Lewis, Ida (1842–1911)

Nineteenth-century lighthouse keeper and hero, known as America's Grace Darling. Born Idawalley Zorada (also seen as Zoradia) Lewis in Newport, Rhode Island, on February 25, 1842; died in Lime Rock, Rhode Island, on October 24, 1911; second child and eldest daughter of Captain Hosea Lewis (keeper of Lime Rock Lighthouse in Newport Harbor); attended public school in Newport until the family moved to Lime Rock; married William H. Wilson (a fisherman), in October 1870 (separated and resumed her maiden name).

Born in 1842, the year of Grace Darling 's death, Ida Lewis, like her courageous British counterpart, was also a lighthouse-keeper's daughter. In 1859, when her father became disabled from a stroke, she took over his duties at the Lime Rock Lighthouse in Newport Harbor, to which the family had moved in 1857. At age 16, she single-handedly saved four young men who had capsized their pleasure boat offshore. Unlike Darling, however, Lewis would perform 18 more rescues during her life.

She did not come to the public's attention until 1869, after she had rescued two soldiers from the nearby garrison at Fort Adams from the wreckage of a sailboat that had capsized in a sudden storm. The soldiers had managed to hang on to what was left of their boat until Lewis, with the help of her younger brother, rowed out to save them. They told the story of their rescue to the press, and, after an article appeared in the New York Herald Tribune, Lewis became known throughout the nation. She was the first woman awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and was received by President Ulysses Grant when he visited Rhode Island. The Life Saving Benevolent Association of New York sent her a silver medal and a check for $100, and the secretary of state for Rhode Island sent a commendation passed by the Rhode Island General Assembly. At an Independence Day celebration in her honor, Lewis was presented with a skiff named Rescue, and the financier James Fisk later built her a boathouse. During the height of her fame, she received countless marriage proposals, and the lighthouse was inundated with visitors numbering around 100 a day. Except for a brief marriage in her 20s to a sea captain, Lewis spent all her days at the lighthouse at Lime Rock, although the federal government did not appoint her official keeper of the facility until 1879.

Even though she continued to perform daring feats during her 50 years at the lighthouse, Lewis' prominence was relatively short-lived. In 1906, at age 64, she rescued a woman vacationer from the icy waters. That same year, she was awarded a pension by the Carnegie Hero Fund and a gold medal from the American Cross of Honor Society. She died at Lime Rock on October 24, 1911.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts