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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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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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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Wood End Lighthouse - Provincetown - Cape Cod

     Were it not for the danger of shipwreck, probably few, if any, lighthouses would have been constructed. Thus, it is not surprising that the November 1871 sinking of the William H Atwood schooner from Wellfleet contributed to the erection of a lighthouse at Wood End, the southernmost point on the sandy hook that forms Provincetown Harbor.
A white, pyramidal day beacon constructed there in 1864 helped mariners but certainly did not bring an end to wrecks in the area.

     Despite three light stations near Provincetown, there still has been over fifty shipwrecks since 1875. While 1899, when a sloop and two schooners came ashore and broke up, is considered by many to be history’s worst year for accidents, others consider it to have been 1927.

      Around 3:30 p.m. on December 17, 1927, Provincetown Harbor’s most tragic maritime disaster occurred—one that nearby Wood End Lighthouse could not prevent. The U.S. Navy destroyer Paulding, on loan to the Coast Guard to help search for Prohibition booze runners, was unaware that the submarine S-4 was on maneuvers off the cape, when it rammed the surfacing S-4 and tore holes in its starboard side. The forty men aboard the sub were thrown about by the impact but scrambled to reach watertight compartments as the submarine quickly settled to the bottom in 110 feet of water. The thirty-four men in the aft part of the submarine soon succumbed to a combination of chlorine gas and a lack of oxygen, but six men in a forward torpedo room patiently waited for rescue in the cold, dark sub.

     Despite personal peril, Navy divers reached the S-4 the day following the collision and communicated with the six trapped men, who tapped out in Morse code: “Is there hope? Please hurry, please!” Foul weather, however, frustrated the rescue effort. Despite knowing that the men had only seventy-two hours to live without oxygen, all were forced to wait until the foul, icy weather broke. The divers tried to attach oxygen hoses to the S-4, but they were repeatedly torn lose by the sea. The last message tapped out by the doomed men was: “We understand...”.

     Throughout the attempts to rescue the submariners and raise the submarine, the men of the Provincetown fleet and fishing boats came out in the storms to assist in any way they could.

     Eighteen days after the accident, the navy finally raised the S-4. Found among Radioman Walter Bishop’s personal effects was a poem describing the “pigboats”: “In the cantankerous mind of the devil, There festered a fiendish scheme, He called his cohorts together, And they designed the submarine….”

     The history of Wood End Lighthouse began on June 10, 1872, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for its construction. Wood End lies between Race Point and Long Point, along the sandy curl that forms Provincetown harbor and has been described as the fingers of a semi-closed right hand. The new light first shone through its fifth-order Fresnel lens on November 20, 1872, after being lit by Keeper Thomas Lowe, who served at the station for twenty-five years. The lighthouse exhibited a red light, flashing every fifteen seconds, that could be seen eleven nautical miles in good weather.

     Wood End had a square, pyramidal, brick tower, painted brown, while the exterior of the lantern, railing, deck, and ironwork were all painted black. The light’s focal plane was thirty-four feet above ground and forty-five feet above sea level. A one-and-a-half-story, cream-colored, wooden keepers house sat fifty feet northeast of the light tower.

     Between Long Point and Wood End lights there was a salt works and a fish oil works, and the keepers of both lights complained to the Lighthouse Board about the stench and flies associated with those establishments.

     When a Boston Globe reporter visited Wood End in 1889, Lowe demonstrated how the clockwork mechanism turned the lens, then he lit the lamp, and the pair retired to the “cozy sitting room” in the dwelling, where Lowe recounted his life before becoming keeper.

     As a boy, Lowe shipped out on a fishing schooner from Wellfleet, later joined the navy, and saw action in the Mexican War aboard the frigate Ohio. While having mixed success as a California Gold Rush ’49er at Sutter’s Mill, Lowe helped rescue some snowbound settlers then tried his hand at farming in Southern California, before joining the crew of a clipper ship crew. Poor health eventually forced him ashore, where he decided to become a light keeper.

     The area’s numerous shipwrecks sometimes required Lowe to wake nearby residents to assist with rescues. A lifesaving station was established at Race Point in 1892, and another added at Wood End in 1896, not far from the lighthouse.

