This week, we’ll meet Ida Lewis, the fearless lighthouse keeper of Newport, Rhode Island, who became a national hero for her daring rescues at sea.
This week, we’ll meet Ida Lewis, the fearless lighthouse keeper of Newport, Rhode Island, who became a national hero for her daring rescues at sea.
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July 4th, 1869. Just three years out from the close of the Civil War, 4th of July celebrations in Rhode Island might have been infused with a renewed sense of unity and patriotism. There would have been fireworks and parades, artillery salutes and speeches. And in Newport, over 4,000 people crowded the city’s main streets to celebrate.
If you wandered through the crowd that day, you might have noticed a fashion trend among the young women. Many sported white scarves, knotted loosely around their necks so the fabric draped over their shoulders and just down their backs. This was known as a “fichu-style” scarf, and the young girls and women of Newport proudly adorned themselves this way to honor a young woman who was said to be there, somewhere, in the crowd. A 27-year-old Newport native who had appeared earlier that year on the cover of Harper’s Weekly, wearing just such a scarf. A woman who was being called the Bravest Woman in America. Ida Lewis. The lighthouse keeper’s daughter.
Newport Independence Day that year was dedicated to her, and all throughout the city, people could be heard relaying the tale of the young woman’s heroic rescue just four months earlier.
“The water looks calm today, but imagine it in March, in the cold as winds whipped,” they might have said. “Imagine the water turned a sickly, greenish hue, waves cresting and turning to foam. That’s how it looked on the day of the rescue.”
They likely recounted how it had been Ida’s mother who had peered out from the tower of the lighthouse and seen the two men, clinging desperately to the hull of an overturned boat. How she had hurried down the steps, calling for her daughter: “Ida, Oh my God, Ida run quick, a boat capsized and men drowning, run quick, Ida!” And Ida had shot up from her seat beside the fire without hesitation, wasting no time to think or grab a coat, or a hat, or even shoes. She snatched the only thing that was handy–a towel–which she knotted loosely around her neck, like a fichu-style scarf. And then she opened the door and ran out into the storm, her younger brother Hosea not far behind.
But it was Ida who reached the boat first, the storytellers would have emphasized. It was Ida who grabbed the oars while her brother shoved them from the rock and towards the bobbing hull of the ship that drifted into the open channel. It was Ida who pulled bravely as waves crashed over the boat, soaking her dress and shoving them backwards.
And when the capsized men looked up and saw a boat pulling near, it was Ida who the men saw first. They were buoyed by hope and then immediately washed with a wave of despair, as it dawned on them that it was a petite young woman at the oars. But only Ida could have proven these men wrong.
She and her brother dragged the two men over the stern of the rowboat and carried them back to the lighthouse, where they were warmed and fed and taken care of for the night. In the morning, Ida rowed the men back to shore. And from the moment the two stepped onto land, the news of their rescue spread.
Now, everyone excitedly recounted their own version of it, pieced together from the stories that appeared first in the local newspapers and then in the New York Tribune, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, and Harper’s Weekly. They celebrated Independence Day and waited eagerly to catch a glimpse of their heroine and hear her speak. But they would ultimately be disappointed. When it was time for Ida to address the crowd, someone else stepped up in her stead–a man named Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who explained: “Miss Lewis desires me to say that she never has made a speech in her life and she doesn’t expect to begin now.” The modest young woman didn’t ask for fame or recognition or gifts, but she received them anyway–graciously but quietly accepting what was given to her. That day, the gifts included a brand new rowboat, and at 3PM, as a crowd of a thousand watched, Ida settled herself into the new boat, grabbed smooth, unfamiliar oars, and pulled away from the chaos of the day towards her small, secluded home on Lime Rock.
I’m Sara and you’re listening to Weird Island. Each episode, I’ll be telling you about the strangest stories I can dig up from my tiny, little state of Rhode Island. And this week, I’m going to tell you about Ida Lewis, a female lighthouse keeper who became famous throughout the country for her acts of heroism.
