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He sailed on black-hulled ships, fought in the war between the blue and gray, and overcame the limitations of having a wooden leg to serve in a tall white lighthouse. His colorful life is a profile of adventure and covers some significant chapters in American history.
John Ninde Buckridge was born in New York City on June 12, 1833, enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1850 when he was 17, and began service with the low rank of “landsman.”
He was eventually assigned to the store ship appropriately named the “Supply” that was part of the squadron of U.S. ships that sailed to China and Japan. This expedition was under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry, the younger brother of Oliver Hazard Perry (1785-1819), who famously defeated the British in the battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.
Matthew Perry’s objective was to “open” Japan to trade and obtain access to ports that could supply coal to power whaling ships and the growing fleet of U.S. naval vessels, which typically burned approximately 26 tons of coal each day.
With his black-hulled flotilla consisting of the Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna, Perry departed Norfolk, Virginia and in July, 1853 steamed into Edo, present-day Tokyo, and was met by surprised representatives of the Tokugawa Shogunate. With Perry’s large guns pointed at the city, he demanded the Shogun accept a trade agreement and said they would return in one year.
Perry departed for China where Buckridge and the USS Supply, along with additional ships, joined his fleet and returned to Tokyo in February 1854. Although fearing that western influences would weaken Japanese culture and religious tradition and end their rule, the out-powered Shoguns signed a Convention of Kanagawa, commonly called the Treaty of Friendliness, on March 31, 1854.
After the Japanese agreed to the terms of the Treaty, the Americans unloaded goods on the docks, and John Buckridge and two others bravely volunteered to stay on shore to watch the goods; they were the first Americans to stay in Japan after the treaty was signed.
The USS Supply sailed for the Great Lew Chew Islands (now known as Okinawa) to take on supplies and a British missionary, then headed east to Shanghai, Singapore, Cape Town, and returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1855.
Commodore Perry’s “Black Ships” became a symbol of threatening Western technology and, as feared by the Shogun, their rule ended in less than 30 years.
Buckridge was discharged as an “Ordinary Seaman,” a higher but still lowly rank, and within less than a year reenlisted to join a U.S. expedition to the Rio de la Plata River in Paraguay. In January of 1856 he left from Norfolk, Virginia on the frigate St. Lawrence under the command of Joseph B. Hull of Saybrook, a nephew of Commodore Isaac Hull, who had married Amelia Hart, one of the seven beautiful Hart sisters.
The Paraguay Expedition was an early example of U.S. “gun boat diplomacy” and began in January, 1855 when the USS Water Witch sailed up the Rio de la Plata to approach Paraguay’s capital city of Asuncion. When the Water Witch ignored the Paraguayan order to halt, they fired on it killing one American seaman. The Water Witch then withdrew and returned to the U.S. amidst anger and a desire to make the Paraguayans pay for the attack.
When Buckridge reenlisted in January of 1856, he was assigned to the USS St. Lawrence out of Norfolk and bound for Rio de Janiero. By then, public opinion had forced a hesitant President James Buchanan to gather a large fleet of U.S. ships, including 13 gun boats, from around the world and send them to Paraguay. Faced with this overwhelming show of force, the Paraguayan president apologized to the American government and citizens and paid a sum of money to the family of the slain American seaman.
Buckridge returned to the U.S. and was discharged on May 21, 1859. Soon thereafter he moved to the small fishing village of West Farms, today part of the Bronx, and in December, 1860 at a Methodist Church in New York City married Margaret Ann Abel (1837-1920).
A year after the outbreak of the Civil War, on Aug 19, 1862 John Buckridge once again enlisted, this time as a private in the Union army and was assigned to Company C of the 6th NY Volunteer Heavy Artillery. The unit trained at Camp Millington outside of Baltimore and served under “Fighting Joe” Hooker. They saw action at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and in several small battles in northern Virginia.
Tragedy struck on March 24, 1864 when John Buckridge was on a wood cutting detail outside of Culpepper, Virginia. His ax slipped and dismembered a toe on his right foot. By the time he was transferred to the Armory Square Hospital in Washington, D.C., he had developed gangrene, a life-threatening condition caused by infection and resulting in the decay of body tissue.
His right leg was amputated at the thigh. After spending several months at the hospital, he was transferred to New York General Hospital where he was fitted with an artificial leg. He was discharged from the Army on July 20, 1865.
After the War, John returned to West Farms and ran a food market which he purchased in 1869 and kept until selling it in 1877 when he began his career, wooden leg or not, as an assistant keeper at the Stepping Stones Light off City Island, New York. A few years later he transferred to Stratford Shoals and then to Eaton’s Neck, both in Long Island Sound, New York.
On June 26, 1883 he began as principal keeper at Lynde Point in Old Saybrook, Connecticut and remained there over the next 19 years, becoming well-known, highly respected, and a fixture on Long Island Sound.
John and Margaret Buckridge had six children. Both the first and last died young and were named Elizabeth. Then there was Eliza Jane and Martha Washington Buckridge, born in the nation’s centennial year on Washington’s birthday. Another daughter, Minnie, married Ezra Kelsey of Westbrook in 1890 at the lighthouse in a ceremony attended by 100 people. Ezra later became the lighthouse keeper at Rockland Lake Light on the Hudson River and Crown Point Light on Lake Champlain.
A son, Thomas, acted as an unpaid assistant to his father until he married in 1901 and went on to become keeper at the Montauk Point Light in New York and was the last civilian keeper at the Breakwater Lighthouse, also known as the Outer Lighthouse in Old Saybrook.
John Buckridge retired in 1902 and gradually lost the use of his good leg and was confined to an “invalid chair.” He died ten years later. When his wife died, she left their Westbrook house to her two living daughters, Eliza Jane and Martha. When Martha died in 1959, the house was purchased by her niece, Thomas Buckridge’s daughter Margaret, and her husband Robert Bock.
Margaret “Bucky” Buckridge remains in the house today and is a recognized authority on lighthouses and a highly regarded and much admired volunteer in both the Westbrook and Old Saybrook Historical Societies.
After John Buckridge died, the newspaper reported that he was “Always good natured and possessing a keen sense of humor, he had a bright word or a joke for everyone with whom he came in contact up to within a few days of the end. He was one of nature’s noblemen – ‘a gentleman of the old school.’”
This story appeared in the
Sep/Oct 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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