This is the audio from a live stream on September 16, 2026. The guest is Lenore Skomal, author of an acclaimed book about the celebrated lighthouse heroine Ida Lewis.

Ida Lewis began tending Lime Rock Light in Newport, Rhode Island, at the age of fifteen after her father, the keeper of the light, was disabled by a stroke. Ida was officially appointed to the job in 1879, and she remained at Lime Rock until her death in 1911. Ida saved at least 18 lives during her light keeping career, and she gained national prominence after one of her rescues in 1869.

Lenore Skomal’s book on Ida Lewis, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, was originally published in 2002. A new edition has just been published, and that’s one of the main topics of discussion in the conversation you’re about to hear. Joining Jeremy D’Entremont as co-host of this episode is Averie Shaughnessy-Comfort, executive director of Presque Isle Light Station in Erie, Pennsylvania.

This is the audio from the Light Hearted Live episode of September 9. The guest is the acclaimed maritime historian and author Eric Jay Dolin.

Eric grew up near the beaches of New York and Connecticut, and from an early age he was fascinated by the ocean. He earned a masters degree in environmental management from Yale, then a Ph.D. in environmental policy and planning from MIT.

Eric has written 17 books and many articles on American history. His books include Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America; Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America; Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates; and A Furious Sky The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes. His books have won many awards.

Eric’s book Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse is discussed in this interview. Sea History Magazine called it “A must-read for anyone interested in lighthouses or America’s maritime history…This history of American lighthouses is both engaging and enjoyable.”

Ed Metcalf is from Winthrop, Massachusetts, on the north side of Boston Harbor. He served as a police officer in Winthrop, and he then worked for the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. He became the game warden on Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1974, and he still lives there today. Born in 1933, his memories reach back to the late 1930s. Some of his visits to the harbor islands were guided by the popular historian and author Edward Rowe Snow.

He also frequented lighthouses in the harbor in the 1950s and ’60s, including Deer Island Light and Graves Light. He often brought newspapers, fish, and other things to the keepers. Deer Island, which is attached to Winthrop, was also home to a prison for many years. Ed also remembers visits to the range lights at Spectacle Island in the inner harbor before they were demolished in the 1950s.