THE DUFFUS SUNDAY EVENING NEWS

Duffus 2000 Reunion!!!

Saturday, July 1st and Sunday, July 2nd, 2000.

I am currently making arrangements with the National Trust for use of the Castle grounds. George Duffus has contacted a Scottish pipe band which has agreed to play for us on the evening of July 1st.at the Duffus Ceilidh. Plans are for dinner at Duffus Castle. We estimate tickets to cost approximately $50.00 per person for the weekend and anticipate having at least 200 Duffuses on hand for the festivities.

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This year, 1999, has become the year of the Lighthouse, as local, national and even international attention are all focused on the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which is being moved by the National Park Service to protect it from the encroaching Atlantic Ocean.
   Television and print media folks are churning out facts about the famous and much photographed sentinel. The National Park Service is handing out media kits and brochures on the lighthouse and project to move it.
   Barely mentioned in this avalanche of information is the man who was in charge of building the lighthouse, Dexter Sexton of Nahant, Mass. Historians have known his name and some details from his stay on Hatteras Island but little else about his life. And, ironically, 1999, the Year of Lighthouse, also marks the 100th anniver- sary of Stetson's death.
    How is it that Stetson fell into the background as we celebrate our nation's best known lighthouse? Why do we know how many steps the tower has, how tall it is, why and where it was built yet cannot tell our children and visitors anything about the man who built it?
   Questions such as these led North Carolina filmmaker Kevin Duffus of Raleigh to launch a search last year -- a search to find the man who built the Hatteras light.
   Duffus proved himself as a historian and researcher and turned up more informa- tion than previously known on Dexter Stetson. It turns out that Stetson was a pol- itician and government servant, a talented builder, a husband and father, who iron- ically, died in 1899, exactly, a century before the lighthouse he built was jacked up and moved in a blitz of media attention. " I was dismayed that this man could pass through North Carolina and no one knew anything about it," Duffus, said.
   The producer of the popular video documentary, "The Cape Hatteras Light -- America's Greatest Sentinel," Duffus speaks from experience. He spent a year re- searching the history of the lighthouse and noticed precious little information was turning up on Dexter Stetson.
   After the video's release, Duffus 44, realized the mystery of this man was con- suming him. "I felt compelled by some unseen force, the spirit of Dexter Stetson, to get him the recognition he deserved," Duffus said. "I've stood at the bottom of the lighthouse and thought about the pride he must have felt when the light first came on."

The search

   One of the places that Duffus began his search was in Raleigh at the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, where he found censuses for about 20 states. Knowing that Stetson was in North Carolina in 1870, the year the lighthouse was completed, he started there.
   Unfortunately, it was a dead end. The nest step was a review of the census in- dexes. More dead ends.Finally, Duffus' break came in the 1850 census index of Massachusetts. There, in that book, was D. Stetson. It listed two pieces of infor- mation: first, Essex County, and second the town of Lynn.    "It just happened that the Archives had the Massachusetts census on microfilm. But, the names were handwritten in pencil, and were very faint. Also, they were not in alphabetical order," Duffus said.
   Lynn, Mass, northeast of Boston, at that time had a population of about several thousand people. It was a shoe manufacturing town, and the census listed name, age, sex, and occupation.   "After many hours and hours of name after name, I finally found "Dexter Stetson, age 34,'" Kevin recalled. In a town of nearly several thousand cobblers, here was a "builder." Duffus had his man.

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Dexton Stetson moved this former steamship terminal, above, across town in Nahant, Mass., to be his home. He is seated on the porch, along with daughter and sisters-in-law.

   A subsequent phone call to the Nahant Historical Society in July 1998, yielded a helpful conversation with a historian there named Calantha Sears. She was knowledgeable about Stetson but knew nothing substantial on him at Cape Hatteras other than he built the lighthouse. Intrigued with Duffus' inquiry, she provided a wealth of biographical material on Stetson.
   He was born in Durham, Maine, on November 8, 1815, the son of Charles and Abigail (Dennison) Stetson of Freeport. His father was a blacksmith, and the family siblings numbered seven brothers and sisters: sisters Asenath and Almira, and brothers Charles, Washington, a sea captain, Albert and Solomon, both of who died in infancy.
   On July 6, 1846, in Lynn, Dexter Stetson married Ann Maria Hood of Nahant. She was from an influential family with real estate holdings and the couple operated Stetson's Boarding House on property he purchased from his in-laws. They had one child, a daughter, Helen Louse, who was born April 4, 1847, in Nahant and died in 1920. Helen Stetson never married and had no children.
   Stetson learned the carpenter's trade in Durham, Maine. Soon after his marriage and the birth of his daughter, he became active in politics. In 1853, he listed as selectman, the equivalent of commissioner, in Nahant.
   Duffus expanded his search to the Outer Banks last summer. He wondered if, by chance the Stetsons in Wanchese might be related to Dexter Stetson after a friend in Buxton suggested he check with W. S. and Caroline Stetson.
   The next day he met with Caroline Stetson at the family's business in Wanchese. She thought there might be a connection since an ancestor, family tradition says, might have been a shipwrecked survivor, possibly around the time of the Civil War, if not sooner. Anyway, she indicated an aunt had a book on the Stetsons in America and she would look into it for him.
   "It seemed to me that if he had a relative stranded here at the time of the Civil War, and then he shows up three or four years later to build the lighthouse, it might be more than a coincidence," Duffus said.

