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This year marks 170 years since the light first shone from Little River Lighthouse at the entrance to Cutler Harbor in Maine. And it has been almost as long since Captain Elijah Shiverick, John McGuire, and Oliver Ackley served as keepers there.
Numerous family descendants, towns-people, and ceremony participants met at the Old Cutler Cemetery on October 6, 2018 to place United States Lighthouse Service markers at the gravesites of these three early keepers and to remember their legacy. Also in attendance was Terry Rowden, who was a Coast Guard keeper at Little River Lighthouse from 1968 to 1970.
Lighthouse Digest sponsored the event and editor Timothy Harrison was the master of ceremonies. Other speakers participating on the program were Maine State Representive Will Tuell, Julie Hinkle from Wreaths Across America, and Lighthouse Digest historian Debra Baldwin.
An honor guard from the American Legion Post 65 in Lubec performed the military honors of the rifle volley and bugle playing of “Taps.” Wreaths for the three graves were provided by Wreaths Across America. Jim Sherman and Stephen Sanfilippo from the group “From Away Downeast” performed several songs, and members of the U.S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation, Southwest Harbor and U.S. Coast Guard Station Eastport placed the wreaths and markers at the graves.
Family descendants in attendance were pleased to learn that there were several connections between the McGuires and Ackleys, and that those in the area today are all probably related, though many generations distant. The cemetery has around 600 interments, and 70 of them are just from these two families. The keepers’ ties were also evident in the location of their graves. In fact, all three keepers were in the same row only a few grave sites apart though they died in three different decades in the 1800s.
Captain Elijah Shiverick (1849 – 1853)
Captain Elijah Shiverick was the first one of the three to serve at Little River Lighthouse. He was born in 1778 in Yarmouth, Massachusetts to Thomas and Sarah Shiverick. He met and married his wife Rebecca Crowell there in 1811 when he was 33 years old and she was 17. The couple had at least two children born at Yarmouth.
Elijah Shiverick was a seafaring man. In 1816, he was listed in a Massachusetts ship register as the master of a 51’ sloop named Equality. The ship was built in Yarmouth in 1807, and Elijah was part owner along with three other men in addition to being her captain.
What happened to his first wife Rebecca is unknown, but in 1833, when he was 55 years old, Elijah married a second time to Mary Johnson, who was 27 years his junior. The couple lived in Portland where, in 1840, Elijah was still employed in “navigation of the ocean.”
How and why the Shivericks got from Portland to Downeast Maine is still a mystery, but by 1849, Elijah stopped going to sea. He joined the much safer occupation of the United States Lighthouse Service and took the post as keeper at Little River Lighthouse. He was 71 years old at the time. Back then, there was no mandatory retirement from lighthouse service when you reached age 70, and many keepers worked well into their 70s and 80s, and some even into their 90s.
Elijah finished four years of service at Little River in 1853 when he was 75 years old. Perhaps his health would not permit him to continue because he died there in Cutler the following year on September 17, 1854 when he was age 76.
The 1850 Report of the Lighthouse Establishment to Congress by General Superintendent of Lighthouses, Stephen Pleasanton sums up Elijah’s character, dedication, and service. A man not known for mincing words or giving an abundance of praise, Pleasanton wrote of Captain Elijah Shiverick of Little River Light Station, “The keeper is a good one.”
John McGuire (1853 -1865)
Of the three keepers honored at the ceremony, John McGuire served at Little River the longest; however, the least is known about him compared with the other two keepers.
John McGuire was born in Eastport, Maine on April 2, 1786 to John McGuire Sr. and Abigail Clark. John had at least one younger sibling, Nathaniel McGuire, whose son Nathaniel Jr. married Oliver Ackley’s daughter Elizabeth. It is also likely that Oliver Ackley’s wife, Elizabeth McGuire, was John’s sister, but no documents have surfaced yet proving this connection.
Of John’s early life, nothing is known except that he married Nancy Bryant some time prior to 1830. The Bryant family members were also early settlers in the Cutler area, and 28 of them are buried in the same cemetery as well.
The couple had at least seven children. When their first child was born, Nancy was 21 and John was 45. All of the children except one are buried in the cemetery together with John and Nancy. This is because, very tragically, five out of their seven children died young, with only one dying as a child. Two of them, Abigail and William, died in the same year. Nothing is written about the reason why. It is possible that there was some kind of sickness going around. William was just 3 and Abigail was 22. This happened in 1852, one year before John started his 12-year stint at Little River.
