by Anthony Plunkett
East Yorkshire, England
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Harry Plunkett died suddenly at Swampy Island lighthouse in April 1906. Reverend Thomas Neville, the local missionary at Berens River on Lake Winnipeg, later recalled that, “in charge of the lighthouse was a scion of a famous English family—Plunkett by name. He had lost a leg during an adventurous life and hobbled on a wooden substitute. He died suddenly at his post and we crossed the water at great hazard on floating ice to bring his body ashore. There, wrapped in the Union Jack we buried him.” [1]
Neville ventured further to say that “John Doggie of Rabbit Point was put in temporary charge of [Plunkett’s] duties. Some time after John had been installed, I went over to see how he was getting along. I found him in the top of the tower sitting on the trap door entrance. He explained that he could only get away from Plunkett’s spirit that way. To my amazement he declared that the very first night he took charge, he heard Plunkett’s peg leg striking the floor as he made his rounds on the tower. Plunkett proceeded to shake the lights and to walk around in a very business-like way. The wooden leg struck hard as its possessor proceeded to inspect the quarters—chiefly at night. So John Doggie always retreated to the tower where he closed the trapdoor and sat on it to keep the restless phantom of the old lighthouse keeper away. While I was around there, I must say I never heard or saw anything of this but perhaps I was not as familiar with metaphysics as old John Doggie!” [2]
The lighthouse at Plunkett Island might have looked something like this one at an unknown location on Lake Winnipeg, 1911, although it had a “dwelling attached” in which the Plunkett family lived.
Source: Archives of Manitoba, J. H. Avent fonds, #84
Swampy Island Lighthouse seems to have been the name most commonly applied during its twenty or so years of operation, but other titles—official or otherwise—have also been used, resulting in some uncertainty, not only in relation to its name but also its location. Evidence of its intended inception lies within records held by Canada’s Department of Interior, to the effect that the “Department of Marine and Fisheries intends building a light house on Swampy Island, Lake Winnipeg and asks that a piece of land be reserved for that purpose.” Within this small file, a letter dated 11 September 1883, from the Deputy Minister, Marine, to the Department of Interior, confirmed permission to build the lighthouse. [3]
Records further show that on 1 June 1884, Harry Plunkett, having just celebrated his 36th birthday, was appointed by the Ministry of Marine & Fisheries as “Keeper of light” at Swampy Island, with a salary of $350 per annum. The new lighthouse, situated off the mouth of Berens River, became operational a few days later. It was described as having a fixed white light elevated 34 feet above water, with a visibility of 11 miles from all points of approach. The building was of wood, painted white, consisting of a tower 33 feet high with a dwelling attached. [4] Swampy Island—a somewhat irregular shaped piece of land about 15 miles in circumference—was the popular but unofficial name for what is, in fact, Berens Island.
The middle of nowhere. In the centre of Lake Winnipeg, only 730 feet (220 metres) from end to end and 160 miles (260 kilometres) as the crow flies from Winnipeg, Plunkett Island hardly seems a place that anyone would want to live, much less with a wife and family of four children, year-round. But one-legged Harry Plunkett did it for several years, serving as the lighthouse keeper on this small chunk of rock that would later be named for him.
