Golden Light

"To the right eyes, Lake's diary is an entire world." — The Press of Atlantic City

"For those who love boats... Golden Light should be a treat... Interesting for many reasons... If you read Lake's entries out loud, you can hear the sound of south Jersey speech." — The Times of Trenton

"A romantic book in the Victorian definition of romance, where all seems bright and good and hopeful until death sneaks out from behind the parlor curtains to snatch the innocent away.... A must read for anyone interested in maritime or local history. Sailors will live vicariously through the trips along the coast. Maritime scholars will find new ground broken in the understanding of the coastal trade. It's also a good book to read on the beach. Sand and sea will take on a new meaning." — The Beachcomber

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Wind Around the Compass
by Pat Johnson (published in The Beachcomber, Long Beach Island NJ)

If you get the opportunity, read Golden Light, The 1878 Diary of Captain Thomas Rose Lake while sitting on the beach or near the bay, and periodically stare out to the sea’s horizon and imagine it filled with sails.

Golden Light is the diary of a plucky young man, Thomas Rose Lake, who was captain of his family’s sailing sloop in 1878; homeport – Lakes Bay in Pleasantville, Atlantic County. It’s an expanded diary full of nautical details and historic notations on coastal life in the late 1800s and the oyster trade that sent hundreds of heavily laden sloops out to sea. The sloops sailed their succulent cargo from New Jersey ‘up the beach’ (keeping within sight of the barrier islands) to the bustling fish markets in the port of New York. Oysters in the 1800s, both fresh and sold in jars, were stewed, fried, made into pies, eaten whole and were as popular a food as pizza is today.

Golden Light is the story of a good and simple man who looks forward to all of life – its hard work and righteous pleasures of church, family, friends and potential brides to be walked down lanes under the wild roses. It is a romantic book in the Victorian definition of romance, where all seems bright and good and hopeful until death sneaks out from behind the parlor curtains to snatch the innocent away. In the 1800s, death was always lurking in the form of a wasting disease the Victorians called "consumption," and which we know as tuberculosis.

How the diary was lifted from obscurity and made into a book is a story on its own. James Kirk II began work on the diary in the 1980s when it was given to him by a Lake family descendant. The original diary is a tiny daybook; it fits in the palm of one hand. But Kirk was unable to finish the manuscript before he died of cancer. His son, James B. Kirk III, nursed his father through nine months of his illness, and then took up the task of finishing the book as a testimony to his father.

Kirk III is a professor of English at Stockton State College and a poet. He found himself caught up in the fascinating history of the coastal trade and expanded the book manuscript to twice its original size, also adding illustrations. In its totality, the diary and accompanying historical notes is an adventure story. Lake’s entries are short and to the point. He doesn’t ruminate or philosophize on the meaning of his life; he lives it.

Lightning storms, northeasters and bitterly cold weather not withstanding, the small crew of the Golden Light was at sea 226 days during 1878. Thomas sails to New York and back with clams; to Hog Island, Virginia to pick up oyster seed; to New York with fish oil (fish oil was rendered in fish factories from menhaden, an oily fish also known as bunker, and was used for soap making, machine lubricants, and in paint and leather processing), and to Chincoteague, Virginia for sweet potatoes that were bound for the New York markets.

"Wind around the cumpus," Captain Lake would often write to describe unsettled weather. Each diary entry starts with a weather report, as weather dictated everything a sailor did in 1878.

The publisher left the diary entries in Capt. Lake’s own words, even though they were misspelled or spelled phonetically. Once the reader gets acclimated, it’s easy to hear the Captain’s meaning. And the Kirks explained misspellings, nautical terms (arcane or not) to such an extent that even the most puzzling entry is made clear. For instance:

"April 5, Friday: Clear. Wind WNW. We left Mogathy Bay 8 oclock am. Too reaf Manesel and bonet from the Jib. Got of Smiths Island Lit. Put in agane. Saw top of a cabin and a pump of vessel floating. ther woes a hevey Sea running and it washed us bad all day through. Throwed 4 bush. of oysters over board. Some shad on deck it washed her so bad. Off Chincoteague 6 pm."

Earlier in the book, the Kirks already explained what a mainsail, bonnet and jib are for those readers not familiar with sailing, and then they explained what transpired this stormy day.