Ida Lewis was born February 25, 1842 in Newport, RI. Her mother, also named Ida, was the daughter of a prominent Block Island physician, while her father, Hosea, was a pilot in the Revenue-Marine (a precursor to the US Coast Guard). As a pilot, Hosea would have been kind of an expert in local waterways, responsible for safely guiding ships through difficult or dangerous waters, around rocks, or shoals and into port. So when, in 1853, a small lighthouse was commissioned to help guide passenger ferries, commercial traffic and military personnel through Newport’s inner harbor, Hosea was kind of a natural choice for the lighthouse keeper.
At first, he and his family lived on shore, in a little house at the corner of Spring and Brewery Street. Each morning, Hosea would row out to Lime Rock. He would extinguish the light in the morning and row home. Then return in the evening to light it again. And sometimes his eldest daughter, Ida, would join him.
For three years, Hosea went back and forth from the mainland to the lighthouse twice a day. Until 1856, when the decision was made to build a house on the small island, where the lighthouse keeper and his family could live. When Ida was 15 years old, she, her mother, her father, and her three siblings moved into the white square building, two stories high, that was built on Lime Rock.
Life on the rock was relatively mundane. Ida’s father maintained the light, cleaned the lens, and recorded weather data. Her mother cooked and cleaned and settled the family into the new house. Ida was done with school, but her three younger siblings (all under the age of 10) were not. So she learned to row, and ferried the children to and from shore so they could attend school.
Things seemed to be going well. While the life of a lighthouse keeper’s family may seem lonely, it can also be very stable. But it wasn’t long before tragedy struck. Four months into living on Lime Rock, Ida’s father suffered a debilitating stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to maintain his duties as lighthouse keeper. Immediately, Ida and her mother stepped into the role of caring for the light. Not only because the lantern needed around-the-clock care, but because the family needed work and a place to live. By taking over Hosea’s duties, the family was able to retain the position of lighthouse keeper and the security that job provided.
Ida’s days began to revolve around the light. Each morning, after sunrise, she would extinguish the lantern and carefully inspect the lens to ensure everything was clean and in proper working order for the next night. Then she would ferry the children to shore, while her father watched, now helpless, from the window. He later recalled how, when the weather got rough, he would turn away–unable to watch knowing he could do nothing to help them if they were suddenly swamped by a wave. But Ida grew into a strong and capable rower, and a hard working, stoic young woman. Throughout the day, she’d cook and clean and fix things around the house. And in the late afternoon or early evening, she would trim the lamp’s wick, fill the oil, and inspect the lantern to ensure it was ready to light at sunset. Over time, she became intimately attuned to its needs. She slept in a bedroom directly across from the small room that housed the lantern, and even in her sleep, she could sense when the light dimmed or the wick needed trimming.
Day after day, Ida rose to the same tasks. The slow, steady rhythm of lighthouse keeping could easily lull a person into the comfort of a routine, if isolated, life. And yet, beneath the quiet repetition, Ida remained ever-watchful, knowing that calm could be shattered at any moment.
September 4, 1858 turned out to be just such a day. It was early fall, and Newport’s waters had been full of activity. Merchants, fishermen and residents criss-crossed the harbor in vessels small and large. And as the sun began to set and the weather cooled, a small catboat could be seen gliding towards shore. It was manned by four young boys from Newport who had decided to have a picnic on a small rocky island formation known as “The Dumplings.” As the boys passed between Lime Rock and Fort Adams, they dropped sail, deciding to let the tide carry them towards the wharf. The passing boat might have been unremarkable, except that, still giddy from a day in the sun, the boys joked around and wrestled and one of them climbed up onto the mast and heaved his weight left and right, hoping to frighten his friends. And he succeeded–a little too well. The boy’s momentum took the small sailboat down, tossing the crew into the water.
