Harry C. Claiborne (January 1859 - 1918) was an American lighthouse keeper. [1]
He was born in January 1859 in New Orleans. [2] He began his career as assistant keeper of the Southwest Pass Light in Louisiana in 1887. [3] In 1889 he was made head keeper of the Pass a l'Outre Light. In 1895 he was transferred to the Bolivar Point Light near Galveston, Texas. He was on duty when the Galveston Hurricane hit the station on September 8, 1900. [1] 125 people eventually took refuge inside the light tower, including Claiborne's family and that of the assistant keeper; Claiborne oversaw their care until further help was forthcoming. [1] [4] In 1915, he again cared for 50 hurricane refugees who took shelter in the tower.
Claiborne died on duty at the Bolivar Point station in 1918.
A United States Coast Guard coastal buoy tender, USCGC Harry Claiborne, WLM-561, based in Galveston, Texas, is named after him. [1] [3]
The Hereford Inlet Lighthouse is a historic lighthouse located in North Wildwood, New Jersey, situated on the southern shore of Hereford Inlet at the north end of Five Mile Beach. Its construction was completed and it became operational in 1874.
Indianola is a ghost town located on Matagorda Bay in Calhoun County, Texas, United States. The community, once the county seat of Calhoun County, is a part of the Victoria, Texas, Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 1875, the city had a population of 5,000, but on September 15 of that year, a powerful hurricane struck, killing between 150 and 300 and almost entirely destroying the town. Indianola was rebuilt, only to be wiped out on August 19, 1886, by another intense hurricane, which was followed by a fire. Indianola was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1963, marker number 2642.
The Sabine Pass Lighthouse, or Sabine Pass Light as it was referred to by the United States Coast Guard, is a historic lighthouse, as part of a gulf coast light station, on the Louisiana side of the Sabine River, in Cameron Parish, across from the community of Sabine Pass, Texas. It was first lit in 1857 and was deactivated by the Coast Guard in 1952. One of only three built in the United States of similar design, the light was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "Sabine Pass Lighthouse" on December 17, 1981. It is now abandoned but has long continued to be the subject of preservation efforts.
Point Bolivar Light is a historic lighthouse in Port Bolivar, Texas, that was built in 1872. It served for 61 years before being retired in 1933, when its function was replaced by a different light.
The Dry Tortugas Light is a lighthouse located on Loggerhead Key, three miles west of Fort Jefferson, Florida. It was taken out of operation in 2015. It has also been called the Loggerhead Lighthouse. It has been said to be "a greater distance from the mainland than any other light in the world."
The Cape San Blas Light is a lighthouse in the state of Florida in the United States. There were four built between 1849 and 1885. It was located at Cape San Blas in the northwestern part of the state. Due to beach erosion and weather damage over the decades, it was moved in 2014 to Port St. Joe. The lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
Sand Key Light is a lighthouse 6 nautical miles southwest of Key West, Florida, between Sand Key Channel and Rock Key Channel, two of the channels into Key West, on a reef intermittently covered by sand. At times the key has been substantial enough to have trees, and in 1900 nine to twelve thousand terns nested on the island. At other times the island has been washed away completely.
Several lighthouses called Dog Island Light were constructed on the western tip of Dog Island south of Carrabelle, Florida. They marked the "middle entrance to St. George's Sound," between St. George and Dog Islands, during the nineteenth century, until its collapse by a hurricane in 1873.
The St. Marks Light is the second-oldest light station in Florida. It is located on the east side of the mouth of the St. Marks River, on Apalachee Bay.
A lighthouse keeper or lightkeeper is a person responsible for tending and caring for a lighthouse, particularly the light and lens in the days when oil lamps and clockwork mechanisms were used. Lighthouse keepers were sometimes referred to as "wickies" because of their job trimming the wicks.