     In 1896, a new 1½ story, six-room, wooden keepers house was built for $29,000. An additional $5,000 was spent on a 990-square-foot storage shed and $1,500 on an oil house. A wooden, pyramidal bell tower with a 1,000-pound bell struck by machinery was added in 1902.

     A stone breakwater was built across the upper end of the harbor in 1911, so that at low tide one could cross from Provincetown directly to the light, instead of slogging all the way round the end of harbor through miles of sand.

     Taking the long way around the harbor would have been a welcome escape for Keeper Douglas H. Shepherd when he was trapped at the light for weeks during a severe ice storm in February 1935. The Boston Globe reported:

     Keeper Douglas H. Shepherd of the lonely Wood End Light, on the far-off shore opposite this town, has been ice-bound and imprisoned at his station the past two weeks. He depends upon the Coast Guard to ferry his supplies and mail across the harbor, since it is impossible for him to come into town in his car, owing to the “miniature icebergs” piled all along his route…Keeper Shepherd has struggled vainly to break through the arctic expanse that extends for miles beyond his light. Several times he has attempted it, using axe and crowbar to attack the ice blocks in his path, but each time he has been forced to turn back.
During part of 1937, James Hinkley Dobbins was a relief keeper at Wood End. His wife Ruby and daughter Harriet did not live at the station and probably were not keen to do so. Before her first visit to the lighthouse, James instructed Ruby to “buy all the mousetraps in stock” at the local hardware store, as the keeper’s house was infested with rodents.

     In 1961, the lighthouse was automated and a modern aerobeacon installed. No longer necessary, the keepers house and storage shed were torn down. Rather than rely on a generator to power the beacon, electric poles were put in place. Solar panels were installed in 1981, making Wood End one of the first solar-powered lights in the country.

    Although the Coast Guard still owns Wood End Lighthouse, the American Lighthouse Foundation was granted a license in 1998 to maintain the structure. Since this agreement was signed, the Cape Cod Chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation has repeatedly teamed up with New England Lighthouse Lovers to paint the oil house and lighthouse.

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Squirrel Point Lighthouse

     In 1717, the ship Squirrel brought Samuel Shute, the royal governor of Massachusetts, to Arrowsic Island on the Kennebec River to renew a peace treaty with the local Indians. The ship ran aground but was later refloated, and the incident was memorialized in the name given to the location: Squirrel Point.

     Squirrel Point Light, on Arrowsic Island, is one of several aids to navigation authorized in 1895 and erected in 1898 on the Kennebec River, a bustling waterway at the time. The 25-foot wooden tower is very similar to the lighthouses built at nearby Doubling Point and Perkins Island. The Victorian keeper's house, garage and barn were all built along with the tower in 1898. The boathouse and oil house were added a few years later.

     George Matthews, the first keeper, was in charge until 1912. He had previously been an assistant keeper at Whitehead Light in Maine. Later keepers included Arthur V. Smith and Clarence Skolfield, who was the last civilian keeper. Skolfield also served at two other stations in the vicinity, at Seguin Island and Perkins Island.

     Stanley Reynolds and his wife had two children born at the light station during their stay in the 1950s. Tragedy struck in 1955 when their three-year-old son, Scotty, fell into the river and drowned. The Reynolds, who went on to have 12 children, left Squirrel Point a short time later.

     The last resident Coast Guard keeper was Joseph Robicheau, who lived at Squirrel Point with his wife, Leanne, and their two daughters. The Robicheaus endured a memorable Christmas in 1980, with when the wind chill at was 50 below zero.

     To reach their car, a mile away through the woods, so they could get to their planned Christmas dinner, the family bundled up and boarded a snowmobile, with a sled in tow for the two little girls.

     The light was automated in the early 1980s and the fifth-order Fresnel lens was removed and replaced by a modern optic. For some time after that, the light was monitored by the keeper at the Kennebec River (Doubling Point) Range Light Station, a few miles up the river.

     Beginning in February 1982, Karen McLean, one of a very few female Coast Guard lighthouse keepers, was in charge of the that range light station as well as the stations at Squirrel Point and Doubling Point. When the foghorn was needed at Squirrel Point, McLean had to tramp through the one-mile path in the woods from her car to reach the station. In winter the trip sometimes required cross-country skis.

