United States Lighthouse Keepers were paid a lower-middle class wage, and, yes it frequently came with housing.* Boston’s first keeper, George Worthylake, the first known American lighthouse keeper, received what we know today as about a bit more than the equivalent of $13,000 a year. During the 1900’s, a US Lighthouse Service head keeper’s pay ranged from $250 to $600 a year. Assistants were paid much less. The exception to this was that some principal keepers on the West Coast were paid more than $1,000 a year during the years of the Gold Rush.
Let’s take a look at pay rates: In 1887, Principal Keeper William Rowlinski made $720 dollars a year. His pay was raised to $760 two years later when quarterly visits for Lighthouse Service Tenders no longer delivered food and other supplies to light stations, and he had to provide for his own food!
Salary scales were not based on performance so much as difficulty in getting and staying on the job, such as a remote island station, or whether or not a keeper’s family could accompany him (housing) living on the station. Some “bachelor or all alone keepers” had to hire their own help to complete certain jobs!
Finally, the Civil Service Act in 1896 set pay grades and rates and governance, appointments, and advancement for keepers on a merit basis. Prior to this, personal politics frequently governed whether a person/keeper would be hired or retained. It all depended on relationships with local politicians.
In 1900, pay for assistant keepers was $50 tom $55 dollars a month.
In 1918, the Lighthouse Service set seven levels or “classes” of pay depending on the very specific living arrangements ranging from stations where families were not allowed to live on, and the difficulty for keepers to “get aboard.”
Descending in difficulty were stations off shore with families living ashore; stations on islands far from civilization; stations with the additional fog signals; and finally, the “dream” stations with schools. Eventually, the Service began to recognize this difference with compensation for difficult assignments. Finally, in 1916 keepers were compensated for injury on the job. In 1918, keepers were granted retirement benefits for keepers age 65 of older with 30 or more years of service, and some health bene4fits were available to keepers and families at public health facilities.
*Housing sometimes came as a curse, rather than a blessing. Before the Lighthouse Service recognized the benefit of keepers having families with them. Keepers were sometimes housed in sections of lighthouse towers sometimes designed for keeper or human living. I urge you to reflect on our trip a few years back to the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse. As you recall, the keeper’s residence initially was in the tower and consisted of several levels, about half-way up. That tower was circular and metal. Remember, Cape Canaveral is about forty-eight miles to our south. In Florida. In a metal tower with only a few porthole windows.