Cranberry Day

Cranberries were quite plentiful at one time on Presque Isle. They were abundant at one spot in particular at the center of the peninsula. Problems though soon arose over cranberry picking.

Cranberry Day was the beginning of the open season for cranberry picking on the peninsula. The act passed by the state legislature on March 27 in 1841 declared it to be contrary to the peace and dignity of the commonwealth and subversive of the good order of the community as well as of the great state of Pennsylvania for any person to pick cranberries on the peninsula of Presque Isle between the first of July and the first Tuesday in October of each year, and the first Tuesday of October was therefore a day of great rejoicing and a holiday to the dwellers in Erie: It was Cranberry Day.

Anyone violating this law had to pay a fine of 10 to 25 dollars, plus the estimated value of the cranberries that were poached. Half of the money collected was donated to the Erie County Poorhouse. For 25 years it was clear that the law was not working as poachers were depleting the marsh. They would enter by secret paths rather than the main entrance which consisted of wooden planks, poaching berries, and then disappearing.

The act of the legislature, however, proved inadequate and Erie's City Council, in 1865, passed an ordinance that allowed cranberries to be auctioned to the highest bidder. The bidder was not allowed to pick them before the first Tuesday of October and if they wanted the area protected from poachers they had to police it themselves. They were given the power to arrest anyone caught picking them. Anyone caught could be fined from 20 to 100 dollars and thrown into jail for 60 days. The hand written ordinance was 3 pages long, signed by Mayor F.F. Farrar, and is still preserved at City Hall.

In 1865, City Council passed the following is the ordinance:

“That it shall be the duty of the committee of councils on public grounds to sell at public auction at the market house in the city of Erie on the first Saturday of July in each year hereafter or on such other day as such sale may be adjourned to, to the highest and best responsible bidder or bidders the right to pick and gather and appropriate to his, her or their own use, all the cranberries growing or being upon the island or peninsula opposite to the City of Erie, and the person or persons who become the purchaser or purchasers of said right shall be invested with full property in the said cranberries for the year for which the same are sold and shall have the powers and authority of police officers of said city in and upon the said island or peninsula, with full power to arrest and bring forthwith before any magistrate of said city any person or persons guilty of taking or carrying away any of the cranberries growing or being upon said island, other than the purchaser or purchasers or those duly authorized by him, her or them to do so, and also with the power to arrest and bring before the proper authority any person or persons who shall violate any of the provisions of this ordinance or any of the ordinances of said city relating to said island or peninsula.”

The auction in 1865 was set for September 4th. It was held at the old Market House in Perry Square on the first Saturday of July. The law was heavily publicized in the Erie Weekly Gazette. The poachers were well aware of the consequences, realizing that they would need to work fast. So they devised wooden rakes with fingered scoops and long handles to quickly pick and scoop them and escape. It was clear that those who had bid and paid for the crop were being robbed. Two years later the ordinance was nullified, which abolished the auction.

There was strong objections to the ordinance's nullification and protests followed. In pursuance of this Mr. Phineas Crouch introduced in Select council the following resolution, which was adopted September 16, 1867:

“That the city solicitor shall be required to frame an ordinance that shall secure to all the right and opportunity to pick cranberries on the peninsula on the day appointed, and that shall make it unlawful for anyone to there use or have in possession with seeming purpose to use, any rake or other instrument for the purpose of gathering cranberries."

This ordinance gave Cranberry Day a new birth. Everyone was allowed to pick cranberries by hand. The use of scoops was not allowed.

The following year, in 1868, as the berries began to ripen, sailors from the Revenue Cutter Commodore Perry were sent to guard the marsh. People camped out on the beach and boats and tugs filled Misery Bay near the main path to the marsh. Everyone wanted to be there for the official opening of Cranberry Day. With the break of day they started to move in towards the marsh, but from the other side an increasing number of people were crowding in rapidly. Row boats, sail boats, fish boats, steam tug — every available craft in the bay pressed into service. Misery Bay was a sight to see with its collection of craft of every size, style and condition afloat on its surface or drawn up on the shore. There was a steady stream of people extending all the way from Misery bay to the utmost bounds of the cranberry marsh. And just as diversified as were the craft in which they were transported were the people who had been passengers. If any had gone over expecting to get a haul of cranberries they were disappointed. A handful was about all that anyone could get.

In the years that followed there were other celebrations, but none as big as the one in 1868. By the turn of the century, cottonwoods and willows began to appear and button-bush, ilex, and chokeberries began to create thickets. As the marsh aged the cranberries gradually disappeared and so did Cranberry Day. The last documented report of a cranberry bush on the peninsula was 1935, until in 1987 when a botanist from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History came across one in the peninsula's marsh while cataloguing the plants of Presque Isle. Cranberry Day is still on the books as a legal holiday; however, there is a heavy fine for picking anything on the peninsula.

