CREDITS: I would like to thank Jeremy D'Entremont for providing much of the history one can find on this site. He is a speaker, author, historian, and tour guide who is widely recognized as the foremost authority on the lighthouses of New England. For a story on Jeremy or to visit his site (New England Lighthouses: A Virtual Guide), use the corresponding link in the right hand information bar under "Related Links".

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Introduction

I have set up this site as a means to share my photographs of lighthouses. Since retiring and finding more time to study photography, my interests have expanded a little. For some of my work other than lighthouses please enjoy my Facebook page at, John Shaw Photography. Come visit, enjoy, and 'LIKE' if you wish.

Also, for your enjoyment, I have provided a slideshow of our journey. To view it please use the link on the right under 'Site Navigation Tools'.


I sincerely hope you enjoy my efforts and use my site not only for information and education but also to provide directions for many enjoyable, inspirational visits to the beacons along our beautiful coas.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Southwewst Head Lighthouse, Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada

     John H. Harding, agent of the Department of Marine for New Brunswick, visited Grand Manan in 1876 and reported that a lighthouse was needed on the island’s southwest point to serve as a guide in approaching the island and to assist vessels passing up and down the North Channel of the Bay of Fundy. A contract for the lighthouse was awarded in 1878 to Angus W. Fisher, who sent his master builder, B. J. Austin, and seven workmen to the site.
 

     The southern end of Grand Manan Island is known for its precipitous cliffs, and Southwest Head Lighthouse was built atop one of these known as Gull Cliff. The builders worked on the lighthouse during the fall of 1879 and incorrectly oriented the structure running east-west instead of north-south. This mistake placed a blank panel in the lantern room facing seaward instead of landward.



     The first lighting, scheduled for January 1, 1880, had to be postponed while the whole lantern was taken apart in December and the blank section in the southeast portion of the lantern was exchanged with a glass section in the northeast section. The lighthouse, which consisted of a square, wooden tower, measuring forty-three feet from its base to the vane on its lantern, with an attached keeper’s dwelling, was finally placed in operation on February 1, 1880. The catoptric light in the lantern room made one revolution every two minutes, producing three white flashes and three red flashes with intervals of eclipse of ten seconds. With a lofty perch of over two hundred feet, the light could be seen in clear weather at a distance of twenty-four miles. The total cost for the lighthouse, including the lighting apparatus, came to $4,164.



     Walter B. McLaughlin, who had previously served at exposed Gannet Rock for twenty-six years as head keeper and another eleven years as an assistant keeper, was appointed the first keeper of Southwest Head Lighthouse at an annual salary of $500. Keeper McLaughlin “found the buildings badly constructed, in fact a perfect sham. The storms beat through in every direction, the shingles and clapboards were nothing better than refuse for lumber. The top of the tower was only covered with one thickness of cotton duck with one coat of paint. The rain and snow beat through both roof and walls...”

     “Into this lighthouse,” Keeper McLaughlin later wrote, “I removed my large family during Christmas week, 1879, and ... spent the worst winter of my life.” The living space had just one sleeping room in the first story and one room in the upper, half-story that was supposed to have been partitioned into three rooms. Keeper McLaughlin procured lumber and doors from Saint John to finish the upper story, and then during the rest of 1880 proceeded to build an addition to the dwelling and a large barn onto the eastern side of the lighthouse. He also cleared and drained the lighthouse lot and built a two-mile-road to connect the station with the highway road on Grand Manan. Keeper McLaughlin claimed he spent $2,820 of his own money for these improvements and even listed land and bonds he had sold to do so. Although he wrote several letters to the Department of Marine asking for reimbursement and even sent this photograph showing his additions to the lighthouse, Keeper McLaughlin was never compensated. Rather, the department replied, “if a keeper leaves a station no allowance will be made him for any private buildings nor can he exercise any right of property over such.”

     During McLaughlin’s tenure at Southwest Head, the station was injured by a whirlwind in 1890, and the flagpole was damaged during a gale on January 26, 1895 and then destroyed the following year. A pump in the kitchen could be used to draw water through ninety feet of galvanized iron pipe that led to the station’s well. A telephone was added to the station in 1897, using an old telegraph line. In 1900, a hand foghorn was provided so that the keeper could respond to the fog signals of vessels in the vicinity. After forty-eight years of service, Keeper McLaughlin retired at the age of seventy-two, and his son-in-law, Turner Ingalls, Jr., was appointed keeper in January of 1901.