And another daughter, Antoinette, died seven years later, assumedly at Little River Lighthouse in 1859. She was just 13 years old.
There is only one entry for John listing a career previous to being a lighthouse keeper, that of being on the Revenue Cutter Alert, stationed out of Passamaquoddy, Maine in 1849. When John started his service out at Little River in 1853, he was 67 years old. There is no record currently of anything that happened during his time at the lighthouse other than one newspaper account of a rescue involving two of his daughters that made national news.
It was in 1858 and a Mr. Joseph Connolly of Cutler was headed out to Seal Island in an open boat. A squall came up and the boat was swamped, leaving him, as the newspaper called it, “in a dangerous position.” Apparently he was seen from the lighthouse, and two of John’s daughters took the rowboat out to rescue him. They brought Mr. Connolly back safely, though all were in a thoroughly drenched condition.
The newspaper report doesn’t give the names of the girls, but Caroline, age 18, and Therisa, age 15, were the only children living with John and Nancy on Little River at the time, so it was likely that they performed the rescue. It is also assumed that John was not on the island that day, or he would have certainly gone out in place of his young daughters.
Sadly, Caroline died nine years later at the young age of 27, while Therisa eventually married and moved away from Cutler.
John continued serving at Little River until 1865 when his presumed brother-in-law, Oliver Ackley, took over. John was 79 at the time, so he worked for four years longer than Elijah Shiverick. On May 15, 1868, John McGuire passed away at 82.
Oliver Ackley (1865 – 1866)
Oliver Ackley only served at Little River Light for one year, from 1865-1866, yet he was probably the most well-known of the three keepers, though for other reasons.
Oliver was born on January 27, 1782 to former British Colonials, Benajah Ackley and Anna Holmes, who were among the first settlers in Whiting near Cutler. As mentioned, Oliver married Elizabeth (known as “Betsey”) McGuire and the couple had at least seven children – three boys and four girls – born over 20 years between 1808-1828.
While the Ackleys and McGuires shared mutual life events because of their family ties, the Ackleys did not have to share the sadness of loss that the McGuires experienced. None of Oliver and Betsey’s children died young. In fact, almost all of them had very long lives and died in their 70s and 80s.
The Ackleys were also a seafaring family. In 1798, they owned the 23-ton, two-masted schooner Dolphin, built in Penobscot and homeported in Machias.
It is assumed that Oliver spent his early years somehow connected with the family business at sea. But in his 40s, Oliver switched over to start working for the government. In 1828, he was given an appointment by Governor Enoch Lincoln of Maine to become the “Inspector of Pickled Fish and Smoked Alewives and Herrings for the town of Cutler, in the County of Washington.”
That lasted for close to a decade when Oliver then started carrying the Cutler mail in 1837. The Cutler Post Office had only been established seven years earlier, so it was a relatively new occupation. By 1850 through 1860, Oliver had become a farmer in Cutler. He was 68 and 78 years old respectively at the time. Unfortunately, his wife Betsey died in 1860, and Oliver’s youngest daughter Elizabeth moved in to look after him.
Oliver was 83 when he served at Little River Light for that one year from 1865 to 1866. It is unclear why he would accept the position at that age, unless it was as a temporary keeper to help John McGuire out before a permanent one could be appointed when John retired. It is unknown if his daughter Elizabeth was out on the island with him, though it was likely, since she didn’t marry Nathaniel McGuire, Jr. until 1871, which was the year after Oliver had died.
Regarding Oliver’s character, the Governor stated in the fish inspector appointment letter that he had special trust and confidence in Oliver’s integrity, ability, and discretion. Not just anyone could receive that responsibility. And to be a lighthouse keeper at age 83 also shows that Oliver had a strong sense of duty and desire to serve where he was needed.
Oliver Ackley died on March 28, 1870 at the age of 88. The Ackley Pond in Cutler is named after him. It is a fitting tribute as it is a prized fishing spot, and most naturalists agree that it has changed little since the 1780s when Oliver was born.
While Oliver Ackley is known for his other government jobs and having a local pond named after him, he is now remembered and honored for stepping up to the plate and serving as a Little River Lighthouse keeper when he was asked. Not many 83 year olds would accept that responsibility today.
In fact, all three keepers began their service after age 65 and accepted that life of duty in keeping the light burning at Little River Lighthouse those many years ago. They have waited a long time for their service to be recognized and honored.
This story appeared in the
Nov/Dec 2018 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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