SAND DUNES 



Half buried in the dunes is the Ipswich 

 lighthouse, even whiter than the sands. In 

 1809, James F. Lakeman sold to James Madi- 

 son, the President of the United States, eight- 

 een hundred square feet in these sandy wastes 

 '' for the purpose of erecting a beacon." In 

 1837, Captain Lakeman sold four acres to the 

 United States for the erection of a lighthouse. 

 In the deed it is stated that the northern cor- 

 ner of this lot was " about five rods [82^/2 ft-] 

 from water mark and beach." This same cor- 

 ner is now [1911] about a thousand and ninety 

 feet from high-water mark, while the light 

 itself is eleven hundred and forty feet from 

 the upper edge of the beach. 



The old light-keeper. Captain Ellsworth, 

 who died in 1902, told me that when he took 

 charge in 1861, he used to be able to talk from 

 the lighthouse to men in boats in the water. 

 In the line between the main light,— which 

 slowly revolves with a long and a short flash 

 and a period of darkness,— and the mouth of 

 the Ipswich River is the range-light, which 

 consists of a powerful lantern in a small 

 wooden house. As the mouth of the Ipswich 

 River where it enters the sea between treach- 

 erous bars is a long way to the southeast 



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