      Keeper Ingalls submitted his letter of resignation to the Department of Marine on June 17, 1907, asking that his last day be June 30, less than two weeks later. He was chided for giving such a short notice and was replaced by Clyde S. Ingersoll, a fisherman, on July 10th. Turner Ingalls asked $100 of Keeper Ingersoll for the station’s barn that McLaughlin had built and willed to him. Keeper Ingersoll complied with the demand not wanting it to be removed from the station, but when he submitted a request for compensation, he was informed that he should have consulted with the department, as they already owned the barn.

     The lighthouse tower had to be rebuilt in 1928 as it had become badly decayed. A new drain and septic tank were also installed at that time. Thirty years later, in 1959, a modern lighthouse was built adjacent to the old one, and when the work was complete, the old lighthouse was torn down. The new lighthouse is a single-story structure, built of cinder blocks, and has a square tower rising from one of its corners. Two new dwellings were built for the keepers while the new lighthouse was under construction, and a third dwelling was later added to the station. Ottawa Benson, who was keeper at Southwest Head during this transition, was the great-grandson of Walter McLaughlin, the first keeper.

     During the night of February 26, 1963, Ottawa Benson and his wife Hildred heard a thump at the their door. Upon opening, Hildred found a man covered with snow who stammered, “Me and my brother’s been blown ashore. I got up the bank, but he’s still down there.” Keeper Benson was dumbfounded. Others had wrecked at the base of the towering cliff before, but no one had ever managed to scale it.

     Billy and Floyd Jones had left Haycock Harbor, Maine the previous morning in a leaky motorboat to gather periwinkles. Their engine failed just as a gale struck, and the two were blown out to sea. After twelve hours of bailing, vomiting, and praying, they ran aground below the blinking light at Southwest Head. The brothers managed to climb to a ledge above the pounding surf, but Floyd, numb with cold, could go no farther. Billy pressed on and managed to reach the lighthouse three hours later. A rescue party of seventeen men, including the bandy-legged Vernon Bagley, was soon summoned to the scene. The group consensus was to wait until morning as it would be murder to send anyone down the cliff in the dark, but Vern Bagley protested, knowing that Floyd could not survive the night down there.



     With a nylon rope tied securely about his waist, Vern ventured over the edge of the cliff, but after a short distance, he lost his footing, took a spill, and was forced to clamber back to the top in defeat. Dejected and a bit embarrassed, Vern thought for a while then said, “Yessir, I sure would!,” and headed straight back to the edge of the cliff.

     With renewed determination, Vern Bagley started down the bluff, and this time he succeeded in locating Floyd, whose clothes were stiff with ice. Wrapping Floyd’s arms around his waist and jamming them under the rope, Vern told Floyd to hang on and gave three sharp tugs on the rope to initiate the haul-up. Twenty-five feet from the top, Vern’s legs gave out, and he was forced to wedge the then unconscious Floyd behind a bolder and proceed to the top alone. Exhausted from the ninety-minute rescue, Vern collapsed in a snowbank. Assistant lightkeeper Sid Guptill used another rope to go after Floyd and returned a half hour later with the body.



     The Jones brothers were wrapped in coats and rushed to the island’s hospital where they quickly recovered from exposure. The next day, the brothers tearfully thanked Vern Bagley, who declared the pair to be “tougher’n tripe.” A year after the ordeal, a crowd of 300 packed the gym at the island’s high school to see Vern Bagley receive the Carnegie Silver Medal for heroism. (Sid Guptill received a bronze medal.)

      After the ceremony, Vern was asked about his strange announcement of “Yessir, I would!,” before he went over the cliff a second time. “Wal,” he replied, “I'd been tellin' myself all the reasons why I couldn't go back over that cliff. But then this idea hit me so hard, ‘Would you go if it was your own brother?’ that I answered out loud. Then I just had to go. Cause when you get right down to it, we're all suppose to be brothers.”

     The heroic story of Vern Bagley was recounted in the March 1968 edition of Reader’s Digest, and has even been turned into a song entitled Southern Head Rescue.




     For several years, Southwest Head Lighthouse served as a fueling station and command center for the Coast Guard helicopter that ferried supplies out to Gannet Rock, but this ended after the automation of both lights. Southwest Head lost its final keeper with the retirement of Doug Daggett in October of 1987.

