Why Did So Many Lighthouse Keepers 'Go Mad'?

NOTE: Correction!! I meant to say JOHN Brown, not James Brown. So sorry about that.

We commonly imagine lighthouses three ways: cold, scary, and definitely haunted. But where did that image come from, and why did so many lighthouse keepers "go mad" in the first place? Come learn with me!

I'm on TikTok @ kazrowe

SOURCES:

Lightships and lighthouses, by Frederick A. Talbot.

A Short Bright Flash by Theresa Levitt

California Lighthouse Life in the 1920s and 1930s by Wayne C. Wheeler

Lighthouse Beginnings and Man’s Need For Them by Trudy Dootson, Palos Verdes Interpretive Center Docent Research Paper #43

Keepers of the Lights by Hans Christian Adamson

Sentinels of the North Pacific by James A. Gibbs, Jr.

Human toxicology of Mercury by Thomas W. Clarkson

LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER’S MADNESS: FOLK LEGEND OR SOMETHING MORE TOXIC? By Michaela Walter, University of Calgary

The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead By Joe Nickell

Images and Video:

The Thirteenth Year, 1999

The Lighthouse, 2019

The Mermaid, 1904

Point Fermin Lighthouse Society

Diver Kevin

United States Lighthouse Society

Lighthouse Friends

The Banning Museum

Jersey Heritage Trust

Los Angeles Times

[clarandie]

a t-shirt that says "I became a lighthouse keeper for romance and adventure and all I got is this lousy mercury poisoning"

[lyras.]

In addition to poisoning, I feel like people underestimate how much that isolation wears on the human psyche. Even for introverted people. Before phones and before the internet, you might be completely alone, excepting the rare occasion someone came by to drop off supplies.

[littlejohn]

My dad was a lighthouse keeper on the small isle of Copinsay in the Orkneys during the 1950's. There were 4 guys who shared the duties in shifts, 3 on the island, the other 1 on the main island called the Mainland. To while away the boredom of the light duty he made toys for the children and later made and learned to play guitar. The family lived on the mainland of Orkney and my mother would regularly go down to the radio shack to communicate with dad. The keepers would be on the 'rock' about 4 weeks, and then go ashore for about 2 weeks. My dad was a very reliable and laid back person - he'd been a bomber pilot in WWII so there wasn't the remotest chance of him going mad. He once brought me a kitten; the mother was the lighthouse cat and the father a wild cat. He was called Sam and was an amazing and agile animal. He was killed accidentally by a combine harvester. To this day and I'm now 80, I cry about that cat. BTW I've written a soon to be published book illustrated by Steve Meyers a Canadian artist - described by the publishers as ''A gloriously irreverent look at life on an isolated RAF base during the 1960's.'' It is called Sweating On My Chitty Box.

[leecorrigan]

My grandfather was a light keeper his whole life and so was his father, my dad grew up on the lighthouse. I find it so weird that keepers went mad, my whole family just sees lighthouses as home, and nothing puts me to sleep faster than a fog horn

[rickyspeople]

my grandmother thinks her lighthouse keeper father lost his mind from gradual lead poisoning. He conserved the exterior paint job, and also painted lighthouse-heavy scenes on the inside of atlantic sea clam shells. I mean, he was also an alcoholic with hella unresolved abandonment issues, but whose to say???

[henryofskalitz]

I always forget how much of a baby the US is, the oldest lighthouse in LA is actually, pretty recent. Living in England, I regularly pass buildings still in use that are older than the USA as a whole.

[plushdragonteddy]

this is only tangentially related, but i'm reminded of how a lot of hauntings are chalked up to gas leaks. the one and only time i've ever been exposed to a gas leak, i could only smell it faintly, but what really tipped me off was this feeling that my body was telling me to get out, to RUN, that something was very wrong and something very bad would happen the longer i stayed, though i still finished my load of laundry before i did anything lol. i really don't know why i knew that was a response to a gas leak (i guess because i interpreted it as my body telling me something, as opposed to an external force acting on me), but i could totally see someone who believes in the supernatural immediately thinking "oh, this place is haunted and a ghost is telling me to get out."

[endruler]

My dad has been listening to the song “The Lighthouse’s Tale” by Nickel Creek since I was a baby, so I feel a sort of connection to anything to do with lighthouses. It’s a sad song about a lighthouse keeper who marries and then loses his wife to a storm, and commits suicide off the top of the lighthouse in grief. The song is sung from the perspective of the lighthouse itself. The opening lyrics are “I am a lighthouse, worn by the weather and the waves. I keep my lamp lit, to warn the sailors on their way”. It also hits home because I live in Michigan, the state with the most lighthouses in the US, due to the Great Lakes

[weeningproductions]

Now this is the kinda Lighthouse niche content we all need.
God, Willem Dafoe deserved an oscar.

