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Soldier, Sister, Scout, Spy:
Women Soldiers and Patriots of the Western Frontier.
Thick, damp, and cold fog pressed against the windows of the small house at Point Knox, condensed in a muted bronze gleam on the huge bell, slipped clammy fingers inside the cloak of the woman shivering on the small platform. Waves splashed and foamed against the rocks far below the wet planks where Juliet Fish Nichols listened tensely for the creak of rigging or the dull thunder of a steamship’s engine. She hoped she heard something before she saw it because any ship close enough to see was doomed.
Automatically, her throbbing arm lifted, and she rapped the small hammer twice against the side of the three-thousand-pound bell. Fifteen seconds later, she struck the bell again. Then, after counting off another fifteen seconds, she elevated the hammer and banged twice more on the great bell. Again and again, eight times each minute, Juliet lifted her aching arm and rang the bell, warning ships away from Angel Island in fogbound San Francisco Bay.
At least four ships were due in port that first week of July 1906: the Capac, City of Topeka, and Sea Foam, all of which plied the California coast, as well as the transpacific steamer Mongolia loaded with passengers from the Far East. Unfortunately, the crystal-clear atmosphere of July 1 had deteriorated rapidly in the following few days. Visibility was often no more than a few yards. Impenetrable fog concealed every landmark.
Juliet had seen the annual summer phenomenon many times, but this year the job of warning approaching ships away was doubly important. Rebuilding was in full swing following the great 1906 earthquake. The already hectic harbor was a mad scramble of activity with hundreds of ships attempting to navigate the bay’s treacherous currents, escape ship-eating rocks, and find their way through heavy fog. The lighthouses, fog sirens, and bells were critically important.
Juliet stood on the small platform with a hammer in hand because, once again, the Gamewell Fire Alarm Number 3 clockworks, which powered the mechanism that rang the Angel Island bell, had quit working. During a brief lifting of the fog, Juliet had sent a telegram to the lighthouse engineer and then serviced the small, stationary red light on the southwest corner of the station. Because the light was intended for fair nights and not thick fog, it would be virtually useless as a warning.
To learn more about Juliet Fish Nichols and other such patriots read
Soldier, Sister, Scout, Spy:
Women Patriots and Soldiers on the Western Frontier.