Sixteen year old Ida had already spotted the boys messing around, so she was ready to act when the boat capsized. She raced to her little rowboat and pulled away from the island and out towards the bobbing hull and the boys who clung to it. Drawing near, she was clever enough to dodge the desperate grasps of the drowning boys, who threatened to capsize her in their own fear. Maneuvering her rowboat so the boys were at the rear, she pulled them, one at a time, up and over the stern, just as her father had taught her. And she rowed them all safely to Lime Rock.
There, her mother made molasses toddies and dried the shivering young men off. Grateful, but embarrassed and afraid of punishment, the boys must have agreed not to talk about their little adventure. And Ida didn’t mention it either. After all, to her, this was as much a part of the job as tending to the lantern. It was her first opportunity to save lives, but it was far from her last.
Ida’s second rescue came in February of 1866, almost 8 years after the first. That night, three soldiers made their way from the local pubs back towards Fort Adams, where they were stationed. The walk would have been a bit circuitous, and the men–who were likely quite drunk–weren’t making the best decisions. They came across a small rowboat tethered to the wharf, unattended, and decided their journey home would be quicker if they stole the boat and took the more direct route across the water.
Except that things rapidly got out of hand. One of the men either tried to stand in the boat, or was shuffling around, when his foot thrust through the hull. As the boat started taking on water, the two other soldiers decided to jump ship and swim back towards shore–leaving the third man with his foot still trapped between the planks of the rapidly sinking rowboat.
Luckily, for him, Ida became aware of the commotion out in the harbor, and she readied herself quickly and rowed out to help. By the time she reached the sinking, stolen rowboat, which she recognized as belonging to her own brother, Ida found the soldier drunkenly wailing, his foot still trapped between two planks, his panic preventing him from helping himself in any way. Ida grabbed him and pulled, and dragged and eventually he became dislodged from the boat. She shuffled him into her own vessel, though she wrenched her back in the process. That injury took nearly a year to heal. The man lived, though. Ida had saved another life. But the two other men, the ones who swam back towards shore, they were never heard from again. One might assume they died that night, but their bodies were never found, and so instead of being listed as dead, they were listed as having capitalized on a chance to desert the army. This story might have gotten a brief mention in the paper, but then it faded from memory. Ida’s bravery received little notice.
Just about one year later, in January of 1867, Ida had an opportunity to perform a third rescue–perhaps the most unusual one. On that day, three farm hands were transporting a sheep down main street. This wasn’t just any sheep–it was a prize-winning sheep belonging to August Belmont, a wealthy and powerful financier best remembered today as an owner and breeder of thoroughbred horses and as the founder of the Belmont Stakes. So you know he took his animals pretty seriously. Which is why it was a big deal when that sheep broke loose and made a run for it. Unfortunately for the sheep, he miscalculated his escape route and jettisoned himself off a wharf and into the frigid waters of the harbor.
The three caretakers raced down the wharf and jumped into a small rowboat–which, yet again, belonged to Ida’s brother. This new boat was replacing the one that had been destroyed just one year earlier, and these men didn’t fare much better than the soldiers.
Ida had been sewing by the window when she heard frantic cries for help, and she looked out in time to see her brother’s new boat topple, tossing the three men into the water. She rowed out and came to the men’s rescue. But it was the sheep that they were most worried about. So after scooping up the men, Ida pursued the thrashing, sinking animal. That rescue proved more difficult, but eventually she was able to loop a rope around the sheep’s neck and tow the poor, bedraggled creature to shore. She never learned what happened to the sheep–or to the men. Never knew if Belmont learned the story of his prize-winner’s harrowing escape attempt or if the men pretended it all never happened.
Just two weeks later, Ida performed her fourth rescue. She and her mother woke one morning to a strange sight–a wrecked sailboat seemed to have gotten lodged on a jagged rock during low tide, sometime around midnight, and a nearly drowned man clung to the rigging, up to his neck in water as the tide continued to come in. Ida had to revive the man, who seemed near death, in order to get him into her boat. And when she started rowing back towards Lime Rock, she was surprised at his feeble request that she turn around and head to shore instead. She argued that he needed to be cared for, but he insisted, so she deposited the man on shore and watched as he quickly disappeared.