"The sight of the wreckage from some unfortunate vessel was confirmation of the ferocity of the storm, but Thomas was determined to press on.

"During most of the day, heavy seas washed over the deck. The young captain’s concern for the sloop was so strong that he jettisoned several hundred pounds of his cargo to lighten her.

"The comment about the shad is worth noting. The sloop was washed over to such an extent that live fish were left on the deck. The scuppers (small openings at deck level in the bulwarks) would permit the water to run off, but would not be large enough to allow the shad, a member of the herring family, to wash overboard. They are tasty fish and probably provided the young men with a meal."

When not sailing, Lake was usually repairing the boat, an arduous task that required the boat to be hauled up on the marsh during an extremely high tide (spring tide) then repaired before the next spring tide could float her again. Or he was farming, hoeing cabbage or burying fish heads in corn rows – just as we’ve all heard the Indians taught the Pilgrims. Or he was tending his grandmother’s store. The Lakes were an industrious family; his uncle was president of the Pleasantville and Atlantic City Turnpike Company, the toll road to Atlantic City.

But Thomas’ life was not all work. He courted a number of local ladies, taking them by horse and buggy to temperance meetings, church (he attended more than one each Sunday – perhaps to meet more ladies?) and beach parties. Beach parties could be quite large; there were 110 people at one in late July. He was a member of the Sons of Temperance fraternal order and the Loyal Order of Red Men, the fraternity that grew out from the Sons of Liberty tea parties of pre-revolutionary America.

He had friends in the various ports he visited, especially in New York, where he could spend weeks on end while selling his oysters and waiting for the weather to turn favorable. While in New York he also attended a theater, rode around Central Park and went shopping.

The Kirks give us an extensive description of the oyster basin in New York, where colorful oyster barges were permanently docked on West 10th Street, allowing the sloops to pull up and unload their cargo on one end and then sell the product out the other. The combination of the young captain’s narrative, the Kirks’ historical notes and the reproductions of early pen and ink drawings and prints, make it easy to imagine the bustling market and the flavor of old New York.

This is perhaps the greatest charm of the book, the ease in which one may imagine what life was like for Thomas Lake in 1878. The reader gets to know and admire the vibrant young captain.

Alas, tuberculosis would announce itself suddenly to Thomas on October 3, when he writes he is so weak in his limbs that he has to hire a deck hand to do his work. He would never captain the Golden Light again. But he would continue farming, helping with the family store and sparking his girlfriends.

In the late 1800s, people still did not know tuberculosis was contagious or that it was necessarily fatal. People often lived for years with consumption and because death in Victorian times came in so many forms, lost at sea being one of them, some of the stricken didn’t live long enough to die of the disease. But Thomas Lake would not live much longer than the year of his life he so carefully chronicled. Thomas perished from tuberculosis six months after he first noticed its effects.

Readers should continue to read past the end of the diary notations and read the Two Elegies by poet James Kirk III.

Golden Light is enjoyable on many levels. Those with an imagination will enjoy immersing themselves in another time. The book is a must read for anyone interested in maritime or local history. Sailors will live vicariously through the trips along the coast. Maritime scholars will find new ground broken in the understanding of the coastal trade. It’s also a good book to read on the beach. Sand and sea will take on a new meaning.
*The above review is reprinted in its entirety, with permission, from The Beachcomber, 8/22/03. Copyright ©2003, Jersey Shore Newsmagazines.

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A Day in the Life
by Adam Cort (published in Sailing Magazine)

One of the nice things about doing book reviews is that it gives you the opportunity to read titles you might otherwise overlook. Golden Light: The 1878 Diary of Captain Thomas Rose Lake, for example, is not the kind of thing I would usually put at the top of my must-read list. Based on the diary of a New Jersey oyster sloop sailor who rose to the rank of captain at the age of 21 and then died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 22, it appears much too prosaic and regional at first glance. This is not, after all, a clipper ship captain battling his way around Cape Horn; the sloop Golden Light was just a humble little 45-footer that made her living hauling shellfish, fish oil and potatoes to help feed the people of New York as she made her way up and down the Atlantic Coast between the Chesapeake Bay and Manhattan.

