Katherine Walker

[2] Katherine Walker was appointed the official keeper of the light by President Benjamin Harrison in 1890, four years after her husband's death.

Such a garden would not be possible at Robbins Reef as the structure was surrounded by water, a fact that made Walker threaten to leave her husband.

Later in life she told a visitor to the lighthouse of her first impression of her future home: "When I first came to Robbins Reef, the sight of the water, whichever way I looked, made me lonesome.

Captain Walker's last words to his wife, "Mind the light, Kate," motivated her to continue as the keeper at Robbins Reef.

If the night was foggy, Walker would descend into her basement where she would start an engine that would send out loud siren blasts at three second intervals.

The reporter wrote that casual passersby would be surprised to learn "that it has five large rooms quite as commodious as they would expect to find in a forty-dollar-a-month flat!

"[6] Walker's daughter, Mary, was her primary companion at the lighthouse for the majority of her childhood; her brother Jacob spent most of his time on the mainland as his mother's postman and general courier.

[3] In 1919, at the age of 71, Walker reluctantly retired as the Robbins Reef keeper, as required by a federal law passed the previous year.

After her retirement, Walker lived in a small cottage with a garden on Staten Island where she was frequently spotted observing Robbins Reef.

[5] Walker died on February 5, 1931, and her obituary in the New York Evening Post contained this passage: "A great city's water front is rich in romance...

And amid all this and in the sight of the city of towers and the torch of liberty lived this sturdy little woman, proud of her work and content in it, keeping her lamp alight and her windows clean, so that New York Harbor might be safe for ships that pass in the night.

[8] In 2009, the government declared Robbins Reef Light "surplus property", and although the Bayonne Economic Development Corporation expressed interest in the structure, only the Noble Maritime Collection submitted a proposal.