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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

U.S./Canada 17 Lighthouse Grand Slam Photography Tour

     July 25, 2015 Cruise operated by the Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co. out of Bar Harbor, Maine, around Grand Manan Island in Nova Scotia, and down the Maine coast back to Bar Harbor almost 10 hours later.  Below please find one photo of each of those lighthouses.
















     Jeremy D'Entremont and Chris Mills autographing their books.

Egg Rock Lighthousse

Petie Manan Lighthhouse

Machias Seal Island Lighthouse

Soputh West Head Lighthouse

Gannet Rock Lighthouse

Great Duck Island Lighthouse

Swallowtail Lighthouse

Long Eddy Lighthouse

Lubec Channel Lighthouse

West Quoddy Head Lighthouse

Little River Lighthouse

Libby Island Lighthouse

Moose Peak Lighthouse

Nash Island Lighthouse

Narraguagus Pond Island Lighthouse

Prospect Harbor Lighthouse

Winter Harbor Lighthouse

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Monday, July 27, 2015

Machias Seal Island Lighthouse

     As tiny Machias Seal Island is located roughly 19 km (12 miles) from the nearest points in the United States (Cutler, Maine) and Canada (Grand Manan Island), it is understandable that both countries have claimed sovereignty over the island. In terms of navigation, the island was more crucial to Canadian interests, as vessels bound to and from the important ports of Saint John and Saint Andrews frequently passed nearby, but the United States was reluctant to relinquish control of the associated prime fishing grounds.


     In response to the continued petition of the Chamber of Commerce of Saint Andrews, the government of New Brunswick allocated 750 pounds in 1831 to build a lighthouse on Machias Seal Island provided that such lighthouse could be distinguished from any other lights in the vicinity. (Earlier lighthouses had been constructed nearby at Head Harbour on Campobello Island in 1829, and on Gannet Rock in 1831.)


      Two octagonal wooden towers and a keeper’s dwelling were built on the island in 1832, and John Pendlebury was paid an annual salary of 130 pounds to serve as the first keeper. The two lights, each of which was made up of eight lamps set in 23-inch reflectors, prevented confusion with the revolving light at Gannet Rock and the fixed light at Head Harbour. During 1857, the lights were fueled by 700 gallons of seal oil and 207 gallons of porpoise oil, which was more expensive but had to be used in cold weather. In 1840, it was noted that Keeper John Conley was an excellent pilot and had a cow, garden, and “every comfort” on the island. As Conley would frequently board vessels and pilot them to Saint Andrews, leaving his wife in charge of the lights, it was recommended that he should be required to hire an assistant.


     Machias Seal Island was located in the center of a shipping channel and was frequently shrouded in fog in the summer season, so the keeper was supplied a four pound signal gun and a supply of powder in 1841 to serve as a fog signal, though the installation of a large alarm bell was recommended. A pattern of firing the gun every two hours during low visibility was later established. In 1843, a supply of provisions was stored on the island and an 800-gallon tank was erected to store rainwater for the use of “shipwrecked Seamen and Emigrants.”

     Major work was carried out at the station in 1856-1857, including repairs to the towers’ stone foundation walls, lanterns, and decks, new shingling for the towers, and repairs to the dwelling and barn. A six-pounder signal gun with a house and platform was also installed during that period along with a new flagpole. By 1869, one of the two towers was worn out, and Messrs. Clarke and Stackhouse were contracted to construct a new tower at a cost of $2,450. The light from a powerful third-order Fresnel lens was first exhibited from the new lighthouse on November 6, 1869. Though the brighter light was appreciated, it also created a problem. Mariners would often see only the brighter of Machias Seal’s two lights or would see two lights but think the dimmer of the two lights was from the keeper’s dwelling, and would thus concluded they were off West Quoddy, where a single third-order light was displayed.



     A steam fog-whistle, the most powerful one then on the Bay of Fundy, was established on Machias Seal Island in 1873, with James Ackroyd as its engineer. The following year brought an end to John Conley’s thirty-plus years of service on the island, along with the much shorter service of James Ackroyd and his replacement J.H. Crosby, who resigned after just six months because his family was unwilling to reside on the island. Wright Edmonston was then placed in charge of both the fog signal and the lights, but he left the island after a year when the Marine Department refused to grant him a considerable increase in salary. Marine Agent John H. Harding made the following report to the department after his visit to Machias Seal to remove Edmonston and deliver the new keeper, Alexander Eddy. “I regret to say that I found this station in a very unsatisfactory condition. The keeper, being a slovenly and untidy person, had allowed the whole station and its appurtenances to present a very neglected and disorderly appearance. The boiler had been burnt and was leaking badly.”


