The same goes for lighthouses. Automation, they told me, is far more efficient, and safer as well. But they didn't want to see their town's history disappear, and so they devote their spare time to working on Thacher Island.

Mr. Cameron told me to call John Bennett the next day so that I could finally go out to the island, and he recommended some people that I should talk to. After the initial jabs at Harvard boys, they were all extremely friendly or helpful. Leaving them to their conversation and work on the pier, I went to talk to the people at the LPS.

After what I'd heard on the dock, I felt a little wary of LPS and James W. Hyland III. But Mr. Hyland, whose business is publicity, was much more willing to help than Mr. Cameron had been initially. He put me quickly at ease.

Driving to the society's office, which is a rented space in an old grade school, we talked about what the society is trying to do, and how he had gotten involved. Like Mr. Cameron, Hyland cares about the fate of lighthouses. His interest though, is rooted not in any local ties, but in a more general concern for lighthouses around the nation.

Hyland founded LPS after doing a series of photographs up the New England coast on "the lighthouse trail." Realizing the condition of the lights, and the historic value of the buildings, he decided to devote himself fulltime to their documentation and preservation. The work of LPS is much less hands on than that of the Thacher Island Association, and, however unfair, it is easy to see why the people on the pier might be wary of James W. Hyland III, with his hair parted to the side and his background in film, his publicity campaigns, long-range lobbying and talk-show interviews.

At the office, he gave me the society's pamphlets and a poster, and I talked to Valerie Nelson, who coordinates the funding projects. She is a dynamic woman, vastly well-informed about her work.

Through her efforts, and through the media attention Hyland has been able to gather, a million-dollar Bicentennial Lighthouse Fund has been put into motion. It is the first "bricks-and-mortar" provision for historic sites to be enacted since President Reagan came into office, and it will all be directed to lighthouses.

One of the main difficulties in processing this fund will be determining at what level spending decisions will be made. Most of the control will go to the local communities--Nelson worries that it may be difficult even getting communities to apply for the fund. "We've learned that people are very possesive about their lighthouses; they don't like us coming in as strangers with outside money and ideas," she says.

Thacher Island seems to be a case in point. The society's approach with fundraising ideas didn't pan out, as was clear from the talk I'd heard at the yacht club. Again, though, I thought their reaction was understandable.

One of the society's ideas had been to raise funds through a plaque, to be placed in Thacher's north tower, commemorating Phillip Weld's love of sailing. I couldn't see that a Harvard alum really had a place in the island's history. The money would be helpful, but does this set the stage for putting corporate slogans on keepers' houses?

On the phone, John Bennett agreed to hold the early morning boat till I could arrive, and I made sure this time to bring someone else along. The sky was grey, but, except for a few stipples of rain, the water was calm. Bennett and some friends were standing by the boat reminiscing about early school-days, when English was still a second language, and the Swedes were second-class citizens.

The boat was a snub-nosed skiff whose bow lowered to become a landing bridge. When we got in we had to sign a release for any damage we did ourselves on the "hazardous facilities" on the island. Casting off, we thumped out across the bay, our wake rocking lobster buoys which spread out around us as far as we could see. On the horizon rose up the two towers of the Eyes of Cape Ann; below them, in the early light, the island looked like a smear of mist.

Just offshore from the island, we took on a bearded man who had tied his boat to a buoy so we could land at the one-boat pier. He was there to work on the north tower's brick work; a group of workers were being put up in an "apartment" adjacent to the keeper's house.

At the time Virginia Woolf wrote To the Lighthouse, the building of lighthouses was a technological problem comparable to the space-shuttle program today. For sailors to travel the seas the lighthouses had to be there. Sources of light, methods of reflection, ways of dealing with offshore building conditions, were all popular and important subjects in scientific journals of the time. Even today, getting work materials onto Thacher Island isn't easy.

At the base of the north tower's spiral staircase were piled drills, cables, sand blasters and a variety of other tools. The tower definitely needs the work; the stairs are rusted and the bricks mossy. The caretaker told us that a day's rainstorm lasts for three extra days in the tower, which the repointing work will stop.