AMERICAN GRACE DARLING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 310, 7 January 1908, Page 4

AMERICAN GRACE DARLING.

One of the best-known personages in Newport,- America's fashionable seaside summer resort, is the woman lighthouse keeper, Miss Ida Lewis, who has for twenty-eight years vigilantly kept alight the beacuu on the Lime Kock, oil the harbor. Last March Miss Lewis celebrated his sixty-eighth birthday and the jubilee of her residence on the rock, jlltr father performed the duties of Jceeper, and, through an act of Congress, his daughter was appointed to succeed him, being the only woman to hold such a position. The Newport folk are justly proud ol their Grace Darling, who has saved eighteen lives from the eea. She was only twenty when, one summer evening, just after dark, «he heard from the lighthouse the cries of four young men, sons of |>rominent Newport summer residents, Whose catboat had capsized. She rowed to their rescue, and after much effort saved them all. The garrison at I'ort Adams is similarly deeply indebted to her, for 6he lias at different times saved five soldiers from drowning. Her lierofcm has been acknowledged by Congress, which awarded her a gold medal. General Grant, General Sharman and Admiral Dewey have been among her distinguished visitors, delighting to do her honour. Newport itself nearly forty years ago presented her with a row-bout, and in it drew Miss Lewis through the streets to the old City Hall, where she received the public thanks of the State of Rhode Island and the city for the rescues she made with such daring and clever seamanship. America's Grace Darling still displays mental and physical vigour, and maintains the reputation of the lighthouse as being one of the best managed on the coast.