Photo: US Coast Guard

For the last twenty years, Sally Snowman has worked as the keeper of the Boston Light on Little Brewster Island. She was the first woman to serve as lighthouse keeper at the lighthouse in Boston Harbor, the oldest continually used and last staffed lighthouse in the country, dating back to before the Revolutionary War. 

Boston Light, located nearly 10 miles southeast of Boston, was originally built in 1716 and has a light that flashes 27 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

Now that she is retiring at the end of the month, she will also be the last keeper of the Boston Light and indeed the last lighthouse keeper in the United States.

“It is truly an honor and a privilege to be the only female Coast Guard lighthouse keeper in the country,” Snowman says. “It is very humbling.”  Snowman is the 70th keeper of the Boston Light, with the first 69 all men.

A curious quirk in federal law is why Snowman has the position she does today; in 1989 legislation was passed requiring the Boston Light to remain manned, even though the light itself has been automated.

When Sally Snowman retires on December 30, 2023, she will not be replaced and is expected to be the last official lighthouse keeper in the U.S.

Snowman earned a B.S. at Bridgewater State College and a Masters in Education at Curry College. She then worked as a teacher while earning a Ph.D. in neurolinguistics from Walden University.  She gave up her life as a college professor to work on a tiny three-acre island that shrinks in half when high tide rolls in.