     A railway track was placed on the island to link the coal shed adjoining the fog alarm building with the landing area. A one-inch rope connected to machinery in the engine-house powered the railway car, which could carry two to three tons of coal each trip. The Marine Agent noted that the time saved in one offloading fully compensated for the outlay to establish the railway. During heavy storms, the sea would at times wash over the island, causing damage to the railway as large drift lumber was caught under the rails. The tramway had to be repaired every couple of years even after the original wooden one was replaced with a 210-foot-long iron tramway in 1896.

      Eight years after the new tower commenced operation, a contract was awarded to George Armstrong in 1877 to construct a new companion tower. Unfortunately, the Chance Brothers Fresnel lens intended for the new lighthouse was destroyed in a great fired at the department’s warehouse in Saint John on June 20th, 1877. A new lens was ordered from the same establishment, and the new lighthouse, an octagonal tower situated sixty-four yards southeast of the west tower and standing fifty-three feet from base to vane, commenced operation on November 1, 1878. The total cost of the lighthouse, including the tower, lens, and lantern was $6,807.40. Mariners were alerted that the new towers, when brought in range, led 4 ¾ miles south of the Murr Ledges, while the former lights ranged with them.



     In 1914, a type “G’ diaphone fog alarm with a class “E” duplicate plant was installed in lieu of the steam fog whistle. The following year, an octagonal, sixty-foot-tall, reinforced concrete tower, the one that remains in use today, was erected near the middle of the island, and in 1916 it commenced displaying a flashing white light. No longer needed, the two wooden towers were demolished.

     A new dwelling was built on the island in 1924 for the keeper, allowing the older dwelling, which had been housing both the keeper and his assistant, to be remodeled for the assistant. The two dwellings on the island today are of more recent origin.



     In 1944, the government of Canada adopted an order declaring Machias Seal Island and the surrounding waters a bird sanctuary. The island is home to the largest nesting colony of Puffins on the Atlantic coast south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Newfoundland and British Columbia are the only two Canadian provinces that still have staffed lighthouses with once exception, Machias Seal Island. Though the Machias Seal Island Lighthouse has been automated for several years the Department of Foreign Affairs covers the Coast Guard’s costs of maintaining keepers on the island “for sovereignty purposes.” The keepers work on the island on a rotational basis, a new pair being flown in every twenty-eight days. Besides the keepers, a warden lives on the island to keep watch over the visitors who come to see the puffins on ten-acre Machias Seal Island.

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Sunday, July 26, 2015

Petit Manan Lighthouse

     Petit Manan Lighthouse, located on tiny Petit Manan Island between Narraguagus and Frenchman’s bays, is part of Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge. The island is closed from April 1 to August 31 for nesting season, although boat tours do provide views of the lighthouse and birds from the water during this time. The original keeper’s quarters now houses refuge personnel, who perform regular duties in addition to helping maintain the light station.






     The first Petit Manan Lighthouse was built using an April 27, 1816 appropriation of $8,000, and its first keeper, who earned $350 per year, was Robert Upton. In 1831, Fifth Auditor of the Treasury Stephen Pleasonton wrote a letter to John Chandler, Superintendent of Maine’s Lighthouses, citing the poor condition of the lighthouse:

      Very bad indeed—built of worse materials than [Mount] Desert Light—the lantern in good order as regarded the Lamps & Reflectors, but otherwise positively dirty—dwelling house much out of repair & leaking badly—the man has gone off, being tired of his state of independence. His wife had charge of the whole concern. This Light house I discover was built in 1817 by Frederick and William Pope, under Mr. Dearborn’s superintendence. You will cause the necessary repairs to be made here, before the season be too far advanced; and if the keeper has actually left the establishment to his wife, you will report the fact and another appointment will be recommended.
The keeper, Robert Leighton, did return (it’s possible that he had been sick), and the lighthouse was repaired. Keeper Leighton died soon after, and his wife, Jane, having cared for the light for many years, applied for the keepership. Some say she was paid for her duties, making her one of the first official woman lighthouse keepers in the nation, but Mrs. Leighton’s petition was eventually denied, and Patrick Campbell was appointed keeper instead.





