• HOME • Our Restoration Story   • About the Lighthouse • About the Friends • Membership & Contributions • Hours, Tours & Events • Rental Apartment   • Point Betsie Marketplace • Photo Galleries • Map • Links Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse P.O. Box 601 Frankfort, MI 49635-0601 231-352-7644 Email Us Gift Shop 231-352-7666 Visitors: A grateful THANKS to Infinite Communications for hosting this site and other Internet services. Web Site © Copyright 2002-2012 by The Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse and ATI Consulting All rights reserved.

• Key Point Betsie Personnel • KEY PERSONEL of the POINT BETSIE LIGHT STATION and U.S. LIFE-SAVING SERVICE AND U.S. COAST GUARD STATIONS The following two lists of honor include the names of Point Betsie’s lightkeepers and their assistants throughout the 125 years when the station was operated by resident crews, as well as keepers or officers-in-charge of rescue stations of the U.S. Life-Saving Service and U.S. Coast Guard which shared the lighthouse’s property between 1877 and 1937. Desiring to make this roll and our organization’s personnel records as complete as possible, we encourage readers to advise the Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse, Inc. of anyone else who served at Point Betsie, as well as their dates of service, if known. Point Betsie Lighthouse Personnel, 1858-1983: David Flury, lightkeeper 1859 Abel Barnes, lightkeeper 1859-1860 P.D. Barnes, lightkeeper 1860-1861 Alonzo J. Slyfield, lightkeeper 1861-1882 Edwin R. Slyfield, lightkeeper 1882-1888 Peter Dues, lightkeeper 1888-1893 (late in his tenure an assistant position was authorized for the station) Charles W. Butler, assistant lightkeeper 1892 George Chamberlin, assistant lightkeeper 1892-1893 Soren Christenson, lightkeeper 1893-1895 Thomas Hart, assistant lightkeeper 1893-1894 Medad Spencer, assistant lightkeeper 1894-1904 Philip Sheridan, lightkeeper 1895-1919 (early in his tenure a second assistant position was authorized) Frank H. Glover, assistant lightkeeper 1898-1900 James P. Burdick, assistant lightkeeper 1900-1901 John S. Kerchill, assistant lightkeeper 1901-1902 Charles Stibitz, assistant lightkeeper 1902-1907 Roy Oliver, assistant lightkeeper 1904 Albert F. Straubel, assistant lightkeeper 1904-1906 Edward L. Gray, assistant lightkeeper 1906-1910 Knut A. Nelson, assistant lightkeeper 1907-1909 Raymond J. Grant, assistant lightkeeper 1909-1917 Frederick W. Ferguson, assistant lightkeeper 1909-1910 Howard A. Kimball, assistant lightkeeper 1910-1916 Frederick Bennett, assistant lightkeeper 1911(approx.) -1916 David Howard, assistant lightkeeper 1916 Elmer L. Grenzer, assistant lightkeeper 1917-1928 (approx.) Severin Danielsen, lightkeeper 1919-1928 Charles E. Tesnow, lightkeeper, 1928-1933 Henry J. LaFreniere, assistant lightkeeper 1928-1945 Robert McKillop, assistant lightkeeper 1928 Nels A. Nelson, assistant lightkeeper 1931-1946 Edward M. Wheaton, lightkeeper, USCG 1933-1946 (lighthouses transferred to U.S. Coast Guard in 1939) Jerry Conley, assistant lightkeeper, USCG 1942 John Quinlan, USCG (late 1940s) Elbert McKinney, USCG 1950 Louis Bauchan, USCG 1947-1952 William O. Mathews, USCG (early 1950s) John P. Campbell, USCG 1958-1963 Hubert C. Jackson, USCG Robert Hansard, USCG Wilbur G. McVay, USCG Glynn Butler, USCG David H. Marphree, USCG Keith Norden, USCG Kenneth P. Rachford, USCG Edward R. Zane III, USCG George D. Milligan, USCG Marc Phillips, USCG Tom Wilson, USCG Steve Sherman, USCG Neil Martinek USCG Scott Sandy, USCG (Point Betsie Light’s last official residential keeper, who served until the light’s automation in 1983). Coast Guardsmen and their families who thereafter lived in the lighthouse until 1996-1997 while stationed at the nearby Frankfort facility monitored the light. Captains of Point Betsie Stations of the U.S. Life-Saving Service and U.S. Coast Guard, 1877-1937 Thomas E. Matthews, 1876-1887 USLS keeper Harrison Miller, 1887-1908 USLS keeper Edwin E. Bedford, 1908-1918 USLS/USCG keeper (USLS became U.S. Coast Guard in 1915) Ludwig Hendricksen, 1918-1919 USCG interim keeper Sigval B. Johnson, 1919-1920 USCG keeper (post’s official title changed in 1920 to Boatswain (L) to designate a land-based rather than sea-based assignment). Abram Wessel, 1920-1929 USCG Boatswain (L) Fred D. Straubel, 1929-1931 USCG Chief Boatswain’s Mate (L) William Dipert, 1931-1937 USCG Chief Boatswain’s Mate (L), who was ordered to shutter the station, which the U.S. Government sold to a private owner shortly after the end of World War II.