Beavertail

Written by WAReynolds

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save, they just stand there shining.” ~ Anne Lamott

On the southern tip of Conanicut Island, in the town of Jamestown, in the middle of Narragansett Bay, in the state of Rhode Island, is where you will find Beavertail Lighthouse within Beavertail State Park, so named because the southern tip of Conanicut Island, in the town of Jamestown, in the middle of Narragansett Bay, in the state of Rhode Island is shaped like a beaver’s tail. 🦫

Compared to most of the grand lighthouses located along the Atlantic coast, like Cape Hatteras in North Carolina or St. Augustine in Florida, Beavertail Lighthouse is relatively Spartan in its architecture with its unpainted square stone tower and the simple box design of its support buildings. This iteration of the lighthouse was built in 1898 about eighty feet back from the first foundation. The original lighthouse was built here decades before the American Revolution in 1749, making it the site of the third oldest lighthouse in the American Colonies. That first lighthouse here was made of wood. It burned down in 1753, was rebuilt and was burned down again by the British in 1779. Below the concrete cap sits the stone foundation of Beavertail’s initial 1749 lighthouse. As you can see the original lighthouse was a six-sided structure. This foundation was buried over time and was re-exposed by the Great New England Hurricane that hit Rhode Island on September 21st, 1938, slamming into Narragansett Bay with a twenty foot storm surge and sustained winds of one hundred miles per hour.

The weather was a perfect 80° with a light breeze on this early October day. No hurricanes in the forecast.

Newport, famed tourist destination and summer home of the rich and famous is just across the bay…

Behind the sailboat in this picture is Fort Adams State Park in Newport. In the late 90’s I was fortunate enough to land a gig working there as part of the stage crew for the Newport Music Festivals. For three years, totaling nine long weekend shows, I had the honor of working with some tremendous musicians, people like Joan Baez, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Ray Charles, Tito Puente, James Taylor, George Thorogood, Marc Cohn, Derek Trucks, Ani DiFranco, Indigo Girls, Alison Krauss, Lyle Lovett, Janis Ian, and a hundred other musical masters. I carry some treasured memories from those days.