     After an 1842 inspection of the station, I.W.P. Lewis wrote that the walls of the twenty-six-foot tall conical rubblestone tower were badly cracked and its wood so rotten that one of the assistants broke through the lantern’s platform while measuring the tower. At the time, the lighthouse showed a fixed light from its lantern room, using eight lamps and nine-inch reflectors, but the lantern glass was so thin that it blew out in storms. Lewis found thirty-three of the window panes in the lantern were cracked.

     The keeper’s original rubblestone dwelling contained a full cellar and had a wood-shingled roof. On the first floor were two rooms, with a projecting kitchen in the back and two chambers in the attic. I.W.P. Lewis noted, “north wall of house badly cracked; chimneys smoky; interior plastering scaled off in patches.” For water, the station had a rain-water cistern, and the present keeper, Moses Thompson, had dug a well to avoid having to row six miles in each direction for fresh water.



      As Petit Island Light was very important due to dangerous offshore ledges and its location on Maine’s east-west trade route, Lewis recommended a fog-bell and eighteen of the best lamps for the station. Keeper Thompson, who had been appointed on April 1, 1838 at an annual salary of $350, confirmed the lack of repairs to the station’s buildings: “There have been no repairs done upon the light-house and dwelling-house since my appointment, except what I have done at my own expense.”
     By 1850, when Richard C. Ray was keeper, the tower held twelve lamps and was “considered in good order, as some repairs have been made the year past.” However, a scant three years later, a report of the recently formed Lighthouse Board recorded: “This is the most eastern first class light on the coast of the United States. It is at present one of the worst of all the lights, and the tower is so badly built, and so old, and the lantern is so small, that little can be done to improve it….” The sum of $45,000 was requested to construct a new tower, equipped with a second-order Fresnel lens, and a keeper’s dwelling.

      In 1855 a new, elegant tower, rising a magnificent 119 feet into the sky, was built of interlocking granite blocks, and nearby a one-and-a-half-story keeper’s duplex was erected. The only taller tower in Maine is Boon Island Lighthouse, also built in 1855. The tower’s second-order Fresnel lens, provided by Henry-Lepaute of Paris, France, had three flash panels that revolved around the lens on chariot wheels to produce a fixed light varied by a flash every two minutes. In 1876, a separate residence was constructed for the principal keeper, and the 1855 dwelling was used for the two assistants and their families.


     Although the new ashlar tower, measuring twenty feet in diameter at its base and twelve feet at the lantern, more effectively projected its light, it was also more susceptible to winds. Some blocks were dislodged from the tower during an 1856 storm. Then in an 1869 gale, the swaying of the tower knocked loose the heavy weights of the lens’ clockwork revolving mechanism, which plummeted from the top of the tower, breaking eighteen cast-iron spiral staircase steps.

     In 1881, an inspector wrote that the tower was “very shaky” and “it vibrates so much during heavy weather that the plate glass of the lantern is cracked. In a recent gale three panes were thus broken.” Despite having the lantern braced and strengthened and the tower walls repointed in 1882, the problem remained.

     According to the 1888 Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board the vibrations in the upper portion of the tower were alarming in high winds and had loosened the entire horizontal joint, two courses below the lantern room deck. “In September last,” the report noted “the watch-room and lantern were firmly secured to the tower with six sets of 1 1/8 inch tie-rods, passing each from an iron collar inclosing the lantern to an iron strut set in the masonry and thence to a bolt set in the granite 34 feet below the deck. Fortunately, the lantern was thus secured before the severe gale of December, 1887, which might have otherwise proved disastrous at this station.” This unique method for bracing the tower is still in place today.

     A fog bell was erected on the island in 1853, and in 1869 a ten-inch steam whistle was added to the station. A well was dug to supply the necessary water, but as the greater portion of this water percolated in from a nearby swamp rich in rotting vegetable matter, the whistle’s boiler was soon damaged. This problem was addressed by re-roofing the original keeper’s dwelling, fitting it with gutters and water-conductors, and placing two wooden storage tanks in its cellar.