     Mike Trenholm, a semi-retired real estate dealer from Yarmouth, Maine, first saw Squirrel Point Light while on a cruise on the Kennebec River in 1993. Three years later he formed a nonprofit organization, Squirrel Point Associates, Inc. He was granted the five-acre station by the Coast Guard in 1998.

     The deed required that Squirrel Point be "used for educational, historic, recreational, cultural and wildlife conservation programs for the general public" and that it be "maintained in a manner consistent with the provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966."

     Trenholm put some work into the property, including putting new wiring, heating and plumbing in the keeper's house. He hoped to establish an educational facility at Squirrel Point Light Station, but health problems got in the way. 

     A new group called Citizens for Squirrel Point (CSP) formed to ensure that the light station would be used and maintained in accordance with federal, state, and local laws, as well as the covenants in the 1998 deed from the U.S. government. In August 2003, the Citizens for Squirrel Point filed suit in federal district court.

     In February 2005, a federal judge ruled in CSP’s favor. All rights, title, and interest in Squirrel Point Light Station thus reverted to the U.S. government.

     In February 2008, the Chewonki Foundation signed a 15-year license to manage the light station property. Later, the directors of the organization decided that the lighthouse didn't fit into their plans. The license was subsequently transferred to Citizens for Squirrel Point.

     Directions:  The light station is accessible via a 2/3-mile trail at the end of Bald Head Road in Arrowsic. It is surrounded by conservation lands managed by the Division of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy. The attractive little light station can also be viewed from cruises leaving Bath and Boothbay Harbor, and it can be seen from across the river in Phippsburg.

     Credits:  I would like to thank Jeremy D'Entremont, webmaster of, http://www.newenglandlighthouses.net/, for sharing the above history.  Jeremy is a speaker, author, historian, and tour guide who is widely recognized as the foremost authority on the lighthouses of New England.  To view a story on him, go to, (Jeremy D'Entremont).  

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Monhegan Island Lighthouse

      "At  night the island went early to its slumbers, and only the lighthouse on the hill kept watch. It dazzled the eyes if one looked up, and rendered the darkness more profound." -- E. H. Goss, "Something About Monhegan," Magazine of American History, September 1884.

The Village on Monhegan Island

       Monhegan Island, 10 miles offshore from midcoast Maine, is a picturesque summer haven for artists and vacationers. By the time the island was visited by Samuel de Champlain, Capt. John Smith, Bartholomew Gosnold, and other explorers in the 1600s, it had already been an outpost for many European fishermen. Some believe the Vikings visited the area around 1,000 A.D. and left carvings on the rocks of nearby Manana Island. Others believe the strange engravings were made much earlier.

      The first permanent European settlement was established in 1619. Before that, Monhegan Island was long used by local Indians who gave it its name, which means "island of the sea." The island's history was turbulent for several centuries. In the late 1400s, Gaspar Cortereal of Spain landed at Monhegan and took 57 Indians to sell as slaves, but his ship was apparently wrecked on the return voyage. During King Philip's War in 1676, settlers took refuge on the island and were eventually relocated to other locations along the coast. In 1689, Baron Castine captured the English settlement for the French.

      For many voyagers coming across the Atlantic, Monhegan was the first sight of land. By the early 1800s, trade in the area was increasing. In 1822, Congress and President James Monroe authorized the building of a lighthouse on one of Monhegan's highest points for $3,000. The light went into operation two years later. The first lighthouse was a 30-foot conical stone tower. Thomas B. Seavey, the first keeper, remained at Monhegan for 10 years.

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      After much damage from storms, the lighthouse was rebuilt in 1850. The 48-foot granite tower built that year still stands.  It is very similar to the lighthouse on Whitehead Island, built at about the same time. A new two-story keeper's house was built in 1874.

      In 1856, the original 10 lamps and reflectors were replaced by a powerful second-order Fresnel lens. With its light 178 feet above the sea, Monhegan Island Light is the second-highest light in Maine (after Seguin Island).

     In 1855, a fog bell station was established at Manana Island, just west of Monhegan. The 2,500-pound bell was replaced by a Daboll trumpet in 1870. This signal still wasn't loud enough, so a steam whistle was installed two years later. Finally, in 1877, a powerful first-class Daboll trumpet was installed at Manana Island.

