At the May 13 Annual Town Meeting, Marion voters approved a package of recommendations made by the town’s Community Preservation Committee, including an appropriation of $28,925 from Historic Preservation Reserves for design, permitting and bidding of the restoration of the Bird Island Lighthouse, the funds being available through Fiscal Year 2025.
It will cost that much just to find out how much it will cost to restore the 205-year-old lighthouse that welcomes boaters into Sippican Harbor.
The lighthouse has been restored before on multiple occasions, the last time in the 1990s when Charlie Bradley became Marion’s harbormaster.
“Bird Island was number one,” said Bradley in a recent interview discussing his career and goals. “As soon as I got (the) harbormaster (job), we started raising money” to address the failing condition of the lighthouse, along with mooring issues.
Having served Marion for 40 years as a paid, call firefighter and with 10 additional years in the Police Department, Bradley succeeded George Jennings as harbormaster and took an aggressive stance on harbor issues.
“I loved that job,” said Bradley, who marvels at the site of the new harbormaster building on course to open in October.
The lighthouse wasn’t his only concern when he began his 12-year tenure. “The shellfish program was almost nonexisting,” he said.
Bradley hired Isaac Perry from Dartmouth, and they helped grow Marion’s shell-fishing arm before present Harbormaster Adam Murphy took on the job as shellfish officer while assisting Perry, now Mattapoisett’s harbormaster.
Amidst “a pile of jobs,” including a new ramp at Old Landing and an expanding relationship with Tabor Academy, Bradley’s 12 years as harbormaster saw defining changes in the harbor department’s operations.
“There are some harbormasters on the cape who do the job the way it should be. It’s a job that goes back to early England,” he said. “Some of these kids never saw saltwater until they came here to Tabor.”
Day-to-day duties were on the front burner, but Bird Island Light was Bradley’s biggest project. Many times over two centuries, the light had fallen into disrepair or was ravaged by storms, most notably the 1938 hurricane that swept the buildings around the tower into the sea.
According to newenglandlighthouses.net, Bradley formed the Bird Island Preservation Society in 1994. A chimney company out of Buffalo, New York, with experience restoring other New England lighthouses was hired in 1996 to shore up the conical-shaped Bird Island tower made of rock. Considered strong and sure for the long term, the lighthouse was sandblasted and pointed on its exterior.
Interviewed by the Marion Select Board, Bradley reported that the society lacked the $3,000 it would take to purchase and install a new, solar-powered, flashing light. The board allocated the money, and on July 4, 1997, 3,000 onlookers watched after sunset as Bird Island Light came back online to seagoers.
The next year, Marion Marine Department took over custody of the lighthouse. According to newenglandlighthouses.net, Bradley resigned his position as chairman of the Lighthouse Preservation Society in February 2008.
The society no longer exists, but the Town of Marion has sustained efforts to continue addressing Bird Island Light, home to the endangered roseate tern.
While more recent seawall and erosion-control work has taken place, the study completed by Catalyst Architects for the lighthouse’s next restoration has been, but without a fall Town Meeting cost estimates will not materialize until construction goes out to bid in advance of Marion’s May 2025 Annual Town Meeting.
By Mick Colageo