A few weeks later, she received a polite letter from the owner of the sailboat. But this was no thank you note. No, the sender wrote that he would have gladly given Ida fifty dollars if she had just let the man drown. As it turns out, the boat was stolen. If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it might be that you should never steal a boat or even nature might try to punish you.
Ida received very little attention for these first four rescues. And that didn’t bother her. She didn’t do it because she wanted recognition. She just felt like it was the kind of thing anyone would do. Later, when asked about her acts of bravery, she said, “If there were some people out there who needed help, I would get into my boat and go to them even if I knew I couldn’t get back. Wouldn’t you?” But, of course, her daring actions did eventually make the news–and it was the fifth rescue that changed things.
That was the story people recounted on that 4th of July celebration in her honor, the tale of how Ida saved two soldiers from Fort Adams. It wasn’t as flashy as the rescue of a sheep and its caretakers, or as controversial as the rescue of a thief, but the story resonated with people. First, the local papers–the Mercury and the Newport News–-included brief write-ups of the event. And then, a reporter showed up, from New York. A writer for the Tribune. And he published the story of a selfless heroine, one who embodied the ideals of bravery, moral virtue and self-reliance that characterized some of the most classic American heroes. And people across the country ate that story up and they were hungry for more.
Letters began pouring in, from all kinds of people. From women who looked up to her and men who presumed they might marry her. From organizations that wanted to officially recognize her bravery with awards. From members of the military to politicians to industrialists. “There’s hardly a great admiral or noted general that hasn’t been here to see me,” Ida said. Even the president, Ulysses S. Grant, came to visit and called Ida “one of the most heroic noble women of the age.” Portraits and postcards were made of her. She was offered a role in a traveling vaudeville act. Two musical pieces were written about her. And she received daily visitors. So many visitors. “Rarely less than 100 a day,” who would show up and wave from shore or hire a boat or row over on their own so that they could meet the famous Ida Lewis, so that a little bit of her magic might rub off on them.
The visitors became such a common part of Ida’s life, that she couldn’t make special accommodations. She had to keep going about her day, even as her fans trailed along beside her. Admirers would often find her modestly dressed and hard at work. She recalled one instance when a young man, seeking her hand in marriage, showed up to the island to find Ida dressed in kitchen garb, “wearing bare feet thrust into slippers “greatly worse for the wear, so much so indeed that a toe, the largest of the group, looked inquiringly out of one, while its smaller neighbor had a window all to itself in a snug corner of the other.” Some of the visitors were respectful, others weren’t. Most asked the same questions over and over and over again, until eventually Ida decided she would dictate her life’s story to a biographer–so she could point to the written account. That first year of Ida’s fame, her father amused himself by keeping a record of the visitors who came to the island. He believed they welcomed over 9K people into their home that year.
“Just now, Ida Lewis is the fashion. No one thinks of visiting Newport without seeing her,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in the September 1869 issue of The Revolution. Describing her as the fashion was an interesting choice, because it seemed like if Ida Lewis was a fashion, if she was some sort of clothing trend, she’d be the type that anyone could see themselves wearing. Ida Lewis rose to fame in a time of change. The world was becoming more industrialized–railroads and telegraphs and newspapers created an infrastructure that allowed news and people to travel fast. And new types of people rose to prominence–industrial titans and bankers and entertainers–public figures who differed from the heroes of days past. And in some ways, America was torn between the old and the new–old ways of life vs. new ones, old money vs. new, old ideals vs. new ideals. And Ida could kind of be either thing, depending on what was projected on her.
To some, Ida represented an old-fashioned kind of national hero, more in line with those from early Revolutionary America–ones who were often political or military figures that embodied the ideals of virtue, stoicism and self-reliance. Others framed her in a way that aligned with Victorian ideals of femininity–she was selfless and caring with her acts of heroism rooted in service and self-sacrifice. Ladies Journals even latched onto her as a picture of domesticity. Tucked away on an island, she maintained her home beautifully. And magazines detailed every nook and cranny of the meticulously neat space, which was rich in candles and feminine elements. Ida was celebrated as the picture of a perfect housewife.
