By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO—It was a ten-mile journey over a rutted wagon road from the tip of Point Loma to the area of San Diego known as Old Town, a distance that may sound inconsequential today in the age of automobiles. However, for Lighthouse keepers Robert and Maria Israel, who lived and worked at the Lighthouse in the 1870s through the early 1890s, such a trip required very careful planning indeed.
For three years in the 1870s, they served together as Lighthouse Keeper and Assistant Lighthouse Keeper. With no one else to assist them, that meant at least one of the Israels needed to be at the lighthouse from sunset to sundown every evening to make certain that the facility’s 3rd order Fresnel lens stayed illumined. The lighthouse beam protected ships entering San Diego Harbor and served as a navigation aid for other ships as far as 18 to 24 miles away.
One hundred years before when Franciscan priests were establishing California’s famous chain of missions, they placed the structures approximately 30 miles apart — that distance being considered the equivalent of a full day’s horseback ride. From the standpoint of transportation, little had changed in the intervening century. Given that the Israels’ horses had to pull a wagon laden with water barrels, firewood, groceries and household supplies, it took them nearly half a day to cover the distance one-way between Old Town and the Lighthouse,
As a pragmatic matter, that meant the Israel family member who went to town either had to hurry the visit in order to get back before dark, or perhaps stay overnight or even a few days and then set out on the return trip in the morning, leaving the spouse on his or her own back at the Lighthouse. During the school term, the Israels’ children lived with relatives in town—all the more incentive to make shopping trips to the “city” last a few days.
According to the exhibit’s printed narration at the Lighthouse and at the museum now occupying the adjoining home of the assistant Lighthouse keeper, the Israels often spent weeks together without ever seeing another person, especially in winter with its shorter daytime hours.
In the summer, however, the Israels could usually anticipate visitors arriving on weekends, some of them dear friends, others tourists lured by tales of the beautiful views from the Lighthouse and the prospect of cooling sea breezes. Such visitors could be a blessing as Maria Israel had handicrafts of her making for sale. They also could be a burden, depending on the degree that they distracted the Israels from the mandatory chores that are necessary for the upkeep of the Lighthouse.
Robert Decatur Israel, a veteran of the Mexican American War, was 22 years old when he arrived in San Diego in 1850. Two years later he married Maria Arcadia Machado de Alipas, then 16. Over the next 19 years, Israel served in the local militia, was the town’s constable and a justice of the peace, and served as a school board member. In 1871, he became the assistant lighthouse keeper, moving up to the senior position two years later. At that point, Maria became his paid assistant.
Lonely some days, harried on others—lighthouse keeper families could be expected to have ambivalent feelings about their jobs. Enter the lighthouse today and you’ll see on the right the kitchen where Maria fixed dinners and canned vegetables. Robert is imagined whiling away some spare time playing a game of solitaire. To the left is the family’s living room, where curators suggest Captain Israel and his family might have spent the quiet hours reading or engaging in crafts – perhaps carefully gluing seashells to wooden picture frames to create unique settings for family portraits.
Go up a spiral staircase to the second landing, and the boys’ room is on the left. The boys may have amused themselves playing such instruments as the banjo or the guitar. “Life was simpler then,” notes the printed narration.
To the left is the Israels’ master bedroom–nighttime sleep there was of necessity interrupted by the requirement to check that the lighthouse light was still burning. Between the master bedroom and the boys’ room was a utility closet in which such lighthouse supplies as kerosene, wicks and cleaning agents for the lens were stored. The Israels could grab the supplies, continue up the spiral staircase to a landing above, and then climb a short ladder to the housing of the lighthouse’s light.
To learn about the light itself, visitors must exit the lighthouse and visit the museum in the adjoining building. In use at the Point Loma Lighthouse was a 3rd order Fresnel lens, named for inventor Augustin Jean Fresnel (Fray-nell).
“Fresnel lenses are classified by focal distance—the distance from the light source to the inside surface of the lens,” the exhibit informs. There are five orders of lenses, with the smallest being the 5th order. It had a focal distance of 7.4 inches, lens diameter of 1 foot 2 inches and could be seen as far away at 8 to 12 miles. The 4th order had a focal distance of 9.8 inches and could be seen as far away as 12-18 miles, while 3rd, 2nd and 1st order lenses could be seen approximately 18-24 miles away.
Point Loma’s 3rd order lens had a focal length of 19.7 inches and a lens diameter of 3 feet 2 inches. By comparison a 1st order lens had a focal distance of 36.2 inches, requiring a lens 6 feet in diameter.
Much of the work for Lighthouse Keepers and their assistants involved keeping the lenses and their housing spotlessly clean.
“It’s Brasswork,” a humorous lament written in 1935 by Fred Morong describing the unending, repetitive nature of the duty, says of the lighthouse keeper:
What makes him look ghastly, consumptive and thin?
What robs him of health, vigor and vim?
And causes despair and drives him to sin?
It’s brasswork.
The devil himself could never invent
A material causing more worldwide lament.
In Uncle Sam’s service ‘bout 90 percent
Is Braswork.
The Point Loma Lighthouse was 420 feet above sea level—and having the light on the hill proved to be disadvantageous. When low clouds or fog drifted over Point Loma, its light was obscured, proving to be a hazard for mariners. Eventually there were enough complaints that it was decided to build a new lighthouse at the bottom of the peninsula at a place called Pelican Point, where a small Coast Guard station stands today. In March 1891, it was Robert Israel’s duty to extinguish the light of the Point Loma Lighthouse for the last time and on the ensuing evening to light for the first time the new Pelican Point Lighthouse.
The change did not go easily for Israel, who soon found himself in conflict with superiors over new regulations and procedures that had been promulgated for the new light. Eventually, he left the U.S. Lighthouse Service, moving back to San Diego where the family had property, including the mountain top that bears their name.
As the Israels had been at the Lighthouse the longest of any keepers, they became permanently associated with the history of the lighthouse, but, for the record, between its activation in 1855 and its deactivation in 1891, the Point Loma Lighthouse had been served by 10 keepers and 20 assistant keepers – two of the latter having been women.
The Pelican Point Lighthouse was in use through 1960, and then was replaced by an automated device that still is a feature of the Coast Guard station there. The Coast Guard station may be seen from the bluffs near the original lighthouse.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. This story appeared previously on examiner.com