Cape Poge Light: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Standing on the extreme northeastern tip of Chappaquiddick Island, Cape Poge Lighthouse, even today, is remote and isolated. In 1801, when the first keeper, Matthew Mayhew, and his family moved into the tiny dwelling provided by a parsimonious Department of the Treasury, it must have seemed as isolated as a frontier outpost. Their enemy was not the "Savage," but the savage sea. Keeper Mayhew felt so insecure that even a quarter of a century later, in 1825, he wrote to Henry Dearborn, Superintendent of Light Houses for Massachusetts: "... it is my opinion that it would be expedient for the dwelling house to be moved the present Summer. If we are not in danger of falling immediately down the clift, it is very unpleasant, particular to females (Keeper Mayhew knew well how storms affected "females," as living with him, besides his wife, were five daughters), to be thus situated in storms when the Sea is beating with such violence as for the spray to fly against and over the House and no other dwelling house within 5 miles for a refuge...."