Source: Gordon Goldsborough, 2014
In 1888, the lighthouse was in only its fourth year of operation when it was completely destroyed. A brief report in a Toronto-based national newspaper stated “William McKay of Berens River has arrived in the city from the north and brings news of the destruction of the lighthouse on Swampy Island, Lake Winnipeg on 12 March. The caretaker lost all his effects. Navigation on Lake Winnipeg will be exceedingly dangerous unless the lighthouse is immediately reconstructed.” [5]
No official record of a rebuild has thus far come to light but there is no doubt that it did occur. Much later, a local newspaper feature on names and places carried the statement: “PLUNKETT - an island with a lighthouse in Lake Winnipeg between Berens and Commissioner Islands. It was named after H. E. Plunkett, one of the lighthouse keepers.” [6] On the same theme, a database maintained by the Manitoba Government, using a 1933 publication as its source, claimed that Plunkett Island was named “in 1889 after H. E. Plunkett, a local lighthouse keeper,” [7] and Canada’s 1902 official record of navigational aids, listed a lighthouse established in 1884, located on the western end of Plunkett Island, omitting any reference to Swampy Island. [8] Adding further to the confusion, the Auditor General’s Reports (documenting government expenditure) listed H. E. Plunkett working at Swampy Island Lighthouse during 1890 to 1896, but then as the Channel Island lighthouse keeper from 1897 until 1906, the year of his death. [9]
However, it seems almost certain that the original lighthouse (and its replacement) were both erected on the nearby smaller island, which only later became known as Plunkett Island. As it had no name at the time, and was only about one mile south of Swampy Island, the lighthouse was probably given the name of the adjacent larger island. (There are similar examples where a lighthouse or other establishment has taken the name of a nearby, but better known, landmark.) It can also be argued on grounds of improved navigational safety, that locating the lighthouse on the much smaller Plunkett Island, rather than on Swampy Island, would have made much greater sense; it was closer to the shipping lines between Berens River and the rest of the lake, and therefore better placed to indicate the reefs and other potential hazards in the path of vessels plying the lake to and from Berens River.
References to Plunkett Island and its lighthouse have been few and far between, possibly because of its relatively short spell of operation, but perhaps more likely, the name Swampy Island, simply remained in popular use. (It was replaced by a new lighthouse on Cox Reef, around the time of Harry Plunkett’s death, presumably for navigational advantage.) However, a reference does appear in an account of an epic canoe journey in 1912, of some 2,000 miles to Hudson Bay, which covered the length of Lake Winnipeg. It included the following brief, but emphatic statement: “October 28—Saw Plunkett Island Lighthouse”. [10] Another reference cropped up much later in a press article of one Thomas Sinclair, former ship’s carpenter and long-term employee of the Selkirk Navigation Company, who became a captain on Lake Winnipeg steamers. It was reported that Sinclair was “well known to Harry Edward Plunkett who recently came into prominence in connection with a title and inheritance in Ireland. He (Sinclair) met him on his first trip aboard the SS Princess. Plunkett operated a lighthouse on Plunkett’s (sic) island, a small rocky isle half an acre in size, a mile south of Swampy Island and eight miles west of Berens River.” [11]
Perhaps of equal or greater relevance than the name of the lighthouse is that evidence suggests Harry Plunkett, along with his wife Mary Anne and their children, were permanent rather than seasonal residents of this tiny and remote island. His ability to perform his duties and responsibilities—the traditional “keeping of the light” and provision of rescue services and sanctuary—would clearly have been dictated by the elements, as Lake Winnipeg freezes over during the winter months making navigation by boat impossible. As the actual “navigation season” varies from one year to the next depending upon the timing of the break-up of the ice, it might reasonably be assumed that he would have been required to operate as a keeper only during the summer months.
Letters from nowhere. What little we know about life on desolate Plunkett Island comes from a few short letters that Harry mailed to his orphan nephew Sidney Plunkett back home in Britain.