Still, in this simple story of a simple sailor there is a certain grace and tragic elegance that will speak to any sailor with a sense of history and a longing to better understand the age-old rhythm of life under sail, thanks in large part to the work of editor James B. Kirk and his extensive footnotes, which help put Capt. Lake’s words in their proper historical context.

In fact, it’s a good thing that Kirk put in the time that he did, since the original text is a bit on the bare side. Only moderately educated, Capt. Lake’s spelling is "creative" to say the least, and he used little if any punctuation. Furthermore, his daily entries are generally brief to the point of being almost cryptic.

Still, thanks to Kirk’s hard work in filling in the gaps, the story comes to life in such a way that you can almost smell the salt air of the New Jersey shore as Capt. Lake writes about everything from his business up in New York City to loading ballast to visiting his fellow sailors and female acquaintances on shore. Then there’s unloading his cargo onto the picturesque old oyster barges that were once permanently moored at the foot of West Tenth Street in New York Harbor; waiting for storms to pass or for the turn of the tide before making sail; and chores like drying sails, slushing the mast and scraping the sloop’s bottom all in a day’s work.

"Thursday: Clear. Wind NE 6 AM.," Capt. Lake writes, one day, shortly before setting out on yet another trip up the coast. "Tried the pump and found her (Golden Light) leaking. 75 strokes a hour. we toock 30 bu. of potatoes out of the hole. Tried to find it but could not. in the afternoon whent a shore on the beach. 3 PM Wind SE. Began to blow."

Granted, it ain’t Ahab ranting with Shakespearean eloquence against a killer typhoon. But then again, it’s in simple words like these that you can hear a bygone age and way of life truly coming to life. Then there are those passages that refer, with almost stoic brevity, to Lake’s worsening health.
"Thursday: A little fogy in the morning. Wind at E I felt very bad. 8 AM. I give up and hired a man in my place. I woes so wheek I could hardly stand." Then, just a few days later: "Saturday: Clear. Wind NW. left the whorf 4 AM. got down to the inlet 9 AM. Still sick and no appetite. 10 o clock AM Wind came NE." Finally, Capt. Lake writes: "Wind W. a two reaf breaze in the morning. I whent down a board the Sloop and got my clothen." At this point the reader knows, thanks to Kirk’s footnote, that Lake will never sail aboard the Golden Light again.

"History," as Kirk writes in his introduction, "concerns itself, perhaps too often, with only the grand and glorious events of nations and the giants who shaped them, but to appreciate fully the history of any period, something more is needed: the essential human factor the flesh and blood that thrilled to the wind blowing softly over the meadow the heart that lifted at the song of the thrush." This is just that kind of work, a book that shows how ordinary people used to go about their daily lives.

Maybe it’s because I majored in history in college, but I’ve always believed that one of the appeals of sailing is the fact that every sailor is part of an ancient way of life, a tradition stretching back to the dawn of recorded time. Golden Light is not a conventional narrative. It’s probably not for everybody. But for those sailors who enjoy boats and the sea in part because of the men and women who passed before them, it provides a rare and vibrant glimpse into sailing’s fascinating workaday past.
*This review is reprinted in its entirety, with permission, from Sailing Magazine. Copyright ©2004

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The diary of Captain Thomas Rose Lake is a significant contribution to American maritime history."
— Dr. Brooks Miles Barnes, co-editor of Seashore Chronicles: Three Centuries of the Virginia Barrier Islands.

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“It's a book that resuscitates a life — Captain Thomas Rose Lake’s — and a time and place seen through his eyes. History needs its passionate pursuers. Golden Light is alive with such attentiveness”
— Stephen Dunn, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

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The record kept by a young New Jersey sea captain for the year 1878 was written in a leather diary measuring a little less than three by four inches. In this tiny document is the story of one full year in the life of the vessel Golden Light and of her captain, Thomas Rose Lake, the year before his death from tuberculosis at age twenty-two.



Miraculously, the diary survived one hundred years and fell into the hands of James B. Kirk, II an English teacher and historian. It was he who, by careful study and annotation, turned the laconic entries of the barely literate Thomas Lake into a fascinating picture of a vanished time, place and way of life. Mr. Kirk died before the work was completed and his son James B. Kirk III finished the task so lovingly begun.