     The fog signal was crucial, because Petit Manan was one of the foggiest spots on the coast. In 1889, the “10-inch steam-whistle, in duplicate, was in operation 2,454 hours, and consumed about 74 tons of coal.” Over a thirty-one-year period, Petit Manan had the highest annual average hours of fog in the country at 1,691 hours, or nineteen percent of the time. Also in 1889, a special railway, 760-feet long, was built for moving the coal from the boat landing to the boilers and keepers house. Otherwise that 74 tons of coal would have been hauled in 1,850 bags weighing 80 pounds each, one at a time from the lighthouse tender to the coal house on the backs of the men who worked the ships.

     In the late 1800s, it became clear that some species of birds were becoming extinct through the sale of their eggs for food and the use of their plumage for hats. Laws were enacted to protect the birds, and then a warden system was established by the American Ornithologist Union (AOU) to see the laws were enforced. The AOU turned to a sympathetic U.S. Lighthouse Service for wardens, some of whom were paid while others served as volunteers. In 1901, Keeper William D. Upton at Petit Manan Lighthouse joined the program.

      A small school operated for some years on the island to educate the children of the keepers. When a new teacher, Lilla Severance Cole, arrived at her new post in 1915, the keeper informed her that his wife was about to give birth. Despite her lack of medical training, Lilla was forced to deliver the couple’s eighth child. When the doctor finally reached the island, he congratulated Lilla, thinking she was a nurse.

     In December 1916, thirty-four-year-old Keeper Eugene C. Ingalls set out in a boat for Moose Peak Lighthouse to visit his wife, whose father was a keeper there. However, a storm blew in, and he never arrived. His disappearance was noted several days later, but his body was never recovered. He left behind a wife and two little girls.

     In response to a young girl’s 1918-school assignment, Keeper Leo Allen at Petit Manan Light wrote a detailed letter about his experiences there beginning in 1917, during WWI.

     The winter of 1917 was a terrible experience for the three keepers. The nearest village is twelve miles away, making it bad to get supplies. With 5 naval persons and 20 men, women and children and the government only allowing a small amount of supplies at a time. We had to leave quite often for the main. For three months the island was surrounded with fields of ice for miles and three times the keepers were very near losing their lives. If it had not been for the Patrol boats, someone would have gone hungry a lot of times. The 2nd keeper on watch sighted a German submarine 1 1/6 miles east of Tower making it quite a bit of excitement…. We have a nice house. Hot water, heat, electric lights and telephone, a new launch, a 88 note player piano with one hundred dollars worth music, a good library and four daily papers. There is three of us in my family, my wife and a little girl five years old. Our Keepers all have large families. The Salaries have been raised this year. Principle Keeper receives $109, 2nd keeper $88, third keeper $73. Our trouble now is a school teacher for the twelve children here. The Government teacher has been here three weeks this year. We want a teacher one month at a time, not one week. When we get the educational part for these children under control everything will be fine.
 

     Maizie, daughter of Keeper James H. Freeman (first assistant then keeper 1930 -1940), said that despite the deafening fog signal, keepers would placidly sit nearby reading. The island was barren of trees, but there were wildflowers and a cranberry bog. They abandoned attempts to grow a vegetable garden and once brought over a cow for the luxury of fresh milk. “I shall never forget getting her there,” said Maizie. “You’ve never lived until you’ve shared a rowboat with a cow! But she ate oil-soaked grass one day and passed on to greener pastures.” One time high tide covered the whole island with twelve inches of water. The Freeman’s moved all they could to the second story, as the chicken coops floated over the cranberry bog.



      Petit Manan became the second brightest light in Maine, following its electrification in 1938. The Coast Guard took over the station in 1939, turning it into a “stag” station (for men only). Indoor plumbing, complete with a bathtub to replace an enameled fifty-gallon oil drum, arrived in 1950. The 1950s also saw the demolition of the original dwelling. When the light was automated in 1972, its Fresnel lens was moved to the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland. The station’s 1868 fog bell is now located at the elementary school in Millbridge.

      The island’s seabird population has fluctuated over the years, but since the island was ceded by the Coast Guard to the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1974, several types of terns, Atlantic puffins, Leach’s storm-petrels, and more, have made the island home. Petit Manan Lighthouse was listed for transfer in 2004 under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, and in late 2006 ownership was transferred to the Fish and Wildlife Service. At Petit Manan, the roles have been reversed—lighthouse keepers are no longer watching out for the birds, it is the keepers of the birds who are responsible for Petit Manan Lighthouse.


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