Interview

Beavertail Light Station Discussion with Keeper Dominic Turillo and Varoujan Karentz

20 August 2009

On August 20th, 2009, I spent a few hours with Dominic Turillo on site to jot down some notes about his tenure as the Keeper of Beavertail Light station during the 1950's.

Turillo first arrived at Beavertail as the Assistant Keeper in 1951 as a US Coast Guard Boatswain Mate working for Edward Donahue the Keeper. In 1953 he was promoted to Keeper and remained on site until 1966 with brief re-assignment to the USCG Cutter Spar. His Assistant Keeper for part of the time was a Motor Machinist Petty Officer Melvin Rhodes whose primary duties were in maintaining the machinery in the Fog Signal building.

He is now 85 years old and had a little difficulty climbing up and down stairs as we toured the buildings and the site due to poor circulation in his legs.

I was particularly interested in the operation of the rotating lens that was in use in the tower during his assignment at Beavertail. The Fresnel lens was floated in a trough of mercury to minimize friction and rotated by a clock mechanism. The mercury trough was circular in shape and had a diameter of about 30 inches. Itwas approximately 5 to 6 inches in depth with the mechanical clock mechanism which rotated the lens immediately below the mercury trough. Roller bearings on the side of the lens kept the lens centered in the trough The mechanism contained a crank and wire winding drum about 2 feet above the floor which was wound each night and sometimes twice each night. (It can be assumed that the winter months with longer nights required the extra winding.)

The light was rotated by the geared clock movement from the weight of a heavy lead cylinder about 5 inches in diameter and over 2 feet long suspended from the end of a wire cable. This weight was carried by the cable wound up on the drum by the keeper and geared to the bottom of the lens to rotate it. As the clock unwound, the lead weight and the cable was lowered down through the center of the steel pipe conduit in the middle of the spiral staircase in the tower. The conduit is still there and at some later date it was used as an electrical cable conduit/raceway for electrical cables up to the lens room.
These cables are still in the conduit but are no longer active.

Turrillo stated that the same dual 750-1000 watt lamp redundant back up system in the 4lh order lens on display was in use in the rotating lens. There is some confusion regarding the actual lens used during Turillo's time since he states that the light emitted 2 white flashes every 15seconds. Flashes occur only if the lens has a "bullseye" in the center of the lens and is rotated. The lens on display in the museum does not have "Bullseyes" and is of the ''fixed" variety. Beavertail did at one time have both a 3rd order lens and a 4th order lens.

The questionable concrete block structure in the field behind the two car garage was a "Paint Locker" to store paint and inflammable materials. It was not used as a generator building during his time and the radio RDF radio tower was not on site during his 13 year tenure. Dominic said the building was there when he arrived on site in 1953. We now know that the building is at least 56 years old and can qualify as a historic building.

1n a tour of the Fog Signal Building, he told of the very loud air modulated trumpet horns with air pressure gauges mounted on the south wall below the horns. The east wall had a work bench along its entire length with a diesel engine and air compressor mounted on the raised concrete base still existing. A separate electric emergency generator was mounted next to the compressor and when needed supplied power to the entire light station. The water cistern below the floor with the hatch near the south wall was used to cool the diesel engine via a pump in lieu of a radiator. A small toilet was in the small room in the southwest comer of the building and storage of parts inthe small room in the northwest comer.Dominic has no knowledge of the old rain water catchment's building used for steam whistles before the 1938 hurricane. He did talk of the unannounced "white glove" inspections by the Boston inspectors and took pride that "one could eat off the floor" and they always passed inspections.

We inspected the basement of the Museum Building, and he identified the outline on the floor and then stated a 10 ft dia, 4- to 5-foot-high concrete water cistern that was in place there. He could not remember what it was used for.

In the present tower electrical room (previously his office), he confirmed there was a door from his quarters in the Keeper's house into this room. His desk was against the East wall and files cabinets, chairs and other office equipment against the south wall. The kitchen of the keepers quarter had a different layout with more "period" furniture with the sink against the west wall. Coal was used for heat and the coal bin was located in the basement of the house. His worse weather experience was Hurricane Carol. Windows were boarded up with plywood but with raging seas licking at the foot of the building he feared for the worse and evacuated with his son to the Assistant Keeper's house next door via his back door.

The interior brick wall of the tower was painted white with "white wash" as were the outside of the two keeper quarters. They were painted each year by the keepers as was the upper external portion of the granite tower. There was no communication equipment other than a telephone on site and no radio contacts with ships or vessels.