Golden Light: The 1878 Diary of Captain Thomas Rose Lake is the remarkable result of that work. In a foreword, New Jersey's eminent historian John T. Cunningham — who offered early encouragement to the author — calls this a transformation "into a volume that is a treasure trove." Thomas D. Carroll, folklorist and writer, who has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, and worked for the Library of Congress and Smithsonian Institution, calls the work "a Rosetta stone of sorts" for the mid-late 19th century coast."



From plainspoken entries in the captain’s diary ("laboriously written in the quiet of home and in the pitching aftercabin of a sloop") was born an exquisitely detailed, fascinating picture of a vanished America and a way of life. Expanded into its current form — with enlightening essay footnotes by author James Kirk — the book is a wondrous vehicle for travelling back to 1878.
In what John T. Cunningham calls "a treasure trove of New Jersey Shore happenings just after the Civil War," we set sail in the "coasting trade" from home port near Atlantic City to New York City and Virginia. At the center of Lake’s life is the Golden Light, the coasting sloop that provided much of the family’s living. The ship — one of the "trailer trucks of their age" — carried oysters to New York, but also New Jersey clams, fish oil, or potatoes and Virginia oysters.

We are given accounts of Lake’s days: working on the ship, planting, harvesting, working on the oyster platforms, or helping in the family store. And his social life: names of girl friends, oyster suppers, "pick nicks," beach parties, trips by train to "Philadelpfia," or his time in New York, where he attended the theatre or went "up town to see the Fashens." This was the closing of the age of sail and the agrarian era in America, and in many ways the end of a national innocence. "In its pages is the final cry of a way of life which, for better or worse, would return no more. As such, the diary is a poignant vignette — an ambrotype faded at the edges but with the central portrait clear — of a young man’s happiness, simplicity, and struggle," writes Kirk. "It must give us pause."

Maritime historian John M. Kochiss describes the magic of reading first-hand history this way: "Unlike any other book before, I found myself mouthing, then almost hearing Captain Lake’s words… And all this alchemy brews forth." And Stephen Dunn, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, says: "History needs its passionate pursuers. Golden Light is alive with such attentiveness."




Thomas Rose Lake's life was tied to the sea and the land his family had homesteaded on Lake's Bay — adjacent to Atlantic City, and named for the family. It was a 19th century American life of hard work, close family and community, and strong connection to God and church. At its center was the sailing ship that provided much of the family's living, the Golden Light, a 45_-foot sloop, built in Sayville, New York in 1867.



Boats like the Golden Light "served...as the ‘trailer trucks’ of their age...their main use was to carry oysters from the beds to the market." To this end, Thomas Lake, with his crewmate and first cousin, Dannie, sailed the coast from Virginia to New York and back again, putting in at Lake's Bay between trips. In 1878, the Golden Light made eleven voyages, varying in length from seven to sixty-seven days. She sailed regularly up the coast to New York and down as far as the Chesapeake and Crisfield, Virginia. Sometimes the New York cargo was New Jersey clams, oysters, or fish oil, sometimes oysters or sweet potatoes from Virginia. At other times, the trips to Virginia were made to purchase seed oysters that would be processed and shipped from the oyster platforms at Lake's Bay. Already, by the late 19th century, the oyster population of the upper eastern seaboard had been depleted, leaving Virginia the best and cheapest source of seed oysters.



These were not easy passages: Thomas and Dannie encountered storms and heavy seas, as well as the usual dangers of shoals and narrows. The work was hard and sometimes tedious, but there was excitement too, in races with other boats, in the people they met, in the places they put in. The bustling New York harbor was a fascinating place for two young men from the backwater. The south Jersey oyster fleet tied up in the oyster basin formed a little community of their own with much visiting back and forth. From time to time, Thomas and Dannie went into the great city to the theater, or to Central Park, or "up town to see the Fashens (fashions)" and must have brought many stories back to rural Lake's Bay.



The "essay footnotes" enlighten us with the events and surroundings of the time. It is these fascinating, detailed annotations which make this a historically robust book, placing the diarist — one common man — in the context of his world.