      For a time, the keeper at Monhegan could push a button that would sound a gong in the bedroom of the fog signal keeper at Manana, who would jump out of bed to start the fog signal. The extant fog signal building and brick engine house on Manana Island were built in 1889.

The Manana Island Fog Station

      In 1861, Keeper Joseph F. Humphrey left to fight in the Civil War, along with his two sons. His wife, Betsy Morrow Humphrey, was left with her other eight children to tend the light. Joseph Humphrey died in 1861 and Betsy became the official keeper.

     An 1886 book, All Among the Lighthouses by Mary Bradford Crowninshield, described the view from Monhegan Island Light:  "Way off there to the north spread out the woods and forests of Maine, miles and miles each way, as far as the eye could penetrate; and out there to the west , the south, the east, stretched that limitless blue expanse, heaving, rolling, sparkling, dotted with its flaky signs of enterprise and commerce, which dipped and bowed to the heaving sea, some close, some far away, others showing a dim outline on the distant streak which limits the boundary of our vision." 

Dan Stevens, whose original name was Mathew Murphy, was keeper from 1902 until his death in 1919. He had enlisted in the U.S. Navy when underage, and he was discovered and discharged. He reenlisted after changing his name to Daniel Stevens.

     Stevens told the Boston Globe about life at Monhegan Island Lighthouse in 1904:  "We are satisfied here because it's a good place. Why shouldn't we be satisfied? This is one of the loveliest spots on the great round earth. What do we want better than this? And it's all ours! We can look at it all when we want to, and breathe this good air, and be free and well and happy as anybody can be in this world."

     A cable providing phone service was extended to Monhegan Island in 1919 to make it easier for the keepers on Monhegan and Manana island to communicate with the mainland. The Coast Guard laid a new cable in the 1950s.

     An 1857 keeper's house was torn down in 1922. The station remained staffed by civilian keepers until 1956, when the Coast Guard took over. Beginning when the light was automated in 1959, the Coast Guard keepers at the Manana Island Fog Signal Station were given the additional duty of keeping an eye on the light at Monhegan.

     During a 1981 snowstorm, two Coast Guardsmen were crossing the harbor when their boat capsized. They were rescued by the island's harbormaster and a selectman.

     In 1962, the lighthouse grounds and buildings, except the lighthouse itself, were sold to the Monhegan Associates. A museum was opened in 1968 in the 1874 keeper's house, focusing on the island's rich history and wildlife.

     The Monhegan Museum is open daily through most of the summer. An 1855 fog bell used at Manana Island is on exhibit outside the museum. The bell was the subject of Jamie Wyeth's well-known painting, "Bronze Age."

      In 1985 the property, except for the lighthouse, was transferred to the Monhegan Historical and Cultural Museum Association. Under the Maine Lights Program, the lighthouse became the property of the association in 1998. The association has reconstructed the 1857 assistant keeper's house to serve as a museum for their art collection. It is the first time a keeper's house has been reconstructed in Maine.

      Monhegan has a long tradition as an inspiration to artists; the distinguished list includes Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, George Bellows and Jamie Wyeth. The association has also had the covered walkway to the tower reconstructed in recent years.

     In 2006, the Monhegan Museum was awarded a grant from Heritage Preservation for an assessment of the buildings. Problems found in the lighthouse tower included deteriorating pointing in the exterior granite, leaking and rusting in the lantern, derioration of iron surfaces, peeling lead paint on the interior brick walls and iron stairs, and more. In 2009, the J. B. Leslie Company was contracted to carry out the restoration of the tower. At this writing in late September 2009, most of the work has been completed.

      The light was converted to solar power in 1995 and is still an active aid to navigation. Monhegan Island can be reached by ferry from Port Clyde, New Harbor, and Boothbay Harbor. Reaching the lighthouse requires a moderate uphill walk.

     Credits:  I would like to thank Jeremy D'Entremont, webmaster of, http://www.newenglandlighthouses.net/, for sharing the above history.  Jeremy is a speaker, author, historian, and tour guide who is widely recognized as the foremost authority on the lighthouses of New England.  To view a story on him, go to, (Jeremy D'Entremont).  

