Refer to page 11 of Lighthouses Short and Tall for Southwest Reef Lighthouse

Southwest Reef is another tower with a screwpile foundation. Its iron plates made it portable and also made it possible to lengthen the piles on which it stood.

If you were a keeper, how would you feel about the waves beating against your living quarters during an extremely high tide? Do you suppose that the keepers complained? See the letter from the keeper of Stannard Rock on page 40.

Here is a another letter, from Isaac Dunham, keeper of the first tower on Minot’s Ledge, dated March 21, 1850:

I am now keeper of the Light House on Minot Ledge off Cohassett with two assistants one of whom stays with me in the Light House & the other on shore as a relief man & attends to our wants made known by signals from the Light house.

The Light is placed in one of the most exposed situations in the world. It seems in a gale of wind as if it would go from the rock--but we are spared as yet for which I am thankful. My pay is 600, as per year--the 2 men's pay is 1.00 per day--all I have conversed with say it is not half what it ought to be. . . . After the January Gale which was very severe I wrote to Mr. Greely how the Light Had stood the gale for all were anxious to know--The sea would strike the piles 30 ft from the rock solid water and with tremendous force & it seemed to me that every sea would brake [sic] it from the rock. (Source: National Archives, Record Group 26, Entry 17F)

In the last sentence above you see [sic] in brackets. That indicates that the previous word was written as it appears, although it is spelled wrong. You will find [sic] in a number of places in Lighthouses Short & Tall.