and killed. Thompson, wounded badly in both feet, laid down on the gallery outer platform and waited for death. From this position, he could see members of the Seminole war party, believing that he and Carter were dead, raking the contents away from the burned-out keeper's cottage. They rook the loot down to the beach, loaded it into his boat, and sailed away. Despite the departure of his attackers, Thompson was losing hope of surviving. He had no way to get down from the platform since rhe stairway had burned away. Besides having three rifle balls in each of his feet, he was naked and had nothing to drink or ear. In addition, a hot sun was beating down on him, a dead man lay beside him, and there was no one to call out to and no one he might expect ro show up. He lay there for some six hours unable to move and could hardly believe his eyes when, early in the afternoon, he sighted a ship with his own boar in row. The US transport schooner Motto, under the command of Captain Armstrong, with a derail of Marines commanded by Lieutenant Lloyd of the warship Concord, came ashore ro investigate the explosion that occurred when Thompson had thrown rhe powder keg down the light-rower shaft and the Barnes they had seen during the night. On their way to the lighthouse, they came upon the lighrkeeper's boat, adrift and stripped of her sails and rigging. Navy sailors and Marines looked around the torched cottage and light rower and were on the verge of leaving when
Thompson regained consciousness. Desperate to attract attention ro himself, Thompson had torn away what was left of Carter's clothing and tied the blood-soaked, burned rags to a stanchion and then collapsed, unconscious. His attempt to attract their attention was successful, but the sailors and Marines could not devise a way of reaching him to bring him down. They tried various means throughout rhe remainder of the day and into the night, while Thompson, burned, bleeding, and perched precariously on the lighthouse rower's outer platform, fell into a state of despair. Using pieces of sailcloth and light spars, they built a rough kite, hoping to use it ro get a line to the gallery. It didn't work. As the night hours passed, the men below continued to yell encouragement up to Thompson. The next morning a Marine came up with the idea of firing a ramrod from his musket with a tail of twine. He fired it and the line dropped across the light gallery. Thompson summoned the strength to grab it and tie it to one of the gallery stanchions and then pulled up a tail block and a heavier line before collapsing from sheer exhaustion. With the tackle in place, those on the ground were able to hoist several Marines up to the gallery. The Marines bandaged Thompson's badly wounded foot and ankle, then lifted his scorched body and lowered it gently to those waiting below. They also lowered Aaron Carter's body to the men on the ground so he could be buried. Thompson was carried to the Motto, and
The rebuilt Cape Florida Light and keeper's residence after the fire.
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taken to the military hospital on Key West. He later was transferred to Charleston, South Carolina, to recover from his wounds. John Thompson andAaron Carter are surely among the heroes of the US Lighthouse Service, which was later absorbed into the United Stares Coast Guard. Some months later the brig Alma, bound for Maine from Cuba, ran aground off Cape Florida, the first shipwreck there in twelve years. Her captain had looked for the Bash of Cape Florida Light and it, of course, wasn't there. Reconstruction of the light was authorized, bur not completed until 1846 because Seminole Indians were still a threat in the nearby Everglades. Later that year, it went back into service and in 1855 the rower height was increased to 95 feet. The lantern room was completely destroyed in 1861 by Confederate sympathizers during the American Civil War, and the light was nor restored and placed back in operation until 1867. It was replaced by an offshore light rower in 1878. Located seven miles southeast of Cape Florida, Fowey Rocks Light is a cast iron skeletal rower and platform atop a screw-pile foundation. It is still in service today. One hundred years later, in 1978, the US Coast Guard restored Cape Florida Light to active service with an automated light. The lighthouse was decommissioned altogether in 1990 and is now maintained and operated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. .!,
C. Douglas Kroll, a US Coast Guard Academy graduate and a former Coast Guard officer, holds a master's degree in history from the University of San Diego and a PhD in history from the Claremont Graduate University. He is the author ofnumerous articles in Coast Guard and maritime journals and in maritime encyclopedias, as well as author of Commodore Ellsworth P. Berholf: First Commandant of the Coast Guard (Naval Institute Press), Friends in Peace and War: The Landmark Visit of the Russian Navy to Civil War San Francisco (Potomac Books) and A Coast Guardsman's History of the US Coast Guard (Naval Institute Press). An emeritus professor ofhistory at College ofthe Desert in Palm Desert, California, he now resides in Keizer, Oregon.
SEA HISTORY 152, AUTUMN 2015