Note 205 — Chapter XVIII

The following account of what straits light-keepers have been subjected to in coast-harbors during the past winter will perhaps be read with some surprise by those acquainted with Plymouth only in its summer aspect: "On Tuesday evening, February 9th, 1875, the United States revenue steamer Gallatin put into Plymouth harbor for the night, to avoid a north-west gale blowing outside. On the morning of the 10th, at daylight, when getting under way, Captain Selden discovered a signal of distress flying on Duxbury Pier Light. The light-house was so surrounded by ice that he was utterly unable to reach the pier with a boat; the captain, therefore, steamed the vessel through the ice near enough to converse with the keeper, and found that he had had no communication with any one outside of the light since December 22d, 1874; that his fuel and water were out; and that they had been on an allowance of a pint of water a day since February 6th, 1875. The steamer forced her way to within some fifty or seventy-five yards of the pier, when Lieutenants Weston and Clayton, with the boats, succeeded, after two hours' hard work cutting through the ice, in reaching the pier, and furnished the keeper and his wife with plenty of wood and water."