The Bridgeport Harbor Light, later the Bridgeport Harbor Lighthouse, was a lighthouse in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States. It is located on the west side of the Bridgeport Harbor entrance and the north side of Long Island Sound. Originally constructed in 1851 and rebuilt in 1871 with a dwelling, it had a red-fixed light throughout its service life. The builder and first keeper of the light was Abraham A. McNeil who is also credited as improvising the first light for the Bridgeport Harbor in 1844. By 1953, the lighthouse was in poor condition and the United States Coast Guard opted to build a skeleton tower in its place. In the 2014 edition of the Light List Volume 1, the skeleton tower is marked as "Light 13A" with a height of 57 feet (17 m) and a visual marker of a square green dayboard with a green reflective border. The lighthouse was sold and an attempt was made to move it to serve as a monument for Connecticut's maritime history, but it was later decided to scrap the structure. The lighthouse caught fire and was destroyed during the dismantling in 1953.
Au Sable Light is an active lighthouse in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore west of Grand Marais, Michigan off H-58. Until 1910, this aid to navigation was called "Big Sable Light".
The Lazaretto Point Light was a historic lighthouse in Baltimore harbor. Though long demolished, a replica stands near its original site.
Point Clark Lighthouse is located on in a beach community, Point Clark, Ontario, near a point that protrudes into Lake Huron. Built between 1855 and 1859 under the instructions of the Board of Works, Canada West, it is one of the few on the Great Lakes to be made primarily from stone. It is one of the Imperial Towers, a group of six nearly identical towers built by contractor John Brown for the "Province of Canada" on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, all completed by 1859. The location for the Point Clark lighthouse was selected to warn sailors of the shoals (sandbars) 2 miles (3.2 km) off the Lake Huron coast. It is still functioning as an automated light. A restoration that eventually exceeded $2.3 million started in 2011 and the facility reopened for tourism in June 2015.
The Cove Island Light, at Gig Point on the island, is located in Fathom Five National Marine Park, but is not part of the Park. It is situated on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario Canada. It has been a navigational aid in the narrow channel between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay since 30 October 1858. It was the first of six stone Imperial Towers to be completed; all were illuminated by 1859. Most other lighthouses of the era were built of brick, wood, iron or concrete.
Mount Desert Light is a lighthouse on Mount Desert Rock, a small island about 18 nautical miles south of Mount Desert Island, in the U.S. state of Maine. While the first light station was established in 1830, the current lighthouse was built in 1847. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Mount Desert Light Station in 1988. It is currently owned and operated by the College of the Atlantic, located in Bar Harbor, Maine.
The Halfmoon Reef Light is one of the many screw-pile type lighthouses built on the Texas Gulf Coast, but the only one that still stands. To distinguish it from the nearby Matagorda Island Light it was given a red glass chimney to be used with the oil lantern to give it its red beam. Though originally constructed on the bay, the current resting place for the light is on Port Lavaca, alongside Highway 35.
The Ship Shoal Light is a screw-pile lighthouse located in the Gulf of Mexico southwest of the Isles Dernieres off the coast of Louisiana. It is currently abandoned.
The Pass A L'Outre Light is a defunct lighthouse in the Birdfoot Delta in Louisiana, United States, located near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Erected to mark the then-active entrance to the river, it was abandoned as that channel silted up. It has been in the path of several noteworthy hurricanes, and was heavily damaged. It is on the Lighthouse Digest Doomsday List, and is critically in danger. The lighthouse is at the center of a nature preserve.
USCGC Harry Claiborne (WLM-561) is a Keeper-class coastal buoy tender of the United States Coast Guard. Launched in 1999, she is home-ported in Galveston, Texas. Her primary mission is maintaining aids to navigation between the Mexican boarder and the mouth of the Mississippi River. Secondary missions include marine environmental protection, search and rescue, and security. She is assigned to the Eighth Coast Guard District.
A century after his efforts saved some 125 people from perishing in the nation's deadliest natural disaster, the heroics of Bolivar Point lighthouse keeper Harry Claiborne during the great 1900 Galveston hurricane were remembered when the Coast Guard commissioned a new ship bearing his name Friday. ... After supervising the rebuilding of the lighthouse Mr. Claiborne repeated his ... Again Harry Claiborne gave everything he had to help the local residents of ...