Through the events at sea and on shore over the year, a picture also emerges of the young captain himself. Despite the illness that would soon kill him, Thomas was never idle. His days were full of strenuous physical labor. When not at sea, he would be overhauling the boat, planting, harvesting, working with his father on the oyster platforms, or helping in the family store. Thomas was a gregarious soul and there are many references to social occasions, usually connected to the church or to fraternal organizations like the Sons of Temperance or the Red Men. The church may have mandated weekly "Sunday School", but it also sponsored oyster suppers, "pick nicks" and beach parties. With friends, he made trips to Atlantic City and by train to "Philadelpfia", where they rode the horse drawn "Yellow Car" out to Fairmount Park on the Fourth of July. Again and again he tells us he "saw a good time". Thomas escorted a number of young women to and from these events. He records all their names carefully; however, towards the end of the diary, one, Kate Bowen, stands out. Perhaps they would have married had he lived. He makes time too for outings with his sisters, for "rag sowing" parties, for games of dominoes with family and neighbors, for visits to the sick, for weddings and funerals.



Golden Light provides a rare picture of the all but forgotten east coast oyster trade in the last years of the 19th century, and, as such, is of great value to social historians. Beyond that, however, it is the portrait, indelible and poignant, of the last year in a young man's life. If he knows and fears the seriousness of his illness, he makes no mention of it. He embraces each day, its hard duties and simple pleasures, as though he had a future entire. Clearly, it was a life he loved. A century and a quarter later, it is a life and time we are privileged to see — bathed in the golden light of a younger, more innocent America.

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From the Introduction:

Initially, my interest was simply that of an antiquarian, but as I became engrossed in the young captain's account, it became apparent that this tiny journal was unique. It was most uncommon for any active youth, relatively uneducated and exceedingly unsophisticated, to set down his daily activities so dutifully and thoroughly at sea and on shore. That it was written at all was a simple stroke of good fortune.

In September of 1877, twenty-one year old Thomas became captain of the sloop, Golden Light. Undoubtedly excited and proud of his first command, the youth was moved to keep the journal. The result of his labor is a small, but impressive, socioeconomic document, not only of the eastern New Jersey shore, but of coastal communities everywhere and those thousands of people who wrested a marginal living from its land and waters — people whose lives illustrate the American condition with far greater accuracy than those of the educated and genteel inhabitants of the drawing rooms and the seats of governmental power. — James B. Kirk II

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From the Inside Flap
In January 1878, Thomas Rose Lake, a twenty-one year old bayman and farmer from southern New Jersey, became captain of the coasting sloop, Golden Light. Brimming with a young man's enthusiasm, Thomas decided to keep a diary of his new responsibilities, and of his days at sea, sailing his cargo between New York City's oyster basin and Virginia. Through the events at sea and on shore over the year, a picture emerges of the young captain. Despite the onset of tuberculosis that would soon kill him, the uncomplaining Thomas was never idle. When not at sea, he would be overhauling the boat, planting, harvesting, working with his father on the oyster platforms, or helping in the family store. A gregarious soul, there are many references to social occasions - oyster suppers, "pick nicks" and beach parties. With friends, he would visit Atlantic City and "Philadelpfia." Again and again he tells us he "saw a good time."
He faithfully records storms, winds and temperature; the shoals and narrows of his daily journeys. While the work was hard and sometimes tedious, there was excitement, too - in maneuvering through challenging seas, in races with other boats, in the people he met and welcomed aboard. The bustling New York harbor was clearly a fascinating place in 1878, especially for a young man from the rural backwater.
With detailed, enlightening annotations about the events and surroundings of the time - which place the diarist, one common man, in the context of his world - we are given a fascinating picture of a vanished time, place and way of life.
Golden Light reveals the all-but-forgotten East Coast oyster trade in the last years of the 19th century and, as such, is of great value to historians. Beyond that, however, it is the portrait, indelible and poignant, of the final year in a young man's life. He embraces each day, its hard duties and simple pleasures, as though he had a future entire. Clearly, it was a life he loved. A century and a quarter later, it is a life and time we are privileged to see - bathed in the golden light of a younger, more innocent America.

From the Back Cover
Miraculously, a tiny leather-bound diary survived for over one hundred years, its faded words telling the story of a year in the life of Captain Thomas Rose Lake, and his sloop, Golden Light. Recorded in 1878, just before Lake's death from tuberculosis at age twenty-two, this document eventually fell into the hands of James B. Kirk II, an English teacher and historian. With fascinating annotations, the humble entries of Captain Lake have been transformed into this remarkable and moving book.

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