Source: A. Plunkett, 2014
But surviving correspondence which Harry sent to his “long lost” orphan nephew, Sidney Wilmot Plunkett, during the early 1900s, indicates that, leave periods apart, he and his family lived there pretty much the year round. All four of his letters are headed with the same “reply to” address, namely, “Channel Island, Lake Winnipeg, via West Selkirk, Manitoba.” The first letter was written in the middle of summer, but the other three bear January/February dates. Writing on 31 July 1901, Harry stated, “If you make up your mind to come, let us know and I will give you instructions how to reach us ... the best time to arrive here is about the beginning of July. I shall be able to get a couple of weeks leave then to meet you, but don’t start for Canada during winter as nothing can be done.” Seven months later, clearly encountering postal problems, he wrote, “It is surprising to me you did not get the papers I sent you, I put enough stamps on them to reach you. Where we are, that is your aunt and I, we can’t do anything until we go into Winnipeg about two hundred miles from here. But next summer when the steamers commence running, we will forward you photos, papers etc.” Later that same year, he wrote, “I expect to leave here by the autumn of next year if all goes well as it is getting too lonely now all the family have left.” But all did not go well, as more than a year later, on 28 February 1904, he wrote, “if your aunt and I can make some arrangements I will let you know ... we are a long way from Winnipeg ... (and) one of us must be in Winnipeg to meet you.”[12]
It should also be pointed out that there is no trace of a census record in Canada for Harry Plunkett and family in 1891, probably because the family unit—the eldest of the four children was then age 12—was living at their remote quarters attached to the lighthouse. But ten years later on 31 March, when the census was next taken, Harry, his wife and the two youngest children were listed together in Selkirk, Manitoba. [13] Perhaps this coincided with a spell of leave. Selkirk would certainly have been a convenient location for the family, being the main southern terminus for the shipping vessels on Lake Winnipeg.
In August 1890, in his professional capacity as keeper, Harry’s name appeared in an official report, following an incident involving a police sailing vessel, the Keewatin—newly purchased that year for the North West Mounted Police for patrolling Lake Winnipeg. The boat ran aground onto submerged rocks off Pigeon Point during a severe storm, and two policemen aboard were drowned. Captain Matthew Watts lashed himself to the side of the boat, only to die later from exposure. He was taken off the wreck twelve days later by some passing Indians. Detailing the widespread search undertaken and the location of wreckage, the report stated, “we left a letter with Mr. Plunkett at the lighthouse, near Swampy Island, to be forwarded as soon as possible to Hon. John Schultz, Lieut.-Governor of Manitoba, informing him of the probable wreck of the police yacht, ‘Keewatin’.” [14] Note particularly the term, “the lighthouse, near Swampy Island.”
On another occasion, a reflective newspaper article described a boat trip on Lake Winnipeg, which included the paragraph: “At Gull Harbour, about ten miles from the mouth of the river, the government has in the course of construction, a much needed lighthouse which is expected to be finished in a month or so. Gull Harbour is a pretty spot with a long sandy beach, well sheltered. The next spot we touch is at Black Bear Island. Here another lighthouse is being constructed. This is a pretty island deriving its name from the presence of several black bears. About 10 o’clock at night we passed Swampy Island lighthouse. This is under the charge of a gentleman who is connected with one Lord Plunkett, and a near relative of the late Archbishop of Derry.” [15]
It seems that Harry must have been asked occasionally about his ancestry, but for whatever reason, it clearly led to some inaccurate reporting. He certainly had “blue blood” but was not related to “Lord Plunkett” as suggested above. (This was a possible confusion with Dublin-born William Lee Plunket, who became Lord Plunket on inheriting his family’s title in 1897, and was later Governor of New Zealand.) Nor, in fact, did Harry hail from “a famous English family” as the Rev. Thomas Neville was quoted in the opening paragraph.
Henry Edward Plunkett (known as Harry) was, in fact, a grandson of the Anglo-Irish peer, Thomas Oliver Plunkett, 11th Lord Louth, whose 3,500 acre estate, at Louth Hall in Ireland, was in County Louth, some thirty miles north of Dublin. Harry was actually born “at sea” on 1 May 1848—probably aboard a troop ship. His father was the Hon. Edward Sidney Plunkett, then a Lieutenant in the British Army. He was serving in the British colony of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) with the 95th Derbyshire Regiment, and had married on the island—in the city of Kandy in 1846—an English-born woman, Caroline Mary Templer, from Devon. Unfortunately, she died in 1861 at Fort Beaufort, a town in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, where his father, then newly retired from the Army, had become the local barrack master. Harry, eldest of three brothers, was 12 years old when his mother died, and summed up his formative years thus, “I always lived with my father (and was) amongst soldiers all my youth up to 23 years of age. I have been in many parts of the world and roughed it with the best of them. I never let care nor worry bother me much.” [16] It seems that he had an extremely eventful upbringing, as during this time, his father served throughout the Crimean War in Russia (1854–1856) and was later with his regiment in India, during the Mutiny (1857–1858).
