Bill Bleyer was a prize-winning staff writer for Newsday, the Long Island daily newspaper, for thirty-three years before retiring in 2014. He is the author of Sagamore Hill: Theodore Roosevelt's Summer White House and co-author of Long Island and the Civil War, both published by The History Press. He has been published in Civil War News, Naval History, Sea History, Lighthouse Digest, the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, the Toronto Star and others. Bleyer graduated from Hofstra University and earned a master's in urban studies at Queens College of CUNY.

The first Fire Island Lighthouse was constructed in 1826 after numerous shipwrecks along the barrier island. A replacement tower built in 1858 incorporated innovations in lighthouse design such as the Fresnel lens. Vessels anchored offshore, known as ligh