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History
Pre-Revolution - 1860 |
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One of the regimental surgeons, a Dr. Richard Bayley became the Health Officer for
New York City in the 1790s, working at the inadequate quarantine
station on Bedloe Island (later the site for the Statue of Liberty).
In 1799 Dr. Bayley convinced the city that a new quarantine station,
or lazaretto, was needed, and selected the old Duxbury farmland on
Staten Island. Separate hospitals were built for Yellow Fever and
Small Pox. Dr. Bayley's married daughter, Elizabeth Seton, joined
her father at the lazaretto. Unfortunately, Dr. Bayley died of
Yellow Fever two years after the hospitals were built. Elizabeth
would later convert to Catholicism, found the American parochial
school system, and become the only American born saint of the
Catholic Church.
The Revenue Cutter Service, the oldest armed maritime service in the U.S., used five of the thirty acres here as a base until after the Civil War. |
 Early map shows yellow fever and smallpox hospitals at the Quarantine Station on Staten Island, established in 1799. Collection of Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, New York. |
| This organization would later, in 1915, join forces with the U. S. Lifesaving Service to form the Coast Guard, which would in 1939 absorb the duties of the Lighthouse Service. |
| In 1858, after decades of complaints from Staten Island residents about the spread of disease and effect on property values from the quarantine hospitals, a group of prominent citizens removed all the patients and animals from the lazaretto and burned the hospitals to the ground. |  Burning of the Quarantine Station - from Leslie's Weekley "Collection of Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, New York. |
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1860 - 1939 Meanwhile, big improvements were being made in the administration of our nation's lighthouses. Found to be unkempt and unreliable in the 1850's, lighthouse administration had been handed over to a newly formed lighthouse board in 1952, made up of naval officers, army engineers, and leaders of the maritime industry. As the board made improvements in personnel, quality of structures and materials, lighthouse equipment, and supply, it became evident that a central base of operations was needed. In 1863, Admiral William B. Shubrick, Chairman of the Lighthouse Board, and Professor Joseph Henry, head of the board's experimental department, set out to find the land on which to build a 'super depot' for the Lighthouse Establishment. Because of its convenient location in a major U.S. Port, the good anchorages nearby, and the availability of room for expansion, the Staten Island site was chosen. |
 Old lamp shop under construction in 1868. Photo: National Archives. | Work began immediately to build the lighthouse depot. In 1864 the warehouse building (called the barracks today) was completed, and work soon began on the old Lamp Shop, which would be completed in 1868. The Administration Building was completed the following year in 1869. |
| The depot was a busy and important operation during a time when lighthouses were of vital importance to the well being of our country. Vast improvements were being made in the design and construction of lighthouses, and in lighthouse equipment and supply. Experimentation was conducted in attempts to find better fuels and lamps. Fresnel Lenses were being installed in lighthouses throughout the country. The first lighthouse |  Lampists pose outside Old Lamp Shop. Photo: National Archives c. 1885 |
| tenders, ships specifically designed to supply lighthouses, were being built, and new and better sound signals for lighthouses, lightships and buoys were being developed. And the Lighthouse Depot at Staten Island was an integral part of all this progress. |
| In 1883, a cast iron lighthouse was built on the depot in front of the administration building. Not intended as a navigational aid, the lighthouse was put here to act as a test platform for new oils, lamps and lenses. Here new innovations could be tested in a realistic lighthouse environment, rather than simply on a workbench, which was particularly important in lamp and fuel design. Constructed of cast iron, it was about 45 feet tall; a 'spark plug' lighthouse, as this design was called. In 1897 it was removed and placed on Romer Shoal, a reef adjacent to the Ambrose Channel, in the Approaches to New York Harbor, where it is |  This cast-iron lighthouse was built to test lamps, fuesl and lenses under realistic conditions. Photo: National Archives c. 1885. |
| still helping to keep ships off the shallow and dangerous rocks. In future years we hope to bring the lighthouse back home to the Lighthouse Depot, this time to help educate and inform our museum visitors. |
| In the 1920s, the Lighthouse Depot employed some 200 men. However, lighthouse related activity would soon begin to fall off. The majority of lighthouses were electrified in the 1930s, and electrification took a great deal of work out of tending the lights. Wicks no longer need constant tending, and the glass lamp chimney, lens, and lantern windows no longer needed to be wiped free of soot all night. The clockwork, which powered rotation of the revolving lenses no longer |  Workshops, buoy storage and the lighthouse fill space between the pier and administration building in this 1890's photograph. Photo:National Archives |
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needed to be wound. Gradually, three-keeper stations became two-keeper stations, and then one-keeper stations as
electricity became more and more reliable.
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