Meanwhile, others thrust Ida forward as the example of a new woman, one who was capable and strong and independent. A woman of the future. Just about two months after the rescue that made Ida famous, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. And when they selected a place to host a women’s rights convention, they chose Newport–which was buzzing with tales of the brave rescues of the lighthouse keeper’s daughter. The day after the convention, Stanton and Anthony visited with Ida, who they wanted to embrace as a symbol of women’s rights. But Ida wasn’t looking to be any kind of symbol–the whole idea made her uncomfortable. And when the women left that day, she expressed that she would have rather conducted another rescue than have continued the visit.
The press played a pivotal role in making Ida Lewis a celebrity, and she was an early example of a woman achieving fame on a national scale. But in many ways, she tried to hold on to a normal life despite the attention that followed her. In the year after her rise to fame, Ida married. The hundreds of men who proposed to her were disappointed to learn that Ida was already engaged to a young captain from Bridgeport, CT. Though she was warned that she might disappear into history if she took her husband’s name, she did it anyway, daring the world to “forget [her] as it will.” She briefly moved off Lime Rock to live with her husband in a home overlooking Black Rock Harbor in CT.
But the marriage didn’t last. The two weren’t happy together. So in less than two years, they parted ways. Though they never divorced, they never saw each other again, and Ida returned to using her maiden name–the one that the world knew. Though she tried to shake fame off, to disappear, it was still there, and she might have admitted that it had some benefits.
Right around the time Ida moved back to Lime Rock, her father passed away, and the role of lighthouse keeper officially transferred to her mother–despite the fact that Ida performed the duties associated with the title. Though Ida loved what she did, she began to grow frustrated that she would never officially be appointed into the role, the way a man might have.
But a, perhaps unexpected, hero took up her cause. In 1878, General Ambrose Burnside, the Civil War general known for making sideburns popular, learned of Ida’s rescues and asked why she wasn’t officially appointed as the keeper of Lime Rock. He championed the cause and a year later, Ida received her official appointment into the role, at a salary of $750 annually. This was pretty remarkable, because it meant that Ida was making more money than many of the male lighthouse keepers in the area. So, fame did have some benefits. But it also wore on her throughout her life.
Ida’s humility and commitment to her work were consistent threads throughout every story that has been told of her. “There’s a peace on this rock that you don’t find on shore,” Ida explained. “There are hundreds of boats going in and out of this harbor. It’s part of my happiness to know they are depending on me to guide them safely.” She saw the light as a living thing, as the child she never had and she cared for it, lovingly, each and every day “I know when it needs me, even if I sleep,” she said. As the years passed, she performed her duties as well as additional rescues. The official total of saved lives, tallied by Ida and her mother, is thought to be 18. And over time she cared, more and more, for her family. But then her sister and one brother and then her mother all passed away. And Ida found herself largely alone on the island, accompanied by her brother Rud and her pets.
In a 1910 interview for Putnam’s Magazine titled “A Half-Forgotten Hero,” Ida spoke of getting older and weaker. Of the way the ways in which she and the world had changed. She described her last rescue, performed nearly 30 years earlier, when she was just shy of 40 years old. One of her most dangerous. Because it had been February and two soldiers from Fort Adams had decided to walk from the bars downtown across patches of frozen ice in the harbor. And they’d fallen in. And Ida had risked her life to go out onto the ice after them, hauling them back in with a clothesline. “I was pretty strong then. It was hard work pulling those men out to strong ice, and it made my arms lame, but today I couldn’t do it at all. Why, the other day Rud… (her brother) asked me to help him lift a ladder, and he said, ‘You haven’t got any more strength than a cat.’ I told him I was lifting all I could. But lately, I haven’t been feeling very well–nervous, you know. Maybe it’s my heart. I don’t know. But then, I’m getting old.”