Presque Isle Lighthouse

Presque Isle Lighthouse is located on the north shore of Presque Isle State Park at Lighthouse Beach in Erie. The construction of the lighthouse began in September of 1872 and was completed in July of 1873. Initially the square brick tower was only 40 feet high so an additional 17 feet were added to the tower in 1896 to enhance the projection of the light from the Fresnel Lens out into the lake. The Presque Isle Light was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 4, 1983, as part of a group listing of lighthouses and light stations operated by the United States Coast Guard on the Great Lakes.

Erie Land Lighthouse was the first lighthouse at Erie, also the first American lighthouse on the Great Lakes. It was constructed on a mainland bluff in 1818, not far from the site of Fort Presque Isle. In 1870, plans were begun for a lighthouse on the north shore of the Presque Isle peninsula that would replace Erie Land Lighthouse on the mainland. This new light would be several miles nearer the lake, and being located directly on the peninsula, would better mark that navigational hazard. Congress appropriated funds for its construction on June 10, 1872, and proposals were solicited for the necessary building materials. The lighthouse was originally going to be built of limestone, but when this provided to be too costly, bricks were used instead.

Construction on the peninsula began in September 1872, and the light from atop the forty-foot tower attached to the keeper’s dwelling was first exhibited on July 12, 1873. The hazard of landing material at the site was evidenced by the loss of a scow carrying 6,000 bricks. The walls of the lighthouse tower were built with five courses of brick in order to withstand the fierce storms and buffeting winds that blow off the lake. Though square on the outside, the tower is circular inside and supports a spiral staircase, forged in Pittsburgh and barged to Erie. The brick keeper’s dwelling originally had an oil room, bedroom, dining room, kitchen, and summer kitchen on the main floor, and three bedrooms and a drying room on the second floor. Beneath the dwelling were located a cistern and a cellar. The cost for the lighthouse was $15,000.

Charles Waldo was the first keeper of Presque Isle Lighthouse, earning an annual salary of $520. On the day of the inaugural lighting, Keeper Waldo wrote, “This is a new station and a light will be exhibited for the first time tonight — there was one visitor.” Prior to sundown, Waldo would have lit the lantern inside the tower’s Fresnel lens and then throughout the night returned to check the oil level in the lamp. In 1882, the tower was equipped with a revolving fourth-order Fresnel lens that alternately produced a red and white flash every ten seconds. Before this, the tower exhibited a fixed white light punctuated each minute by a red flash. With the other lighthouses at Erie displaying fixed lights, the Presque Isle Lighthouse stood out from the others and was often referred to by the locals as the flash light.

The old Erie Land Lighthouse on the bluff was discontinued in 1880, much of its purpose having been assumed by Presque Isle Lighthouse. The lighthouse was partially dismantled and the property was sold off, but the light was re-established in 1885 after mariners protested the decision to extinguish it.

In 1876, Keeper Waldo’s wife, Mary, gave birth at the lighthouse to a baby girl, the first child to be born on Presque Isle. During their seven-year stay at the lighthouse, the Waldo family had an isolated existence, as the road to the peninsula was not completed until 1927. In fact, Keeper Waldo referred to the station as the loneliest place on earth. To reach civilization, the keepers and their families would have to walk along a 1.5-mile pathway, part of which was originally a boardwalk due to the marshy terrain it traversed, to reach the station’s boathouse on Misery Bay. A lengthy row across the bay and another walk were then required to reach the nearest school or store where provisions could be obtained. The pathway was finally paved in 1925, which led to its being called the sidewalk trail.

The Lighthouse Board noted in 1886 that the shoreline in front of the lighthouse had receded thirty feet during the previous two years. To curb this erosion, contractors built a 400-foot-long and 10-foot-wide jetty composed of stone-filled cribs during the summer of 1886. The work was successful as five years later it was noted that the beach had built up substantially on both sides of the jetty, which extended perpendicular to the shoreline.

In 1894, a tight board fence, 396 feet long and 5 feet high, was built on the east, north, and west sides of the dwelling to protect the station buildings and the keeper’s garden from the encroachment of sand. To increase the range of the light, the height of the tower was increased seventeen feet, four inches in 1896 to produce a focal plane of seventy-three feet. When kerosene was adopted as the fuel for the light in 1898, an oil house was constructed near the northeast corner of the station to provide detached storage for the volatile liquid. A year later, the extended tower was painted white to provide a more prominent day-mark for vessels on Lake Erie.

