Lime
Rock Light
(Ida Lewis Light)
Location: South
side of Newport Harbor
 1854 - present --Lat
41 28 38 N - Long 71 19 33 W
Established: 1854
Lighthouse Constructed: 1854
Deactivated: 1927
Original Illuminating Apparatus:
Sixth Order Fresnel Lens
Current Illuminating Apparatus:
None
Height: Lighthouse:
13 feet (1906)
 Skeleton tower: Light is 40 feet above water
Status: Yacht Club
Light Characteristic: Lighthouse: Fixed Red (1906)
 Skeleton tower: Flashing White every 3 seconds (1940)
 Flashing White every 5 seconds (1950)
None (2005)
Range: Lighthouse:
7½ miles (1906)
 Skeleton tower: No range is given in the 1950
Light List. A similar light with the same
candlepowe(60)
and Illuminating Apparatus (200mm) as Ida
Lewis Rock Light had a range of
7 miles.
None (2005)
In 1854, a square granite tower was built on Lime Rock in Newport Harbor. It was
equipped with a sixth order Fresnel lens. The keeper, Hosea Lewis, had to row
200 yards to reach to the light. During the winter storms this was difficult and
at times impossible. A small one-room building was built on Lime Rock to serve
as a temporary shelter if the keeper couldn't get to shore. In 1855, the Lighthouse
Board recommended that a permanent dwelling be built on the rock. A keeper's dwelling
was attached to the tower the following year.
Hosea had a stroke in
1857 and was permanently disabled. His wife Zoradia and their daughter Ida took
over operation of the light. Hosea Lewis died in 1872. His wife was appointed
the keeper. Her second daughter was very sick and required most of her time. This
left Ida to care for the light. She was the keeper in everything but name.
In
1879, with help of Senator Ambrose Burnside, Ida was appointed the light's keeper
after her mother resigned. It had been sugguested to Ida's mother that if she
resigned Ida would replace her. Ida served at the light until her death in 1911. During
her years at the Lime Rock Light, Ida saved over a dozen people from drowning.
Ida became nationally knowns in 1869, when an article about her saving two soldiers
appeared in Harper's Weekly.
The rescue occurred on March 29, 1869, when she saved the two soldiers after their
boat was swamped during a winter storm. She rowed out to the soldiers, clinging
to their overturned boat and pulled them into her boat. The soldiers gave Ida
a gold watch for saving them. The citizens of Newport presented her with a boat. In
1881 Ida was awarded a Life-saving Medal of the First Class by the United States
Life-saving service for saving two men from drowning. The men were walking across
the frozen harbor from Newport to Fort Adams. The ice broke and they fell into
the water. Ida heard their cries for help. She ran out of the lighthouse with
a clothesline and went across the ice to the men. She threw the clothesline to
them and pulled them out of the water. An article in the November 5, 1881 issue
of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper has
a sketch of Ida recusing the men.
In 1924 the light was renamed the Ida
Lewis Light in her honor. A light on a skeleton tower replaced Ida Lewis Lighthouse
when it closed in 1927. It remained in service until 1963, when it was deactivated.
The land and building was sold in 1928. It was later turned into the Ida Lewis Yacht Club.
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