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Hedrick's Head Maine
Harbour Lights #274

A young woman stared determinately ahead as she strode past the Post Office. Heading toward the isolated section of Southport Island, her long skirt whipped in the wind. Approaching her from the other direction was Charles Knight, the keeper from Hendricks Head Lighthouse. He didn’t stop to talk to her, although he was puzzled as to why she was venturing out to the beach so close to nightfall.

Keeper Knight chatted with the Postmaster, who remarked on the passing woman. Neither man thought more about it, until the low tide the next morning revealed a tragic sight. The young woman’s drowned body had been found, weighed down with a flatiron. The reasons for her suicide and her identity remain forever a mystery, buried with her body in an anonymous grave in Southport. To this day, people have reported seeing her ghostly figure walking the deserted beach near Hendricks Head Lighthouse.

Lit in 1829 , the first lighthouse at Hendricks Head was a granite dwelling with a cylindrical tower atop its roof. It had a fixed white light 39 feet above sea level and guided ships entering the mouth of the Sheepscot River . The first Lightkeeper, Jeruel Marr , was a wounded veteran of the Civil War who was very devoted to keeping the light burning.

One famous story tells of a shipwreck in March of 1870 . A perilous gale had washed a vessel up on the rocks near Hendricks Head. The passengers and crew were holding on to the riggings, desperately cold and unable to swim. Jeruel Marr and his wife stood helpless on the shore, incapable of launching a dory considering the tumulus conditions. 

Jeruel spotted a strange bundle floating from the wreckage. Using a boat hook, he was able to secure the contraption. Inside a box, tied between two mattresses, lay a baby girl and a note from the mother, commending the girl’s soul to God. The keeper carried the crying infant inside and warmed her by the fire. By the time Keeper Marr returned to the shore, the ship has disappeared beneath the waves. They named the girl Seaborn. Some say that the Keeper raised her , while others say that a doctor and his wife adopted her.

Jeruel served almost thirty years before handing his commission down to his son, Wolcott. Wolcott lived his whole life at Hendricks Head. He was born there, married and died in the same room. His two brothers also served as Keepers at other lighthouses.

After the first Hendricks Head Lighthouse was destroyed by fire in 1875 , a second sentinel was built nearby. The fifth order Fresnel lens was relocated to the new, 39 -foot, square tower. Workers then erected a fog bell tower and a short walkway, attaching it to the keeper’s dwelling. 

Hendricks Head was discontinued in 1933 and the property sold to private owners for $5,000 . Until then, the house had no electricity or plumbing. But after electricity came to the house in 1951 , the Coast Guard reactivated the light to accommodate the increased boating traffic in the area.

In 1978, a ferocious storm demolished the boathouse and destroyed the walkway that had connected the lighthouse to the fog bell tower. But the remainder of the light station remains in beautiful condition, flashing its fixed white light and serving as an active aid to navigation.

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