Who Has The Lighthouse Key?

If Dashiell Hammett were writing this story, the author might call it "The Mystery of the Marblehead Lighthouse Caper."

Harbormaster Charles Dalferro, the Marblehead Police and the Coast Guard are working together to identify who, for several weeks, has been causing havoc at the Marblehead Lighthouse.  For more than a century, the lighthouse has guided boaters safely into the harbor from its perch on the northern edge of the Neck at the entrance to Marblehead Harbor.

If lives were not at stake, the mystery of the unauthorized use of the key might be something the town could dismiss as what Police Chief Robert Picariello called "a nuisance."

Dalferro told the Harbors and Waters Board this week that someone has been using a key to open the lighthouse.

Whoever has the key used it to enter the lighthouse and it is believed, turned off the navigation beacon on the night of July 4. That left boaters without a light to guide them into the harbor. The police spotted that the light was out at 2:30 a.m. and called the Coast Guard, which broadcast a warning to boaters.

"People have to realize that boaters use this light for navigation," Dalferro said.

The person with the key also is believed to have left the lighthouse open for anyone to enter it. On July 3, the police found several people climbing the 127 spiral steps of the central iron cylinder to the landing below the lighthouse lantern level.

As the people were being escorted out of the lighthouse, others were waiting below in Chandler Hovey Park for their turn to climb the lighthouse, the harbormaster said. Several of the people who were denied access complained that they had lived in Marblehead for years and had never been in the lighthouse. They were not pleased to be denied access, Dalferro said.

"It didn't seem to be a big deal," Picariello said. But it worries him that people, particularly children, might climb the open lighthouse and fall the more than 100 feet to the ground.

Built in the mid 1890s for less than $9,000, the lighthouse is the only one of its type in New England. The nearest similar tower is at Coney Island, NY.

To solve the problem, at least temporarily, the harbormaster changed the lock. The Coast Guard, which uses a master key system for locks on lighthouses and other facilities, wants to catch who has been using the key without authorization so it can replace the original lock.

"The Coast Guard would certainly like to talk with the person who has been opening the lighthouse," Dalferro said.