The year is 1940. Maurice Babcock Jr. stands in an old house in Boston. He holds up a tattered, yellow page. On it, he spots a familiar name: George Worthylake. What could the document be?

Mr. Babcock had found something very, very important. He just didn’t know it yet. The page held a poem called “The Lighthouse Tragedy.” Guess who wrote it? The American founder Benjamin Franklin did—when he was just 12 years old! Benjamin sold the poem on the streets of Boston. People had been looking for a copy of the poem for 175 years! The poem tells the sad story of what happened to the first keeper of Boston Light.

You might remember that Mr. Worthylake was the man who lit Boston Light for the first time ever. But he wasn’t just a lightkeeper. He was a shepherd too. He tended sheep on a neighboring island to add to the money he made keeping the light. Once, he lost 59 sheep in a storm. He could not leave the light to save them. It mattered very much that the light burn from sundown to sunrise, every day of the week. If it didn’t, sailors relying on the light could crash their ships into the rocks of Boston Harbor. Benjamin Franklin’s poem tells about Mr. Worthylake’s death. One night, Mr. Worthylake needed to get home to tend the lighthouse. On the way home to their island, Mr. Worthylake, his wife, and his daughter drowned when their small boat capsized.

Lighthouse keeping was hard and dangerous work. That was true for Mr. Worthylake and the many keepers after him. Year after year, lightkeepers lived on Little Brewster Island. They raised many children there while caring for the light. In the United States, all lighthouses are now automatic. But a law says the Coast Guard must staff Boston Light. It is the only American lighthouse left that still has a lightkeeper.