the light, the keepers were also responsible for a fog bell that was tolled every fifteen seconds during limited visibility.Ī stone pier was built on the northwest side of the lighthouse in 1890 and fitted with an appliance for hoisting the station’s boat. Gardner was appointed the first assistant keeper. Noyes, who had served as Captain aboard Eel Grass Shoal Lightship, and Samuel C. The first head keeper assigned to Latimer Reef Lighthouse was Charles E.P. They were initially referred to as “Coffee Pot” lights because of their shape, but a few decades later, after the internal combustion engine was in common use, these towers became more commonly known as “Spark Plug” lighthouses. There were a number of other lights built around this time using the same design and employing the same construction methods. Upon the establishment of this light the lightship upon Eel Grass Shoal will be discontinued. The structure is a white tower standing on a red pier and surmounted by a black lantern. The light should be seen in clear weather from the deck of a vessel 15 feet above the sea 13 nautical miles. The apparatus lights 360 degrees of the horizon, and the focal plane is 56 above mean low water. On and after July 1, 1884, a flashing white light of the fifth order, flashing at intervals of ten seconds, will be exhibited from the lighthouse recently constructed at Latimer’s Reef, east end of Fisher’s Island Sound, New York. The Lighthouse Board published the following “Notice to Mariners” to publicize the establishment of the new light: Latimer Reef Lighthouse, which was placed on the western end of the half-mile-long rocky reef, consists of a prefabricated, cylindrical, forty-nine foot-tall, cast-iron tower with a cast-iron, concrete-filled foundation. Finally, in 1884, a permanent lighthouse commenced operation on nearby Latimer Reef, and Eel Grass Shoal Lightship was discontinued. It was replaced by LV 17, which in turn gave way for the return of LV 12 in 1882. Five years later, LV 25 was declared unfit for duty and deemed too old and too small to make refurbishing it worthwhile. Lightship L was replaced at Latimer Reef by LV 12, and then Lightship LV 25 took over in 1872. In 1867, the Lighthouse Board assigned numbers to all active lightships, while years later (in the 1930s) letters were posthumously assigned to the earliest lightships so they could be uniquely identified in historical documents. In the early days of lightships, each ship was referred to by the name of the station where they were posted, but as the number of lightships increased, it became more difficult to keep track of them, especially when ships were transferred to different stations and districts. Also known by the designation L, the lightship was a forty-one-ton wooden vessel showing a fixed white light, with a fog bell and horn on board. Starting in 1837, the Stonington Railroad and Steamboat Company maintained a private lightship near the reef in Fishers Island Sound, and this was replaced in 1849 by the government-operated Eel Grass Shoal Lightship. Navy recommended that an unlighted beacon be erected on Latimer Reef, as it was “much in the way of vessels passing in either direction through the sound, or bound into Stonington.” This navigational aid was subsequently described as an “iron spindle, surmounted by a square cage-work day-mark.” Lighthouse in 1898 before addition of brown band At sunrise the following day, Latemore was hanged aboard one of the British frigates then received a watery burial in the Sound. Latemore ran aground on his namesake reef, and the British soon captured him and took him back to their fleet. An alert redcoat aboard one of the vessels spotted Latemore’s small craft, and a boat gave chase. During the Revolutionary War, the courageous Latemore embarked in a skiff to spy on a British Fleet at anchor in Fishers Island Sound. Located about a mile north of Fishers Island’s East Point, Latimer Reef is reportedly named after a James Latemore. Most of the maritime landmarks along the Atlantic coast have names whose origin can be found by digging into historical records a bit.
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