By the time of his father’s death in County Dublin, Ireland, in 1875, Harry was working in the United States, on “a railroad survey through one of the wildest parts of Northern Wisconsin, under Colonel Rich, Chief Engineer, running a line through the woods and forests and lakes and rivers in two of the hardest years of my life. I was one of the staff, and we had 100 men under us to chop out survey line, pack grub, canoe and hunt game (deer) for crowd.” [17] A couple of years later he returned to Dublin, and subsequently married a barrister’s daughter, Mary Anne Smith from Dalkey, County Dublin. They emigrated to Canada the following year, living firstly in Toronto, Ontario where they raised two daughters, before moving to Winnipeg where a third daughter and a son were born. Harry seems to have been remembered as an outgoing, sociable character, and was later described as “a popular Winnipegger with many acquaintances in the city.” It seems that he maintained this positive, outgoing attitude throughout his professional life, as the report also stated, “For the past 22 years his hospitable house has been a welcome refuge for the wayfarers on Lake Winnipeg.” [18] In a letter encouraging his nephew to contemplate emigration to Canada, Harry wrote, “I am not able, holding a small but comfortable Government position, to go to much expense, but you may be quite sure, you will not want for a home, bite or sup, or a pound or two while with us. It is astonishing how well off a young fellow gets in this splendid country as long as he behaves himself and keeps away from drink.” [19]
Despite the relative isolation of his existence, occasional references to Harry Plunkett continued to occur in the press, not only during his lifetime but also after his death. In November 1935, it was reported that:
“... a howling blizzard obscured the fate of ten men stranded in the snowy reaches of Lake Winnipeg. Two of the men, Donald Sayre and his assistant are lighthouse tenders on lonely Cox’s Reef, 140 miles north of the mouth of the Red River. Their lighthouse, according to fishing colony legend, is haunted by the ghost of a wooden legged man named Plunkett who first tended the beacon. [“Legend” falsely connected Harry with another lighthouse, but why spoil a good tale!] The others are Capt. Roy Purvis and the crew of the ice-bound steamer Lu-Berc, who started out to bring the lighthouse tenders back to civilisation some weeks ago. They were forced to abandon their ship when it became jammed in the frozen lake. Six days ago the eight sailors started a 130-mile trek by dog team, down the frozen lake and its snow blanketed swamps, to the little northern fishing village of Gypsumville (off Lake St. Martin)”. [20]
Plunkett’s name again appeared in October 1950, when it was reported that the editor of Debrett’s Peerage was actively trying to trace Harry Edward Plunkett (who would have been 102 years old, had he still been alive) as he was second in line to the family title. The search occurred at the same time as Harry’s son, Arthur, then 64 years old and an engineer with Canadian National Railway, was shortly due for retirement. It was reported that he was experiencing some difficulty proving his age to the pension board, given that the “Plunkett family bible had been lost in a fire at Swampy Island lighthouse in Manitoba” back in the late 1880s, when his father was the keeper, and son Arthur, about two years old. [21]
Today, Harry’s descendants reside mainly around the west coast of the United States and Canada. His four children, all of whom spent some of their formative years at the lighthouse, married and brought up their own families. After Harry’s death in 1906, his widow lived mainly with eldest daughter, Edith Caroline and her family. Mary Anne outlived her youngest daughter, Mary Randalina, (who seems to have died by 1916, although no death record has been traced) but eventually passed away in 1932, at the age of 77, in Hartford, Snohomish, Washington. Her death preceded that of daughter, Edith, who was 68 when she died in 1948, in Everett, Snohomish. Her remaining daughter, Nora Kathleen, was 80 years old when she died in Los Angeles, California in 1961. Son Arthur Charles Sidney died at the age of 83 in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1969.
