In Episode 356 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger check out Lime Rock Island in Newport, Rhode Island, to visit the site of a former lighthouse where a brave young woman named Ida Lewis became a national hero in the latter half of the 1800s.
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CREDITS:
Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
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Portrait of Ida Lewis as a young woman.
Illustration depicting one of Ida Lewis’s rescues in Newport Harbor, with Fort Adams in the distance.
Postcard of Lime Rock Lighthouse in Newport Harbor.
The grave of Ida Lewis today in Common Burial Ground and Island Cemetery in Newport.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[OCEAN WAVES / SEAGULLS]
RAY: Newport, Rhode Island, in the summer is a magical place.
JEFF: It is. The beaches, the restaurants, the boats.
RAY: Speaking of boats… We’re standing on the southeastern shore of Brenton Cove in Newport Harbor. There are boats everywhere.
JEFF: There are countless sailboats anchored all around the harbor, and we’re standing by a pier that leads out to a yacht club. We can see the old Fort Adams off to our left there across the cove. And there’s the haunted Rose Island over there by the bridge. It’s a nice area.
RAY: It’s a pretty spot for sure.
JEFF: Newport has always been a busy and important harbor for boats and ships. That’s been true for centuries. Though today that building at the end of the pier is a yacht club, it was once a lighthouse. A lighthouse that was home to a hero… a hero named Ida Lewis.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Welcome to Episode 356 of the New England Legends podcast.
JEFF: Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. Did you know we get most of our story leads from you? It takes a community to find all of these great legends, we’re grateful to be on the hunt with you. You can reach out to us anytime through our Web site and tell us about a story you think we should check out.
RAY: We’ll go searching for Ida Lewis right after this word from our sponsor.
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RAY: Okay, now the name of the yacht club makes more sense.
JEFF: Right?!
RAY: Across the top of the archway that leads to the long pier out to the small island it says: Ida Lewis Yacht Club.
JEFF: Named after the hero of our story. Before that was a yacht club, before they built the roughly 800-foot pier leading out there, that was Lime Rock Island, home to the Lime Rock Lighthouse.
RAY: The Lime Rock Lighthouse was first constructed in 1854. It was only 13 feet tall—considering how close it is to shore, I guess they figured if your boat or ship got this far into the harbor, you probably didn’t need to see the beacon any higher than that.
JEFF: Makes sense.
RAY: The lighthouse was replaced by a simple skeleton tower in 1927, and then discontinued in 1963. It later became a yacht club named after the island’s most famous resident.
JEFF: Though the waters here are typically pretty calm because we’re in a cove within a larger harbor, that doesn’t mean they’re not without danger. Storms can swell the seas and make these normally serene waters a big hazard. Winds can gust. And storms can rage. So let’s head back to the year 1854, and check out Lime Rock Lighthouse.
[TRANSITION]
[OCEAN SOUNDS SEAGULLS]
RAY: It’s the spring of 1854 here in Newport Harbor, and Captain Hosea Lewis has just been transferred to Lighthouse Service and has been appointed the keeper of new Lime Rock Light. Lime Rock Light is located on a small island, but it’s close enough to shore that a rowboat can get you to the mainland pretty quick. So it’s not nearly as isolated as some lighthouses.
JEFF: Captain Lewis and his wife, Idawalley have four children together. Their second-oldest is Idawalley Zoradia, or Ida for short—named after her mother. She’s 12 years old when her dad takes over the duties at Lime Rock Light.
RAY: Ida was born right here in Newport and has grown up around the water. She’s a strong swimmer, but boats are still new to her. She didn’t row her first boat until her father took over Lime Rock Light. But she’s a fast learner.
[ROWING BOAT ON WATER]
RAY: Pretty quickly, Ida masters the rowboat the family uses to ferry themselves and supplies to and from the mainland. Ida is a big help around Lime Rock Light, too. Each day she rows the boat to the mainland so her siblings can get to school. Her father teaches her to trim the wick and replace the oil in the lighthouse. And lighthouse life suits her. She’s always watching the skies for storms, and the seas for signs of trouble.
JEFF: It’s now October of 1857. Something seems off with Captain Lewis. He’s turning pale. He’s grabbing his chest.
[THUMP]
RAY: He just fell to the ground!
JEFF: Is he dead?
RAY: No… I don’t think so. He’s still breathing. Ida and her mother are helping him up and getting him to bed. He’s so pale.
[DOOR OPENS AND SLAMS]
JEFF: Ida is already off to jump in the boat and fetch the doctor. After the doctor examines Captain Lewis, it’s clear the man has suffered a stroke. He’s going to live, but he’s having trouble walking or doing much of anything.
RAY: Ida and her mother decide they can handle caring for Captain Lewis and seeing to the duties of the lighthouse. Ida had been learning from her dad for the last three years, and knows what needs to be done.
JEFF: So Ida and her mother split the lighthouse duties all while caring for Captain Lewis and the rest of their family. It’s now the fall of 1858. One cloudy day, 16-year-old Ida watches as the dark clouds overhead begin to churn into a frenzy.
[WIND, RAIN, AND RAGING STORM SLOW BUILD]
JEFF: When the storm whips up into a rage, she sees a sailboat getting tossed around out in the harbor. Within moments, the small boat capsizes. She can see men struggling in the choppy ocean.
RAY: Ida doesn’t even think, she just reacts. She runs for the rowboat tied to the island.