Dexter Stetson, builder

   Stetson's reputation as a skilled and talented contractor was solidified in 1851 when he built the original Village Church on Nahant Road in Lynn. Its purpose was to serve Protestants of many different creeds. This was a prestigious project, and won Stetson respect and influence. Soon afterward, he was elected to office of selectman in what amounted to complicated and emotionally charged politics. In habitants of Nahant, including Stetson, desired to organize their own town, separ- ate from Lynn. Understandably, many residents of Lynn were opposed to this change. Nevertheless, in April, 1853, the residents of Nahant assembled to organize their own town and elected Stetson as a selectman. This foray into civic activities and local politics won him some influential contacts in state and federal government.
   From his boarding house, Stetson had a pleasant view of Egg Rock, in Nahant Bay where the federal government just happened to be building a lighthouse. In 1855, he became acquainted with the construction foreman and was able to participate in the building of the Egg Rock light.
   Toward the end of the 1850's, Stetson was able to use his contacts to land a government contract building many storehouses and wharves down in New Orleans, La. He was in New Orleans when war broke out in 1861. As a U.S. government agent and a Massachusetts native, it didn't take Stetson long to figure out that New Orleans was no place to be at that troubling time.
   Not only was he concerned for his personal safety, Stetson had to figure out a way to return his valuables and money back to Nahant. In particular, he had a valise full of gold coins belonging to the federal government he needed to get back home with. It was likely he was able to secure passage on a vessel out of New Orleans to Boston.
   "It's ironic that Stetson passed Cape Hatteras and the first lighthouse there, not knowing seven years later he would be building the tallest brick lighthouse in the world to replace it," Duffus said.
   After the war ended, Stetson returned to the south and help build lighthouses on the Florida coast.
   Stetson served in government duties for 30 years in high standing. Upon his retirement, he received many complimentary letters and commendations from officials of the Army and Navy for his integrity and efficiency.

Stetson in Hatteras

   The stereotype about the relationship between the northerners and southerners leads us to the sunrise that this accomplished builder with Yankee ingenuity would run into stiff resistance from poor, proud, and suspicious residents of an isolated barrier island off the coast of North Carolina.
   However, the historical record and local tradition indicate that this was not the case. Instead, Stetson found himself in like-minded company, people who supported the construction of a first-class lighthouse. After all, islanders understood the importance of maritime aid and welcomed the government attention in their remote locale.
   Besides, they needed jobs. Even thought he Civil War had ended and other parts of the country were beginning to reap the benefits of expanding commerce, times were still lean on Hatteras Island. Fishing produced only a small income at best, and the call for local laborers at the lighthouse site promised a steady paycheck.
   Stetson arrived at the Cape, as Buxton was then called, on November 4, 1868, on a United States Lighthouse Service vessel from Baltimore. Anchoring out in Cape Channel about three miles offshore in Pamlico Sound, he and his skilled laborers likely boarded the small freight scow of Farrow Scarborough, an established village merchant, for transport to the village landing behind the present-day post office.
   According to lighthouse historian Francis Ross Holland in "A History of the Cape Hatteras Light Station," a report done for the National Park Service in 1968, his first task was to immediately set about building the necessary facilities he needed to properly undertake the construction work.
   "In the meantime," Holland wrote, "Stetson rented a house on the beach where the work crew could live until they completed their barracks. Stetson and his crew went about their work with a will, and their accomplishments were summed in the 1869 Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board as follows:

Suitable buildings for workmen's quarters and massroom were erected; a blacksmith shop built; a house in which to store ce- ment and other perishable materials put up; two derricks erected; a wharf built on the south of the island, distant 1 1/4 miles from the station, this being the nearest point accessible to the scow lighters; two decked scows and one open one, built to serve as lighters, and a small boat and crane on wharf for unloading heavy stone. Also, a tram railway, of Peteler's design, laid from the wharf to the lighthouse, upon which to transport materials.