Andrew Shaw, Jr. became keeper of Presque Isle Lighthouse in 1901 and was recognized multiple times by the Lighthouse Service for saving life and property. In 1916, when the tug Henry E. Gillen stranded on the bar at the entrance to the harbor, Keeper Shaw summoned assistance and cared for articles that washed ashore. Two years later, a yacht was driven ashore near the station, and Keeper Shaw provided food, shelter, and clothing for its three passengers. Keeper Shaw prevented a fire near the station from spreading in 1917, and in 1925 both he and the keeper of Presque Isle Pierhead Lighthouse helped fight a fire that burned for several days on the peninsula.

In 1924, commercial electricity reached the lighthouse, and an oil-engine-driven generator was installed at the station in case of power failure. Presque Isle peninsula was set aside as a state park in 1921, and after the road to the peninsula was completed in 1927, Keeper Shaw abruptly retired, as too many visitors were attracted to the lighthouse. Frank Huntington took over the responsibilities of keeper and served until 1944, after which enlisted Coast Guard personnel tended the light. On January 8, 1928, Keeper Huntington, his wife, and son rescued two boys who had fallen through the ice near the station and were in danger of drowning. The Fresnel lens atop the tower was replaced by a modern beacon in 1962.

Additions were made to the front and back of the dwelling in 1989 and 1990, and in 1998, Presque Isle Lighthouse was officially transferred to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, who used the lighthouse as a residence for park personnel. In 2006, the lighthouse was opened for two days during Discover Presque Isle Weekend, and visitors waited in line for more than two hours to climb the seventy-eight steps to the top of the tower. More than 750 people paid $2 to make the climb, and there was still a lengthy line at closing time on the second day.

Keepers of the Erie Lights was formed in 2006 to gather information on Erie’s three lighthouses and to help with their restoration and interpretation. From 2006 through 2009, the committee focused on Presque Isle Lighthouse, and a Historic Structures Report on the lighthouse was published in June 2007. The report includes a history of the lighthouse and outlines a restoration plan that includes replacing the dwelling’s roof, repointing the masonry, and restoring the porch, oil house, and fence. The public helped the effort by purchasing a Pennsylvania specialty license plate featuring an image of Presque Isle Lighthouse.

In 2014, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Conservation and Natural Resources changed a rule that required the manager of Presque Isle Park to reside in the park. After the park manager vacated the lighthouse, and the property was leased to the non-profit Presque Isle Light Station Board, which opened the station to the public in 2015.

Former Head Keepers:

Charles F. Waldo (1873 – 1880)
Orrin J. McAllister (1880)
George E. Town (1880 – 1883)
Clark McCole (1883 – 1886)
Lewis Vannatta (1886 – 1891)
Louis Walrose (1891 – 1892)
Thomas L. Wilkins (1892 – 1901)
Andrew W. Shaw, Jr. (1901 – 1927)
Frank Huntington (1927 – 1944

Presque Isle Lighthouse before the tower was extended.

Early photo of the Presque Isle Lighthouse (late 1800s)

Presque Isle Lighthouse (year unknown)

Presque Isle Lighthouse (year unknown)

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The Presque Isle Life-Saving Station

The Coast Guard in Erie began as the United States Life-Saving Service. The Life-Saving Service was an United States government agency that grew out of private and local humanitarian efforts to save the lives of shipwrecked mariners and passengers. It began in 1848, and ultimately merged with the Revenue-Cutter Service to form the United States Coast Guard in 1915. The United States Revenue-Cutter Service was established as the Revenue-Marine, and so named for over one hundred years, by the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, in 1790 to serve as an armed maritime law-enforcement service. The service operated under the authority of the United States Department of the Treasury until merging with the United States Life-Saving Service.The life-saving station at Presque Isle was primary a life-saving operation rather than a revenue-cutter service. Established in 1876, pursuant to an Act of Congress two years earlier, the station’s original location, was moved in 1878 to the more advantageous location of the harbor’s entrance at Horseshoe pond.

The station, referred to as Presque Isle, was organized as a separate agency of the United States Department of the Treasury. William Clark was a keeper from 1877 until he drowned in 1891. He was succeeded by Andrew Jansen, who was a keeper until 1915, when the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service then merged to become the United States Coast Guard, the Presque Isle station was now United States Coast Guard Station #236.

Prior to the merge, the Life-Saving Service fell into three categories: lifesaving, lifeboat, and houses of refuge. Lifesaving stations were manned by full-time crews during the period when wrecks were most likely. This was usually from April to December, this period of operation was called the active season. By 1900 the active season was year-round — Before 1900 there were very few recreational boaters and most assistance cases came from ships engaged in commerce.

Houses of refuge made up the third category of Life Saving Service units. These stations were on the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida: there were no such refuges known to exist in the Great lakes. In the event of a major shipwreck or natural disaster survivors were dependent upon the goodwill and generosity of the local communities in the area.

The soul of the Life-Saving Service was the Surfmen. They would typically stand duty or recall 84 hours a week. The smallest operational specialty, they still exist in the Coast Guard to this day. The Surfman is responsible for search and rescue planning, operations and equipment. The Surfmen were and continue to be trusted to operate in the most extreme weather conditions.