[BOAT ROWING IN STORM]
RAY: And rows her boat out to where the men have capsized. (PAUSE) It only takes her a few minutes to reach them. The grateful young sailors climb into the rowboat, and Ida gets them back to shore.
JEFF: Ida acted with bravery and heroism and all out of instinct. She finds these feelings suit her, too.
[STORM FADES OUT]
RAY: Word spreads about Ida’s brave act, and that the Lime Rock lighthouse is mostly managed by the two women these days. Folks in Newport are impressed. Sailors who come in and out of Newport Harbor know they’re in good hands.
(PAUSE)
JEFF: Years pass, and all the while Ida, her mother, and father watch it all from Lime Rock Light. Ida and her mother continue to work the lighthouse, and keep a sharp eye out on the water for any signs of danger.
[WINTER WINDS BUILDING]
JEFF: It’s now late March of 1869, and winter isn’t quite through with Newport just yet. The snow is falling hard, and the winds are making the harbor choppy.
RAY: Look out there on the water!
JEFF: Who would be out in a boat like that in weather like this?
RAY: There’s a small rowboat making its way toward Fort Adams across Newport Harbor. I can see two men in the boat, and it looks like a kid up front. They’re really strug…. I think they just capsized!
JEFF: They did! They’ve flipped over in icy waters.
[RUNNING / DOOR SLAMS]
JEFF: Though Ida has been sick with a cold, she’s racing out the door without bothering with her coat or shoes.
[ROWING BOAT IN STORM]
RAY: She’s rowing as fast as she can out to the capsized rowboat where two men cling for dear-life. She knows in water this cold she only has minutes before the men go hypothermic.
JEFF: Ida closes the distance quickly. And soon she’s pulling Sgt. James Adams and Pvt. John McLaughlin into her boat. The other person in the boat is nowhere to be seen. As Ida rows the men back to the Lime Rock Lighthouse, she learns they had hired a 14-year-old boy who claimed to know his way around a boat. But when the boat flipped, the boy was lost.
RAY: Word of the heroic rescue spread fast. One of the rescued soldiers gifts Ida a gold watch as a thank you. The soldiers of Fort Adams take up a collection and give Ida over $200 dollars as a reward. Everyone around Newport is buzzing about the hero of Lime Rock Light.
JEFF: Pretty soon the whole nation is buzzing about Ida Lewis. Newspapers around the country carry the story.
(PAUSE)
JEFF: The Humane Society of Massachusetts, and the New York Life-Saving Benevolent Association each award Ida with silver medals to Ida for her heroism.
RAY: Ida is getting more than just a medal, too. The folks of Newport gather a fund and gift Ida a blue, oak surf-boat named “Rescue.” She’s become a celebrity, too. Hundreds of people make their way to Limerock island just to meet her.
JEFF: In the coming years, Ida suffered her own personal tragedies. Her father passed away in 1873. Her mother got cancer and died in 1877, leaving Lime Rock Light in Ida Lewis’s charge. However, getting the official appointment of lighthouse keeper was difficult because she’s a woman.
RAY: That’s when one of Ida’s biggest fans stepped in to help.
JEFF: Who’s that?
RAY: None other than Civil War hero and former Rhode Island governor General Ambrose Burnside.
JEFF: Wow! It pays to have friends or fans in high places!
RAY: It does. Burnside works his contacts to make sure Ida receives the official commission of lighthouse keeper. And she secures an annual salary of $750 dollars making her the highest paid lighthouse keeper in the nation.
JEFF: More years pass, as do more rescues. The fearless Ida continues to make the newspapers for her acts of bravery. It’s 1881 when she’s awarded the United States Life Saving Medal of the First Class. She’s the first woman to ever receive the medal. Go ahead and read the citation, Ray.
RAY: It says: “Rescuing from drowning at various times at least thirteen persons, and particularly for the rescue of two soldiers who had broken through the ice near Lime Rock on the afternoon of February 4, 1881.”
JEFF: Ida continued to serve as the lighthouse keeper well into her 60s. She made her last official rescue when she was 63 years old. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: Ida Lewis worked Limerock Lighthouse for 54 years. Officially, she saved 18 lives, though some believe the actual number could be as high as 25.
RAY: And the honors don’t end for Ida. Today the yacht club is called Ida Lewis Yacht Club, as we mentioned earlier. And in 1995, the U.S. Coast Guard named the first of a new class of buoy tenders the USCGC Ida Lewis.
JEFF: Ida died October 24, 1911 and is buried in the Common Burial Ground and Island Cemetery in Newport. Her grave stands out, too! It’s got pillars around it with a chain, and a large stone with an anchor and oars embossed at the top. It’s tough to miss.
RAY: I love stories like this one. Today it seems like only negative events and people make the news and go viral. This looks back at a time when acts of bravery and heroism made all the papers. I wish we could hear more news stories like this today.
JEFF: I get it. When you hear about stories like this you can’t help but ask yourself how you can be more like Ida. Would you jump into icy waters to save a stranger? She did. More than once. No matter how you measure it, Ida Lewis was a hero.
[OUTRO]
RAY: That she was. And that takes us to After the Legend where we dive deeper into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
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To see some historic photos of Ida Lewis and her lighthouse, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our Web site and click on Episode 356.
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Until next time remember…. The bizarre is closer than you think.
