This is extracted from my "Day" page. It actually contains several links
concerning the lighthouse of which this George Day was the
apparently first keeper.
According to the National Archives and Records Administration,
James Day was
the original keeper of the Wigwam Point lighthouse in Annisquam
when it opened in 1801. However, it appears more likely that a
son, George, may have actually been the first keeper of the
Wigwam Point lighthouse. George Day was born on 27 Mar 1769 in
Gloucester.
That George Day was the first keeper seems more plausible since
his father, James Day, probably died 14 Jun 1805 age between 73
and 80 yr per ThirdParish Church Record. This from Gloucester
Vital Records to 1849.
Winslow Lewis was the contractor who built many of the
lighthouses along the U.S. Coast in the early 1800s, including
the Wigwam Point Light . He also patented a lighting system of
lamps and reflectors. Likely through his friendship with Fifth
Auditor of the U.S. Treasury, Stephen Pleasanton, who
was in charge of lighthouses at the time, and his consistent low
bids on lighthouse construction projects, Lewis' lighting systems
were used in U.S. lighthouses even after the much more efficient
Fresnel lenses were being used in Europe.
Much of Winslow Lewis' work was considered very shoddy. He used
very poorconstruction techniques for the lighthouse structures
themselves.
Additionally, he convinced the government, likely through his
friendship with Pleasanton, to purchase and adopt his system of
lenses which were generally considered very poor in design and
manufacture.
While there had been an inspection of light stations in 1838, by
1842 many U.S. lighthouses were in such poor condition that they were all but ready to collapse.
As a result of the decaying condition of the nation's
lighthouses, his nephew, I.W. P. Lewis, Civil Engineer, had been
appointed by Congress to make a survey of lighthouses in 1842/43.
His highly critical report on the condition of the various
lighthouses helped lead to reform and establishment
of a new Lighthouse Board which removed the responsibility for
lighthouses from the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury.
Following his inspection, I.P.W. Lewis issued a report, Doc.
183,EXAMINATION - LIGHTHOUSE ESTABLISHMENT "...on the condition
of the light-houses, beacons, buoys, and navigation, upon the
coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts."
His scathing report on the condition of the lighthouses was
especially hard on his own uncle, Winslow Lewis, who wrote a long response in his own defense.
In that inspection report is a statement by George Day that was
included as a part of the section on Annisquam Light. In it he
said, "I was appointed keeper of this light in the year of its
erection, A.D. 1800, and am now seventy-two years of age..."
This seems to substantiate the belief that James Day's son,
George, was in fact the first keeper of the Wigwam Point
(Annisquam Harbor) Light, and not James Day himself.
New England author Edward Rowe Snow also notes that George Day
was the first keeper of the Annisquam Light or Wigwam Point Light
as it was formerly known, and it was the oldest of four
lighthouse locations off Gloucester. "The tower was lighted for
the first time by Keeper George Day on March 23, 1801, and in
1850, Day was still the keeper at what is now Annisquam Harbor
Lighter