[angryotter]

Me, a person living thousands of miles from any ocean, staring at the Missouri River: I’ll build my own damn lighthouse to haunt.

[hamilton]

The province in Canada, where I live, has many interesting lighthouse stories. Not far from where I lay my head, a lighthouse keeper axed his family, leaving his middle child, a son to live. Twenty years later the son became a lighthouse keeper in that very same lighthouse his father killed his mother and three sisters at. After three years in October he killed his wife and newborn. Hanging himself from the inner stairwell. The following day nearby communities noticed the light still on during the day hours. Upon checking up on the lighthouse keeper, the townsmen found all dead. Oddly, his family spent three years on the island and in that same month of October his father carried out his evil acts. To this day people see bright white and orange orbs on the island. As a child, I would see them several X a month, my grandmother would say, it was nothing more then the ghost of children playing on the island. I come from a family of over 200 years of fishermen. My family has many odd stories. Family states the stories are all true. Local historical societies states the lighthouse land was cursed, as pirates would be hung off the cliffs in cages, warning all that piracy would not be tolerated.

[Jared_Wignall]

The Lighthouse is the best film of 2019. Deserved a lot of recognition at the big award shows, but was only acknowledged for Cinematography. It’s a shame it wasn’t up for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actor for Pattinson, Supporting Actor for Defoe, Score, Production Design, Costume Design and Editing are some of the awards it could have been up for along with Cinematography. I love the Prometheus and Proteus Greek Mythology influences and how one can interpret it one way and you’re not able to be wrong as Robert Eggers intended for that to be the case as he wanted everyone who walked out of that film wondering “What the Hell did I just watch?” that way the audience walks away with something different. Truly a modern masterpiece. And the real life inspiration for the film is truly fascinating and just shows how mad two people can go when just being alone to work on and keep a lighthouse going. And the history you have as to some of the real life insistence that show how taxing manning and working a lighthouse is very grueling and not the best environment to work in and on top of that there’s the mercury poisoning to boot. It’s no wonder people can go insane and after the Smalls Lighthouse incident, it’s a good thing they had one other person to help maintain things. Great video!

[Rossweise]

Maybe because I am a Brazilian, but when I think "lighthouse horror" I think less "Mercury poisoning and madness" and more "That one time when the lighthouse keeper and his whole family got murdered by snakes in "Ilha da Queimada Grande" when they managed to get through the high walls..." That's an ex-pirate haven that is better known as "Snake Island" (even got its actual name, rhoughly translated to "big burning", from the fact pirates would set it on fire before landing to keep the snakes away), where snakes were allowed to multiply with no predador so they created a whole new species with a really powerful venom in them... One that works better in birds because, obviously, there are not many other non-snake species in the island...

[Anarchomancer]

I have the headcanon that the supposed unimaginable truth that dooms Young Thomas is the simple fact that the light is just a light. That all of the pain and madness endured on the lighthouse was all for nothing but a light.

[-user_redacted-]

I got caught in undertow and dragged out to a sandbar in Lake Michigan when I was young. It's been nearly 17 years and I'd still rank that as the single most terrifying experience of my life up until the moment I just gave up and accepted that I was probably dead. Thankfully I got washed up on the sandbar I had been heading for in the first place, where I waited for the tide to go down before crossing back to shore at a shallower point.

[wilfredpayne]

Imagine being in a lighthouse, for a long period of time, with no contact, no phone, and the anxiety thinking that you hope they don't forget about you and bring supplies on time lol

[basementdwellercosplay]

Oh to be working in a lighthouse, have a sort of gay relationship with your coworker, and slowly go crazy

[Productions]

Kaz: I’ve always been fascinated with lighthouses
Me: Me too!
Kaz: I have favorite lighthouses and I know their location and whether or not they’ve been featured in a film.
Me: . . . Wow you REALLY love lighthouses.

[JuanPyro]

A well known story in my country (Malta) is when two men were stuck for two days in a lighthouse cut off from the mainland. The lighthouse was at the tip of a breakwater and the waves made it impossible to walk back. They eventually braved the waves after finding their pattern and made it across but were hospitalized shortly after being saved. They weren't really far away from cities but the waves just made it close to impossible for them. Felt like sharing since you're on the topic 😊

[SaveWesternCivilisation]

This is glorious stuff! Living in lighthouses is the ultimate for those of us who love both writing and solitude.
Hatmakers used to go mad from the glue fumes, and even today, people in many professions suffer terrible illnesses from inhaling granite dust (while cutting kitchen benchtops) or asbestos (home insulation). So many toxins all around us...
This is a wonderful channel, shall explore it further. Cheerio!