Path to North Head Lighthouse

by Robert Bales

Title

Path to North Head Lighthouse

Artist

Robert Bales

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

North Head Lighthouse consists of brick masonry with a cement plaster overlay built atop a sandstone foundation. Sixty-nine steps lead to the lantern room, which is sixty-five feet from the ground and 194 feet above sea level. The first-order Fresnel lens, which came from Cape Disappointment, was lit for the first time on May 16, 1898.

Since North Head is only two miles north of Cape Disappointment, the two lights needed distinct signatures. A fixed-white characteristic was chosen for North Head, while Cape Disappointment displayed alternate red and white flashes.

Alexander K. Pesonen, who had been serving as head keeper at Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, was transferred to North Head to be its first keeper. Keeper Pesonen was born in Finland in 1859, and immigrated to the United States in 1876. Pesonen was awarded the lighthouse efficiency flag for have the model station in the district in 1919.

Freed from the isolation of Tillamook Rock, Pesonen married Mary Watson in 1890, two years after arriving at North Head. In the spring of 1923, Keeper Pesonen took his wife to a doctor in Portland, Oregon, where she was diagnosed with "melancholia," a condition marked by persistent depression and ill-founded fears. The couple returned to North Head on June 8, and the following morning, Mary arose early and went for a walk with her dog.

When Mary failed to return, Keeper Pesonen organized a search party. Led by Mary's dog, someone found Mary's coat on the ground and marks nearby of a slide down the cliff. Second Assistant Keeper Frank C. Hammond recovered the Mary's body at extreme personal risk before the tide could carry it out to sea. Mary Pesonen was buried in Ilwaco, and when Alexander passed away two years, not long after retiring, he was interred next to his wife.

On at least two occasions, keepers at North Head had to rescue people who got too close to the edge of the cliffs. On September 7, 1931, First Assistant Keeper C. R. Williams rescued a man who was hanging to a cliff south of the station and was in imminent danger of falling seventy-five feet to the sea below. Three years later, Keeper A. G. Siniluoto rescued a man who had survived a 100-foot fall from the cliffs to the rocks below.

North Head is one of the windiest places in the United States, with wind velocities in excess of 100 mph being frequently measured. On January 29, 1921, winds were clocked at 126 mph before the measuring instrument blew away.

On April 19, 1932, a wild duck went crashing through the storm panes in the lantern room and caused slight damage to the lens. Wire nets had been placed around lantern rooms at other stations to prevent such occurrences.

The original lens was replaced by a fourth-order lens in 1935, when electricity came to the station. Seven years later, on June 22, 1942 at 12:35 a.m. the keeper was ordered to turn off the light. Fort Stevens, Oregon had just been fired upon by a Japanese submarine, and as part of a strategy to keep the location of Fort Stevens and Fort Canby hidden, the surrounding lighthouses were darkened until the danger was over.

Uploaded

March 9th, 2013

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