![]() ![]() Stanwood (1849-1910), a childhood friend, at the Red Bluff Lighthouse, and moved to Centerville - renamed Stanwood in 1878, in honor of his wife - where he established a trading post. On October 2, 1867, Georgia Pearson (1848-1881) married Whidbey Island pioneer and homesteader Charles Townsend Terry (1835-1922) in the lighthouse parlor, and Flora Pearson, age 17, assumed the assistant lighthouse keeper’s duties. (1818-1890), and their two other children, Daniel Orlando and Flora Augusta, traveling with Asa Mercer’s second expedition, joined him in May 1866. Shortly thereafter, Pearson was appointed as the lighthouse keeper on Red Bluff with Georgia as his assistant. Josie (1844-1864) died suddenly on August 21, 1864, shortly after her arrival in Coupeville, so Daniel moved to Whidbey Island to join Georgia. Josie and Georgia took up teaching positions in Coupeville, while Daniel Pearson became a watchman at the Puget Mill in Port Gamble. Pearson had arrived in Washington Territory from Lowell, Massachusetts, in May 1864 with his two eldest daughters, Josephine, "Josie," age 19, and Georgianna, "Georgia," 15, two of the original "Mercer Girls," young women brought to Seattle from the East Coast by Asa Shinn Mercer (1839-1917). The second keeper of the Red Bluff Lighthouse was Daniel N. He left the Lighthouse Service in 1864, and returned to his homestead near Coupeville, where he lived until his death in 1888. Captain Robertson built another log cabin and mounted a small ship’s cannon in the yard to defend against further attacks. In addition to his lighthouse duties, Robertson served the Island County community as Post Master and Coroner. In the mid-1850s, a marauding band of Haida Indians from British Columbia attacked the Robertsons and burned their log cabin. He, his wife, Mary Jane (1817-1875), and their five children had been homesteading on Whidbey Island since the early 1850s. In 1861, William Robertson (1809-1888), a retired sea captain, was the first keeper appointed to the Red Bluff Lighthouse. It was the sixth lighthouse built in Washington Territory. The light on Red Bluff, first exhibited January 21, 1861, showed a fixed white light visible for more than 16 over miles, from any point along a sweeping 270 degrees of horizon. This lens captures and directs light by prismatic rings to a central prism where it emerges through the convex lens as a concentrated beam of light. The white tower, 40-feet high and 108 feet above sea level, was outfitted with a fixed fourth-order Fresnel lens, known as a beehive or barrel. Completed in January 1861, the Cape Cod style lighthouse was a square wooden tower built on the roof of the two-story keeper’s quarters. Lighthouse Board purchased 10 acres of land on Red Bluff from Dr. The Lighthouse Board decided Red Bluff on Whidbey Island was best suited for a navigational aid to help sailing vessels clear the shallow waters around Point Wilson for the tack south into the narrow entrance of Admiralty Inlet. In 1856, Congress appropriated only enough money to build one lighthouse. Marine surveys of Washington’s inland waterways, commissioned by the Lighthouse Board in the 1850s, recommended that the entrance to Admiralty Inlet be marked with two lights: on Whidbey Island to the east, and on Point Wilson (on Quimper Peninsula near Port Townsend) to the west. (1821-1891), who had claimed a homestead on this site in 1853 under the Oregon Land Donation Act of 1850. John Coe Kellogg (1820-1902), and his wife Caroline T. A local name for the headland was Kellogg Point for Dr. Exploring Expedition, named it Red Bluff from the reddish color of the cliffs. In 1841, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (1798-1877), commander of the U. Captain George Vancouver (1758-1798) named Admiralty Inlet on June 2, 1792, in honor of the British Navy’s Board of Admiralty. It acquired the name from Admiralty Inlet, the waterway between the Olympic Peninsula and Whidbey Island, connecting the Strait of Juan de Fuca with Puget Sound. Coast Guard’s bicentennial.Īdmiralty Head is a 90-foot high promontory that projects into Admiralty Inlet on the west coast of Whidbey Island in Island County four miles south of Coupeville. Postal Service selected it for a collection of five commemorative lighthouse stamps honoring the U.S. Although decommissioned in 1922, the Admiralty Head Lighthouse received national recognition in 1990 when the U. It replaced the Red Bluff Lighthouse, a wooden Cape Cod style structure built in 1861. The beacon, high on a bluff, 127 feet above sea level, was an important navigational aid, especially for sailing ships entering Admiralty Inlet from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. ![]() The Admiralty Head Lighthouse, built in 1903 by the Army Corps of Engineers, is located in Fort Casey State Park near Coupeville on Whidbey Island. ![]()
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