The Verge of Insanity

It might seem that the lonely lighthouse life would encourage communication between those who manned it together. But even two people were too many for one keeper who lived at the Halfway Rock Light in the 1880s.

G.H. Toothaker refused to speak to his assistant for weeks, justifying this only by saying that he, the keeper, often was “moody, and did not care to speak to another person.” Toothaker eventually resigned after an inspector reported that he was “on the verge on insanity.”