512 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



A lighthouse was built for the government by Hon. T. B. 

 Campbell of Westfield in or about the year 1828. Judge Camp- 

 bell also' owned the gas spring that had been recognized by the 

 surveyors of the Holland land co. in the note already quoted from 

 their field books. This spring, as indicated by the surveyors, 

 was on lot 16, township 4, range 14. Influenced without doubt 

 by the example of Fredonia in its recent utilization of natural 

 gas, it appears that Judge Campbell made an agreement to pipe 

 the gas from his spring into the lighthouse and to supply the 

 lights for the same price that the government would pay for the 

 oil required to maintain them. We learn this from two records 

 in a publication of the general government entitled Documents 

 relating to lighthouses, 1789-1871. The first of these records 

 is a report from Lieut, C. T. Piatt, dated Geneva, N.'Y. Nov. 26, 

 1837, (page 57). It reads as follows: 



Portland lighthouse. Lighted with natural gas, 11 lamps 

 and reflectors. Stationary. Owing to a failure of gas that may 

 be attributed to the extreme drouth, oil is now substituted. It 

 is presumed, however, that the fall rains will replenish the 

 streams from which the fountain is supplied and thus prevent 

 the escape and leakage of the gas. The recurrence of such a 

 drouth, will, if ever recurring, be at great intervals, and will not 

 probably render the use of oil for a long time necessary. 



On another page of the same volume, namely, page 769, we 

 find a communication signed by Lieut. S. Pleasanton and ad- 

 dressed to Hon. Thomas Corwin, secretary of the treasury. The 

 communication bears date June 7, 1851. In it the following pas- 

 sage appears : 



We have one lighthouse on Lake Erie, lighted with natural gas, 

 conveyed a distance of two miles in pipes and even here we are 

 obliged to keep oil and lamps, as water frequently collects in the 

 pipes, over which the gas will not pass, and whilst they are taken 

 up and freed from water, oil light has to be used. We have a con- 

 tract for supplying the natural gas at the annual cost of the oil 

 that would be required if lighted with this material. 



The language of these extracts is in both cases somewhat am- 

 biguous, but what the writers evidently meant to say can be 

 clearly made out. The effect of a severe drouth on the gas sup- 

 ply seems to have resulted in a waste of the gas. The main and 



