Bishop and Clerks Light

Off Hyannis, MA
Est. 1858, Demolished 1952

It is gone now, irreparably damaged by a storm in 1935. But it remains known for its famous manager. Captain Charles H. Hinckley was known as the shortest lighthouse keeper in the world.

Jeremy’s Lighthouse Guide #63

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Point Gammon and the offshore ledges known as Bishop (largest of the ledges) and Clerks (smaller rocks) were, for many years, scourges to mariners traveling near Hyannis along the south coast of Cape Cod. A lighthouse established at Point Gammon in West Yarmouth in 1816 was a help, but it wasn’t sufficient to prevent vessels from running into the treacherous ledges a mile or so offshore.

The building of the lighthouse at Bishop and Clerks began in the spring of 1857. The massive granite blocks were cut onshore and ferried to the site, where they were pieced together on a cylindrical base. The light went into operation on October 1, 1858.

A principal keeper and two assistants (usually only two men would be on duty at the lighthouse at the same time) lived inside the tower, which had a kitchen and two bedrooms. Captain Charles H. Hinckley, a native of Barnstable, was principal keeper beginning in 1892. Hinckley remained at the lighthouse until 1919, when he was 70. Hinckley, who was 4 feet 9 inches (or 4 feet 6 inches in his stocking feet, according to one account), has been called the shortest lighthouse keeper in the world.

Bishop and Clerks Light/ photo from Lighthouse.cc Hinckley had gone to sea at the age of 16 as a cabin boy on an East Indies-bound ship. He said the first and most important thing he learned about seafaring life was "to move when spoken to, to jump quickly to one side and avoid the real attack that was sure to come." In 1909, the magazine Along the Coast quoted Hinckley: "There ain't a great deal of me so far as height goes but I am all right from my feet up. I've laid many a man bigger than me on his back if I do say it myself."

Hinckley was a familiar sight in Hyannis after his lighthouse keeping days, digging and selling clams or doing an odd job here and there. Hinckley died in 1932. His son, Charles, Jr., later served as the Hyannis harbormaster.

One of the last assistant keepers was Luther Chapman, described in the book Once Upon a River by Ted Frothingham as a great storyteller who had a habit of "beginning and ending all his sentences with cuss words."

Demolished lighthouse / Jeremy D'Entremont The lighthouse was converted to automatic operation in 1923 and discontinued in 1928. A storm in 1935 did considerable damage. By 1952, the tower tilted to one side and the Coast Guard decided to raze the structure. Preparations took a week. Dynamite was placed strategically in drilled holes in such a way to direct the blast upward, so the debris wouldn’t scatter over too large an area.

The Boston Globe described the aftermath of the blast on September 11, 1952: "A cloud of smoke partly hid the old tower, which stood swaying for a moment and then toppled to one side like a pile of child's blocks. . . . The historic Bishop and Clerks Lighthouse was no more." There’s now a small white and red lighted tower on the spot.

For more, see LIGHTHOUSE.cc and also watch for Jeremy’s book The Lighthouses of Massachusetts, coming in June 2007.

Copyright 2007 by Jeremy D'Entremont,New England Lighthouses.
Photos are the property of the author and
may not be used without permission
Photos above from Jeremy D'Entremont.

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