William Hogg

Island story

William Hogg was the first documented keeper of Pictou Island’s East End lighthouse. A newspaper report in November 1853, as the new lighthouse neared completion, states that William Hogg had been appointed keeper. An inspection dated December 1857 describes the station he tended: a fixed white light in a square building that combined the lighthouse and family dwelling. His work therefore involved not simply tending a lamp but living at a remote navigational station whose household and workplace were the same building. PIHS’s current keeper history reports that William served until 1862, when his brother Andrew H. Hogg followed him. Exact birth and death dates have not yet been established, and the sibling relationship still rests on the PIHS/local keeper tradition rather than a recovered vital record.