Joshua Appleby

Who was Joshua Appleby?

Joshua Appleby was an American lighthouse keeper remembered for having lost his life in the Great Havana Hurricane of 1846.

A native of Rhode Island, Joshua Appleby served as keeper of the Sand Key Light in the Florida Keys. On the day of the disaster, the hurricane began battering the lighthouse at ten in the morning and, eventually, all of Sand Key was submerged and the lighthouse destroyed by the gale forces of wind and tide. Appleby, his 51-year-old daughter Eliza, and his 11-year-old grandson Thomas were swept away to become additional victims of the hurricane which was calculated to have caused the deaths of at least 255 people.

In commemoration of the long-ago loss of Appleby, his family and the lighthouse, the United States Coast Guard commissioned, on August 8, 1998, Joshua Appleby, a St. Petersburg-based, 175 ft. Coastal Buoy Tender named in honor of the keeper.