The journalist described a beautiful woman, “of sweet and placid face, wrinkled though it is,” surrounded by quiet rooms that were once filled with the noises of family and visitors, rooms that had been “fairly rifled of souvenirs, her scrap-books and photographs and other fragmentary mementoes have been borrowed by reporters and other seekers after “material” who swore on their hearts they would bring them back, and then failed to keep their word.” “The disposition of the gray-haired woman in the tower dwelling has not been soured by these penalties of notoriety,” he wrote, “but it is only fair to say it has been slightly ruffled, and her faith in human nature at large is not quite as generous as it once was.”
Nearly a year after that interview, Ida collapsed while carrying firewood. Her brother, Rud, found her lying on the floor and knew he had to get help. He rowed to shore for the doctor, and when he returned to the lighthouse, Ida had grown worse. For three days, she remained in a coma, while hundreds of letters and telegrams flooded in. The story was picked up by local and even international newspapers, spreading as far as Europe. Ida’s fame was rekindled once more as the world held its breath. Newport was eerily quiet, with artillery practices at Fort Adams suspended out of respect.
Ida passed away on October 24, 1911 at age 69. She was buried three days later. One report estimated nearly 1500 visitors paid their respects. In his eulogy, Reverend W. C. Geisler said, “She, who seldom went beyond the limits of her native city, became a citizen of the world…” “Let no one think that Ida Lewis can be buried. Her worn-out form may be placed beneath the clods, but still will there come the traveler from near or from far to look upon her grave.. To him, will she still be alive and so will be with us. We will tell our children, and our children will tell their children the tale of the rescues of this lighthouse keeper in the harbor of Newport. She achieved immortality.”
Ida did achieve immortality. While her name isn’t as well known today as it was at the turn of the century, her story is still told with wonder and admiration. And in many ways, that makes perfect sense. She sounds like an incredible woman who lived a life worth remembering. But while Ida Lewis was notable for being a brave and strong female lighthouse keeper, she was not alone.
Imagine Newport on a map, with a small light marking Lime Rock. Now, begin to zoom out. You’d see another light illuminate nearby–in Bridgeport, CT, not far from where Ida lived briefly with her husband, where another woman, Kate Moore, tended a lighthouse for 54 years, during which time she saved 21 or more lives. Pull out further and you’d see lights illuminate in Massachusetts, in Maine, in Virginia, a number along Lake Michigan, more in Florida, and even in California. If you pulled out far enough, you’d see 122 glowing lights, marking the lives of incredible women. And that number would only represent the women who were officially appointed assistant or head lighthouse keepers in the hand-written ledgers kept between 1828 and 1905. A great many more never received official appointments.
Because tending a lighthouse often meant living on site, keepers would frequently bring their families with them. And lighthouses would become family-run. Wives, daughters, and sometimes sisters of officially appointed keepers would assist in the care of the lantern, and in many cases, these women took over responsibilities if their relatives fell ill or died. Many of these women were appointed in their own capacity afterward.
In fact, the 1870s (when Ida’s fame was at its height) saw the largest number of officially appointed female keepers at any time in lighthouse history, at a grand total of 49. While circumstances came together to spotlight Ida, she actually represented a number of women who were living parallel lives—maintaining their lights, battling isolation, and saving lives from the quiet strength of their stations. Because, as Ida put it, “Anyone who thinks it is un-feminine to save lives has the brains of a donkey.”
Though Ida’s courage and skill earned her national admiration, her legacy shines in honor of all those women who, like her, kept watch over the sea with unwavering dedication. “We only have one life to live, and when our time comes we’ve got to go; so it doesn’t matter how.” Ida once said. “I never thought of danger when people needed help. Such times you’re busy thinking of other things.”
Thank you so much for listening. This episode was written and researched by me, Sara Corben Harwood. If you liked this episode, I would love it if you could share it with your family or friends, or you can send me a note at Weird Rhode Island at Gmail.com or on IG at Weird Island Podcast. See you next time as we dig up more stories about all things weird and wonderful in the little state of Rhode Island.