In 1916 the average retirement system and compensation for injured crewmen was 75% of active duty pay. An experience Surfman’s pay in 1908 was $79 a month and the newly recruited Surfman received $74 a month. A Captain, the Keeper of a Station, received $1000 a year with an additional .30 per day ration money.

Lake Erie’s somewhat unpredictable weather has caused it to become the originator of shipwreck lore. There have been, and will continue to be, unexpected explosions of wind and rain, which cause conditions of the lake to change rapidly due to the shallowness of Lake Erie. The Black Friday storm of 1916 serve as reminders of the lake’s unexpected fury. Erie’s Lifesaving Station at Presque Isle was created in response to the increased maritime traffic, and continues to this day, having formed the foundation for Erie’s current Coast Guard operations.

Presque Isle Life-Saving Station (1878)
Showing the 1875 - type station as the surfmen pose with their beach apparatus cart.

Presque Isle Life-Saving Station, Coast Guard Station (1917)

Presque Isle Life-Saving Station, Station's Surfmens (1880s)

Keeper's Residence, boys on the dock (1880s)

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The Marine Hospital

In the late 1860s the ownership of the peninsula changed hands. From the time Erie became incorporated in 1805 the peninsula had been jointly owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the City of Erie. The City assumed the right to regulate the use of the peninsula, and forbade the logging of trees and the harvesting of wild cranberries, with the intent to make the peninsula a nature preserve.

In 1867 the Pennsylvania Legislature granted the Marine Hospital of Pennsylvania a very large piece of land on Presque Isle known as the Garrison Tract, and appropriated funds for the construction of a hospital on the site. In 1869, taking it a step further, the legislature granted the Marine Hospital complete control and supervision of the entire peninsula. The State claimed that the Town Council of Erie had neglected management and supervision of Presque Isle by limiting the generation of revenue from the land. The city fathers and citizens of Erie were outraged about this. However, there was little they could immediately do to rectify the situation.

In the following two years, with the park under the control of the Marine Hospital, many strange and damaging actions began to take place. One of the strangest was when the commander of the Marine Hospital sent 12 men into the woods of the peninsula with the sole purpose of harvesting 100% of the Red Cedar trees growing on Presque Isle. It has been reported that over 1,200 trees were cut down during a single summer. They were turned into cedar fence posts and shipped to Philadelphia. The records of the Marine Hospital show it never received any income from this misadventure. Today the park has just 12 to 15 Red Cedar trees still growing there. This misguided program nearly cleared the park of what could have been a wonderful natural resource, and would have provided great habitat for the park’s animals.

During the two years that the peninsula was controlled by the Marine Hospital, it became a central issue in Erie politics, resulting in the election of W.L. Scott, who advocated local control, as Mayor of Erie in 1871. Shortly after the mayoral election in Erie, the Pennsylvania legislature repealed the 1869 act, and conveyed all that had been granted to the Marine Hospital to the United States Federal Government, to promote national defense and protection of the harbor. The Federal government though did not acknowledge or accept official ownership until August 5, 1886, some fifteen years later.

Operations Inland Sea

On Wednesday, July 22, 1959, Erie was the center of a mock invasion with 1,200 Marines hitting the peninsula. The Marines participated in a mock invasion staged as a salute to the newly opened St. Lawrence Seaway. In the wake of the military exercise, code named Operations Inland Seas, a flotilla of seven ships transported the Second Battalion of the Sixth Marines to Presque Isle State Park at Lake Erie. Included in the demonstration were Marine Corps helicopters, frogmen, Marine A4D Skyhawk jet planes, and an Honest John rocket and launcher mounted with an atomic warhead.

A hypothetical situation was set up for the invasion. Erie was the capital of a small independent country, which asked for U.S. aid in crushing a revolution. A crowd unofficially estimated at more than 50,000 watched the demonstration begin with a simulated beach bombardment by the USS Kleinsmith, a destroyer that fired blank charges, while charges, planted on the peninsula before the exercise, were exploded on land. Next, four frogmen were brought in close to shore to plant explosives on beach obstacles. After the charges were detonated, a Skyhawk jet staged a simulated atomic bomb drop. The bomb was released as the plane was going almost straight up from the ground. A charge exploded on the beach produced the mushroom effect of an atomic bomb. Continuing the attack, six Skyhawks flying at 500 feet dropped simulated charges on the beach. Helicopters and amphibious tractors brought the first waves of Marines to the beach. Five other waves hit at five- minute intervals. Finally, the Honest John rocket was moved in. It was not fired.

The complete invasion lasted one and 1/2 hours. There was only one casualty during the attack. An unidentified Marine sergeant sprained an ankle.