Elizabeth Whitney Williams was an American lighthouse keeper and writer. She served as a lighthouse keeper for 41 years, including a 29-year stint at the Little Traverse Light.[1][2]
Williams (née Whitney) was born on Mackinac Island, Michigan, on June 24, 1844 as the only child of Elizabeth Cross Dousman Gebeau (1796-1896) and Walter Whitney (1809-1870). The Matriarch Elizabeth had been married first to Louis Gebeau, who drowned in an 1841 boating accident on Lake Michigan.[3] By the time she was four years old, young Elizabeth's family had moved to Beaver Island where her father, a carpenter, worked for the Mormon leader "King" James Strang.[2] In 1852, after being pressured to convert, the Whitney family fled to Charlevoix and then to Traverse City.[2] After Strang was assassinated and the Mormons were forced out, the Whitney family returned to Beaver Island in 1857 where Williams met and married Clement Van Riper, a cooper from Detroit, in 1860.[2] Van Riper began teaching in the nearby Anishinaabe community on Garden Island, where Williams assisted her husband and taught gardening techniques.[4]
Career
In 1869, Van Riper was appointed keeper of the Beaver Island Harbor Light after the prior keeper, Peter McKinley, resigned due to poor health.[4] However, Van Riper was also often in poor health and Williams assisted her husband by cleaning and polishing the Fresnel lens.[2]
During a stormy night in 1872, Van Riper rowed out to help rescue crew from the schooner Thomas Howland, which was sinking in the harbor, but he died in his efforts.[3] The duty fell on Williams to keep the light burning in the lighthouse during the three-day storm and she was left "weak from sorrow."[2] A few weeks after her husband's death she was officially appointed keeper of the Beaver Island Harbor Light during a time when few women were ever appointed and lighthouse keeping was thought of as a man's job due to the physical labor and investment of time.[2] She found the responsibility daunting but "longed to do something for humanity's sake" and seemed to view tending the light as both a calling and comfort.[4]
In 1875, Williams remarried—to photographer Daniel Williams—and eventually requested a transfer to a lighthouse on the mainland.[4] In September 1884, she was transferred to the newly constructed Little Traverse Light at Harbor Springs.[4] Williams excelled at her work and later won an award for best-kept light on the Great Lakes.[5]
Later life
Williams retired in 1913 and moved to Charlevoix with her husband where they spent 25 years in quiet retirement.[2] Williams died, 12 hours after her husband, on January 23, 1938.[4]
Legacy
Williams is one of America's longest-serving lighthouse keepers with 41 years of service.[1] In 1905, Williams published an autobiography entitled A Child of the Sea and My Life Among Mormons,[6] which is available for online reading through Project Gutenberg. A children's book, Elizabeth Whitney Williams and The Little Traverse Light, is based upon Williams' life.[1] In December, 2024, Elizabeth was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
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A Child of the Sea and Life Among the Mormons on Beaver Island .
