The Coast Guard air service was not without its perils though. In 1929, one of the amphibious sea planes, on take off, struck the mast of a dragged anchored nearby, crashing in the harbor and seriously injuring the three crewmen aboard the plane. Another Base 7 sea plane was lost in 1932 when the crew was forced to ditch it when fuel ran out during a search for a fishing vessel that made a distress call when one of the fishermen aboard was suffering from blood poisoning.
By 1935, the Coast Guard was transitioning to larger Dolphin flying boats. The Base 7 hangar on Ten Pound Island could not be enlarged to accommodate the new planes, and the Base was decommissioned and removed to Salem.
The lighthouse and fish hatchery continued for the next two decades. In 1940, when newspaperman and author Edward Rowe Snow was delivering necessities to lighthouses at Christmas, Keeper Edward Hopkins’ wife nailed newspapers to the ground spelling out “Merry Christmas” to the Flying Santa.
In 1954, the federal government discontinued the fish hatchery. Two years later, the lighthouse was no longer manned, replaced by an automated beacon in an adjacent structure, and the year after that saw the island returned to the City of Gloucester. In 1987, the automated light was returned to the light structure — a flashing red signal was made an active aid to navigation on August 7 of that year. It continues as such today.
Sources
Garland, Joseph. Gloucester Guide
“Abandoned and Little Known Airfields”
Perley, Indian Land Titles in Essex County
Boston Herald
Copeland & Rogers. Saga of Cape Ann
Pringle, History of Gloucester
Good Morning Gloucester 