Harry Plunkett was a lighthouse keeper for more than twenty years. It involved spending lengthy periods of duty, supported by his wife Mary Anne, in the harsh environment of Lake Winnipeg, particularly during winter. When corresponding with his nephew, whom he was never destined to meet, he referred to his wife with obvious affection, stating in 1901, for example, “she stands at my side today, a clever and excellent wife and your loving aunt, who had you in her arms as a baby” (in Dublin, more than twenty years earlier). [22] Nevertheless, spending so much of their lives together in such a remote location must have inevitably placed a strain on their married lives. In 1903, Harry took out the following notice in the newspaper:
“My wife Marianne (sic) Plunkett having deserted me, I hereby forbid any credit being given to her on my account, and I refuse to become responsible for any debts contracted by her. [Signed H. E. Plunkett, Channel Island, Lake Winnipeg]” [23]
It reads like the desperate cry of a man marooned two hundred miles away, on a remote island. Fortunately, in the final letter Harry sent to his nephew, in February 1904, he was able to state, “your Aunt and I are well” and he closed “With love from Aunt and myself.” Perhaps confirmation that her desertion was short-lived and that marital harmony was restored to their remote lighthouse home.
The author expresses his gratitude to Michel Forand of Ottawa, Ontario for expert guidance on lighthouse matters and Lake Winnipeg, and to Fran Saler of Minnedosa, Manitoba for unfailing help and advice on family history issues.
1.“The old timer talks,” Winnipeg Evening Tribune, 6 July 1940, page 4.
2. Ibid.
3. Department of Interior, Library & Archives Canada.
4. Canada Sessional Papers No. 9, 1885, Order in Council, 12 October 1884
5. “A lighthouse destroyed,” Globe & Mail (Toronto), 13 April 1888, page 1.
6. Plunkett Island,” Winnipeg Free Press, 30 July 1947, page 3.
7. Plunkett Island,” Geographic Names of Manitoba, Manitoba Conservation, 2000.
8. List of Lights, 1902.
9. Reports of Auditor General, 1890-1906.
10. Ernest Carl Oberholtzer. Toward Magnetic North: The Oberholtzer-Magee 1912 Canoe Trip to Hudson Bay. 2000. Marshall, MN: The Oberholtzer Foundation.
11. “Oldtimer, 83, despite lack of schooling, reads his Bible through three times,” Winnipeg Free Press, 27 November 1950, page 2.
12. Harry Plunkett’s letters to his nephew, Sidney, were dated 31 July 1901, 12 February 1902, 1 December 1902, and 28 February 1904. The letters were amongst Sidney’s effects when he died in Hull, England in 1955. Only his first letter is of substantial length and represents Harry’s first-ever communication with a nephew whom he had been attempting to contact without success over many years. The nephew was his late brother’s only child, who became an orphan at the age of 18 months, in 1879. He was in his early 20s before he became aware of Harry’s existence. Harry makes no mention in the correspondence that he was a lighthouse keeper, nor how or when he lost a leg.
13. Census of Canada, 1901, Automated Genealogy, www.automatedgenealogy.org
14. Canada Sessional Papers 1891, No. 17a.
15. “A trip on Lake Winnipeg,” The Morning Telegram (Winnipeg), 9 July 1898, page 7.
16. Plunkett letters.
17. Ibid.
18. “Died at his post,” Winnipeg Free Press, 24 May 1906, page 11.
19. Plunkett letters.
20. “Men stranded in wastes at Lake Winnipeg,” Olean (New York) Times Herald, 14 November 1935, page 1.
21. “Hunt centres in Manitoba for heir to Irish peerage,” Winnipeg Free Press, 16 October 1950, page 1. “Peer’s heir indifferent to 900-year-old title,” Winnipeg Free Press, 17October 1950, page 1. “‘Definitely interested,’ Plunkett says of title,” Winnipeg Free Press, 20 October 1950, page 12.
22. Plunkett letters.
23. “Notice,” Winnipeg Free Press, 8 April 1903, page 12.
We thank Clara Bachmann for assistance in preparing the online version of this article.
We thank S. Goldsborough for assistance in preparing the online version of this article.
Page revised: 29 March 2020
