With the assistance of reference librarian Jerry Matovcik at the Mattituck-Laurel Library, Korpi contacted an archivist at the archives in Manhattan, where federal employment records are housed on microfiche.Īfter months of email exchanges, a document was found showing Prince was employed starting in 1901, and newspaper accounts stated that from June 1903 through November 1904, she officially served, by order of President Theodore Roosevelt, as the acting assistant keeper, a federal job, and the temporary head keeper while the regular keeper was incapacitated.Īfter Korpi forwarded the information to Mollan, he added Prince to the list on Dec. Mollan suggested contacting the National Archives for Prince’s employment history.
Since the Coast Guard did not oversee lighthouses until 1939, it did not have access to earlier employment records. the source materials you used to substantiate her service, I’d be happy to add Ms. In a June 9 email last year, he thanked Korpi “for bringing the contribution of Stella Prince to the Lighthouse Service to light. He explained that the agency required documentary evidence of Prince‘s employment. To rectify that, Korpi exchanged emails over several months with Mark Mollan, the Coast Guard’s civilian deputy historian in Washington, D.C. But the Coast Guard list included only 138 who served between 18 - with no mention of Stella Prince. Korpi said her research showed that about 300 women served as keepers at lighthouses over the centuries, usually with or succeeding a male relative. “She was a most unusual woman for her day,” Korpi said.īorn in the mid-19th century, Prince lived at the lighthouse for 33 of her 60 years and - mostly as a volunteer - helped keep the aid to navigation functioning.
#First female lighthouse keeper free#
Seeking answers, Korpi teamed with Southold Free Library researcher Dan McCarthy, who “jumped in with a vengeance and bombarded me with news clippings about the Prince family.” From those accounts, she pieced together a timeline of Prince’s life with her family and her eventual marriage to George Terry when she was 37 - and he was 51. “She served longer than some women on it and held the same job title: acting assistant keeper.” Korpi discovered that Prince wasn’t included on the Coast Guard’s official list of female lighthouse keepers. I started reading everything I could find about lighthouses and women keepers, but couldn’t find anything written about Stella.” What’s that all about?’ I wanted to know her story. “That was the first time I read there was a woman who served there,” said Korpi. She started reading more about lighthouses, notably Don Bayles’ self-published book, “Horton Point Lighthouse and Nautical Museum.” Two months after leaving BOCES, she was volunteering at Horton Point. Once settled in, said Korpi, 69, “I was on a mission to get involved and make new friends.” But they decided it would not suffice for a year-round residence and bought a new place in the hamlet. “I think it’s inspiring to see someone who feels strongly that Stella Prince needed justice and to be recognized.”īefore her retirement, Korpi and her husband, Emery, had owned a summer home in Laurel. “I think Mary Korpi’s efforts are really admirable,” said Deanna Witte-Walker, executive director of the Southold Historical Museum, which maintains the lighthouse owned by the Southold Park District. In December she got Prince added to the official list of female lighthouse keepers. Her six years of digging resulted in “The Lady Lighthouse Keeper,” a historical novel she self-published last year that closely hews to the available facts about Prince. Coast Guard’s official list of women who maintained the lights.Īfter retiring in 2017 and moving from Syosset to the North Fork, the former Nassau BOCES vocational rehabilitation counselor signed up and learned that a woman, Stella Prince, had been one of the keepers at the lighthouse.įascinated, Korpi began researching. Mary Korpi had no idea when she answered an ad for docents at the Horton Point Lighthouse Museum in Southold that it would result in her writing a novel about the landmark’s only female lighthouse keeper - and getting her added to the U.S.
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