The ancestor of the only survivor of a historic tragedy at the Isle of May lighthouse recently paid a visit to her family's home.
Susan Ciccatelli, from Pennsylvania in the USA, is the great, great, great, great granddaughter of Lucy Anderson who survived the night all her relatives were killed by fumes in the original lighthouse built on the Isle of May, the rocky island at the mouth of the Firth of Forth.
As well as visiting her relatives’ home on the May with SNH reserve manager Therese Alampo she was also on a mission, with her relatives, to search the National Library in Edinburgh. On her previous visit she had searched a dozen graveyards along the Fife coastline for the graves of George Anderson and his family but with no results.
The National Library of Scotland and the internet yielded a lot of information, including the account in the Edinburgh Evening Courant newspaper of the tragedy, but no mention anywhere of where the family was buried.
The lighthouse had been built in 1636 as Scotland’s first lighthouse. The coal fired beacon on the top of the building saving many lives as ships steered way from the light from this novel invention.
For 155 years the beacon had been saving lives but the last Sunday in January 1791 it was set to take them.
With a terrible storm banging and rattling, the lighthouse family went to sleep, even tiny Lucy Anderson the last of the couple’s children who was not yet a year old. On the mainland on the Monday morning the storm was still raging and as darkness fell people started to notice that the beacon was out but with the weather so bad no ship could start out for the May to investigate.
Finally on Wednesday morning the Firth was sufficiently calm for a group of men to set out for the island. They walked to the lighthouse but everything was quiet, only wisps of smoke from the huge pile of ash waste which had build up over the years by the lighthouse gave any sign of life.
The beacon, being coal fired, had to be emptied before being relit every day and the waste was just tipped over the side. Over the years the ash pile had grown bigger and bigger and smouldered day and night.
Inside the lighthouse a sad scene met the rescuers. Mr and Mrs Anderson and their children lay dead, smothered in their sleep by the fumes from the beacon’s fuel.
A whole family wiped out, or so they thought until young Henry Dowie noticed Lucy move. The baby was barely alive but Henry and the rescuers took her back to the mainland and she survived.
Susan Ciccatelli explained what happened afterwards: “Henry never forgot the lighthouse lass who clung to life and years later he asked her to marry him. Even though she was only 16 and he was 22 years older, she said yes. The couple were married in Fife and three years later they emigrated to America.
“They settled in Andes, New York state, and did well in the butter trade, having 12 children. Lucy passed the story of the tragic events on the Isle of May to her children and they passed it to their children. Eventually I inherited a lot of family papers and was struck by the ones relating to Lucy. I gathered all I could from the internet and started to piece together the details of Lucy and her family. In 2004 I came to Scotland and flew over the island, seeing it for the first time. I also got in touch with Scottish Natural Heritage and started emailing Therese Alampo on the island.”
In 2006 Susan visited the island properly for the first time and took the opportunity to learn everything she could from Therese about the rugged nature reserve that her ancestors’ home has become.
Therese Alampo, SNH reserve manager, said: “The Isle of May is famous for its birds and seals and we at SNH are conscious of the need to look after the island’s wildlife but it also has an important human history as well. From monks to wartime fortifications, people have lived and worked on the island but the story which grabs us the most is that of Lucy and her lighthouse family.
“It was great to see Susan this year - in Scotland’s Year of Homecoming it seemed very appropriate. We have been delighted to help Susan in her quest for information about the May. Susan thinks that the family might be buried on the Isle of May but there is no mention of this and no records. It’s a puzzle.”
Susan’s connection to the Isle of May gets stronger as these distant relatives come alive as real people. As the anniversary of the tragedy approaches in January, she hopes that someone out there knows about more pieces of the jigsaw or knows where there are other archives she could search. If there is, she would be more than happy to hear from people.