   Early correspondence of Stetson to the lighthouse superintendent indicates the the winter of 1868-1869 was a hard one. The weather was bad and the timely delivery of building materials and provisions was not working out. Also he was concerned about malaria and other sicknesses and wanted to drain the ponds at the lighthouse to get rid of mosquitoes breeding grounds. Fill would then be brought in to cover up wastes from the Double Keeper's Quarters overtop part of the pond.The drainage never occurred, and the threat of malaria concerned Stetson his entire two years at the lighthouse.
   Two young Cape youths who signed on as laborers were 14-year old Benjamin F. Jennette, grandfather of Unaka Jennette, the last keeper of the Cape Hatteras Light, and 17-year old David Barnett. Oral history passed down to their grandchildren indicates that the two youths were part of a crew that went into Cape Woods to retrieve yellow-pine timbers cut to 6-by-12 inches and layered on top of each other for the lighthouse foundation.
   The task was complicated, Holland writes, by the fact that the foundation pit was below the water level, and water seeped in, but Stetson resolved this problem by throwing up a coffer dam and keeping the pit pumped out with powerful steam pumps to rest the light's granite foundation upon.
   Jennette and Barnett took great pride many years later that they had contributed, as did many islander laborers, in the construction of the finest lighthouse on the American coast. Stetson earned the respect of his island laborers not only for his resourcefulness and ingenuity, but also for his unselfishness and blue-collar work ethic. Local tradition says that Stetson was not above laying bricks when sickness decimated his off-island laborers.
   A direct benefit of the lighthouse project to Hatteras Island and the Cape was the re-establishment of a post office at the village, where the post office is today. According to Holland, Stetson and Lighthouse Board Engineer, J. H. Simpson, took the lead in this task.
   Stetson and Simpson learned much from the locals and the steamers, the Ellen terry and Louisa Moore, made weekly runs between New Bern and New York through Hatteras Inlet and stopped at Hatteras village. The two men forwarded a petition from the people of Hatteras requesting a post office. Finally, on December 29, 1873, an official post office was established with Farrow Scarborough as postmaster.
   It's likely that the Lighthouse Board or its agent set up a charge account with Farrow Scarborough for necessary miscellaneous needs at his store on the back road, located where Loran Midgett now lives. Loran's father, Kit Midgett, was the adopted son of Scarborough. Kit Midgett inherited the house that Scarborough built about 1851, the one Loran lives in. It is the oldest standing house in Buxton today, located 100 yards southwest of Coastal Redi-Mix.
   In November, 1870, Holland writes, as the tower was nearing completion, excess brick and lumber was used in part to build a keeper's quarters because the double keeper's quarters was only big enough for two families and not three as was necessary for Cape Hatteras. In just only two months, the dwelling was complete, as was a boardwalk to the tower.
   As dusk, December 17, 1870, the lamp was lit and construction at Cape Hatteras ended.
   Next up for Stetson was construction of Bodie Island Lighthouse 35 miles north. He dismantled the tramway, derricks and crane and extra materials for transport to that site.
   Unfortunately, the historical record at Hatteras doesn't offer much more on Stetson at Cape Hatteras, but Duffus is optimistic that, as the search for Dexter Stetson continues, more information will surface on this enigmatic, mysterious man.
   "I'm confident that Stetson's papers will surface," Duffus said. "He had to be proud of his letters of commendation and accomplishments, but right now no one seems to be able to get their hands on them. Hopefully, "it's just a matter of time."
   One item that has come to light as Stetson's story develops is his obituary, which Duffus was able to obtain only last month. Duffus also hopes to obtain a portrait of Stetson through his contacts in Massachusetts including Calantha Sears.
   "Stetson had a paralytic stroke in 1895." Duffus said. "He spent the last few years of his life in pretty poor health. He died on December 1, 1899, in his sleep."
   Meanwhile, Stetson's Outer Banks connection has also taken a step forward. Duffus located a graveyard on Colington Island west of Kill Devil Hills that is the resting place of several Stetsons. At first, he was unsure of any local links to Dexter Stetson but subsequent visits to the Outer Banks History Center and recent discussions with Caroline Stetson have proved to be of the same lineage as the Stetson's of Maine and Massachusetts.
   "I see my efforts just as someone helping to fill in the gaps," Duffus said. "It's not that the information is inavailable, it's just that no one has made the effort to honor Dexter Stetson."

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