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If you love Jeremy's Lighthouse Guide, this is the backstory. Long before Jeremy D'Entremont began his weekly guide with us, he was the webmaster and creator of Lighthouse.cc, the most popular New England online guide. We reviewed that site after a cruise to Boon Island. Here's that episode.

VISIT Jeremy's amazing site Lighthouse.cc

At high noon the MV Thomas Laighton bobbed in the mild chop nine miles off the coast of York, Maine. The motion of the ocean was just enough to send photographers and videographers knocking against each other as they jockeyed for the best shot on the top deck of the cruise ship. We had all come, a couple dozen journalists, for an elaborate and clever publicity stunt – the birth of a new nation – sort of.

Boon Island has declared its independence . You probably saw the crazy ceremony in the news as Regent Lord Master of Boon, Tim Harrison, read the unofficial declaration of independence. Those of us on the cruise boat were sworn in as nonresidents of the abandoned island, issued passports and sworn to help save the historic site from the inevitable ravages of the sea. Unsupported and unloved by mainland communities, the 300 x 700-foot rock is home to Maine’s tallest lighthouse – and little else. The narrow 137-foot stone tower rises from the God forsaken litter or granite boulders like an exclamation point.

There used to be lighthouse keepers there, lots of them from 1811 right through 1978. A few of the former keepers were aboard the Thomas Laighton the other day, posing for photos and reminiscing about the rugged days when storms tossed granite boulders around the island like Ping-Pong balls. Families lived on the island in the 19^th century, but the houses have all washed away, leaving only the automated light, a storage shed and a solar powered generator.

The American Lighthouse Foundation (ALF), a nonprofit agency out of Wells, Maine, staged last week’s event to draw attention to the plight of these crumbling New England icons. Abandoned by the Coast Guard, underfunded by state governments, scores of orphaned lighthouses are being supported by grassroots groups. ALF has adopted 15 from Cape Cod to Maine. The "Republic of Boon Island" hook is designed to attract financial support for this isolated ghost town.

Ghosts, of course, feature in Boon lore. The wife of an early lighthouse keeper, driven mad by the loss of her husband, reportedly roams the desolate spot. Boon Island is most famous for a bit of cannibalism there. In December 1710, the story goes, a British ship wrecked against the rocks and crewmen survived three harsh weeks before consuming two dead companions.

I got all this info from "Mr. Lighthouse", Jeremy d’ Entremont, keeper of the New England Lighthouse web site, a virtual guide to lighthouses in our coastal region. Jeremy narrated the Boon Island tour over the cruise ship loudspeaker. Then three costumed characters – a pirate-like naval commander, a Keystone cop constable and a military dictator – read the Boon declaration and swore us passengers to an oath of allegiance. After the mock-historic ceremony, and after grabbing free sandwiches and buying a fresh Bloody Mary, I invited Jeremy to an interview as we motored back toward Portsmouth Harbor.

I often use Jeremy’s site www.Lighthouse.cc because of its incredibly detailed chapters on all 179 Yankee lighthouses. This site is rich with photos, early postcards, maps, guides, news, links and lighthouse gifts. It’s not a slick site, but it gets the job done. Readers can search for their favorite lighthouse by state, or tour all the way up coastline. The "cc" domain is tricky to remember at first. The URL comes from the Cocos Keeling Island that sells them as a fundraiser.

"I tell people – don’t put dot.com!" the webmaster says. "When you visit a lighthouse, what do you see? You see sea – cc – get it?"

A lighthouse web master, historian and lecturer, Jeremy writes regularly for "Lighthouse Digest" magazine that publishes 25,000 copies monthly. He recently edited and updated the classic hardcover book "Lighthouses of New England" by Edward Rowe Snow. He had been a fan of Snow since his childhood in Lynn, Mass. A former teacher, Edward Rowe Snow wrote 40 maritime history books. Jeremy d’Entremont is revising them one by one, slowly filling the shoes of the popular historian who died twenty years ago.

"I think Snow did more to interest people in New England maritime history than anyone else," Jeremy says. "He was big in the Boston Harbor area. He was the famous Flying Santa who dropped gifts to lighthouse keepers by helicopter."

A film-maker by trade Jeremy worked as an archivist for WGBH-TV in Boston, producers of popular shows like "Frontline" and "Nova". His web site began as a CD-rom, now out of print. When the educational disk market didn’t pan out, he took to the web like a lifeboat to water.

There are all sorts of lighthouse people. Some just "groupies" who like to look and snap photos. Then there are the artists who paint them, the coastal defense people, the hardcore maritime historians, the people who collect little lighthouse models, the hardy outdoor sailor types, the philanthropists and the preservationists. There were members of each group on the boat to Boon. I was impressed that Jeremy had personally visited and photographed 200 lighthouses.

"That’s nothing!" he said with a wave of his hand. "See that woman at the table over there? She’s up to 600."

There is no end of lighthouse web sites too, often very similar, so it takes an expert to explain the difference. Jeremy’s site, for my money, is the best local guide. He also maintains the database of 3,000 lighthouses world-wide, a superb reference available at Lighthouse Digest online. The magazine is produced by the people who own Lighthouse Depot, also in Wells, Maine. If you haven’t been there, pack the kids in the car and check this place out. Everything in the store relates to lighthouses. It’s dizzying.

To learn more about the Republic of Boon Island, check out www.lighthousefoundation.org. That’s ALF, the American Lighthouse Foundation. Yes, Jeremy d’Entremont maintains that one too as a volunteer webmaster, though he insists he’s not a professional nerd. This is the nonprofit group working to save the endangered structures. Each lighthouse has its support group, and in his spare time, Jeremy is president of the Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Light, the one in New Castle by the equally endangered Fort Constitution. He’s planning his own fundraising cruise for June 20. Details are on his site.

Those who simply enjoy the "look" of a scenic lighthouse breaking the horizon and flashing its secure message should take note. The federal government has dumped them all. The romantic era of the stalwart lighthouse keeper has passed. They stand only if we support them, and that’s going to take a ton of private capital. Boon Lighthouse was built for $25,000. Repairing the crack in nearby White Island Light may come to a quarter million bucks. It’s not up to the Coast Guard anymore. It’s not up to the feds. Most states are cash poor. Do the math.

The Republic of Boon Island, meanwhile, is taking an original tack. Contributors get to "bribe" their way into political office. A $100,000 bribe gets you the presidency. For $25,000 you can be Secretary of Defense, $250 for Propaganda Minister, $25 for Sanitation (read: seagull poop) Director. Send $25 for your certificate of citizenship. It’s a dreary little island, but the way things are going lately in the good old USA, Boon Island is looking better every day.