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Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse

Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse Video

    The large, well-protected harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the Piscataqua River, was an important port in colonial America. It remains New Hampshire's only deep water port. As early as 1721 some concerned citizens of Portsmouth petitioned for a lighthouse, but repeated efforts failed. Royal Governor John Wentworth told the Provincial Assembly in April 1771:,,"Every future expiring cry of drowning mariner upon our coast will bitterly accuse the unfeeling Recusant that wastes life to save a paltry unblessed shilling."

     A wooden lighthouse was soon established at Fort William and Mary on Great Island, in what is now the town of New Castle in Portsmouth Harbor, about a mile from the mouth of the Piscataqua River. Construction began in April and the tower was first lighted by early July of 1771. The shingled tower was about 50 feet tall and was topped by an iron lantern with a copper roof, with the light produced by three oil lamps made of copper.

      It was the first light station established at a military installation of the British colonies of the present United States, the 10th of 11 light stations established in the colonies before the American Revolution, and the first lighthouse in the American colonies north of Boston. A lantern on a mast had been proposed at first but was deemed "impracticable."

     In December 1774, Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth from Boston to warn the colonists of British plans to reinforce Fort William and Mary. The colonists raided the fort and successfully made off with supplies. This is considered by some to be one of the first battles of the American Revolution. Ammunition taken from Fort William and Mary was used against the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

     The fortifications became known as Fort Constitution after the Revolution. The lighthouse has been known by various names: Portsmouth Harbor Light, New Castle Light, Fort Point Light and Fort Constitution Light.

     It appears that the lighthouse was not lit from 1774 to 1784, although it did serve as a lookout post in the defense of Portsmouth during the Revolution. In 1784, the tower was renovated and relighted. The lighthouse was transferred to the federal government in 1791, and in 1793 President George Washington ordered that the light be maintained at all times, with a keeper living on site.

     A new 80-foot octagonal wooden Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse was constructed in 1804, 100 yards east of the 1771 tower on a spot called Pollock Rock. The contractor was Benjamin Clark Gilman, a native of nearby Exeter, New Hampshire, who was said to have "remarkable mechanical ability."

     The keeper had a difficult time with soldiers stealing his supplies and the sound of cannon fire from the fort breaking the dwelling's windows.

     In 1826, a fire started in the lighthouse lantern and spread quickly. The blaze was extinguished by the soldiers. The U.S. Treasury Department paid $20 to the company for replacement of their fire-damaged clothing.

      Engineer I.W.P. Lewis visited Portsmouth Harbor Light in 1842 and reported that the lighthouse was "an excellent piece of carpentry, and will bear favorable comparison with its more modern neighbors." Lewis also offered the opinion that the "height of the tower might be advantageously reduced to 30 feet." He pointed out that the light was not as important as it once was since the establishment of Whaleback Light in 1831. The tower was shortened to 55 feet in 1851.

     The keeper's house was relocated in the 1850s to a location near the remains of the Walbach Tower, a structure built in 1814 (near the present public parking area outside the gate to the Coast Guard staton).

     The present house was built in 1872 on the foundation of the previous house, and it has been moved twice to make room for Battery Farnsworth (1897) and Battery Hackleman (1906). Since 1906 it has been within the granite Civil War-era walls of Fort Constitution.

      A new 48-foot cast-iron lighthouse tower was erected in 1878 on the same foundation as the previous tower. In fact, the new lighthouse was actually assembled inside the old one, which was eventually removed.

     The cast-iron lighthouse was still rare in New England when the Portsmouth tower was built. The present tower is a handsome example of the durable, low-maintenance brick-lined cast iron lighthouses developed by the Lighthouse Board.

     According to a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places:  "Distinctive ornamental features not found on pre-1870s lighthouses are the Italianate hoodmolds projecting above arched window openings and the brackets supporting the iron-balustraded platform for the lantern which houses the light."

     The lighthouse was painted a reddish-brownish color until 1902, when it was painted white. Apparently for a time in the early 1920s it was again painted reddish-brown. Since then it has been white.

     The 1903 oil house was abandoned for some years,but it was renovated in May 2004. The $5600 renovation was paid for by the New England Lighthouse Lovers.

     The light was electrified in 1934 and automated in 1960.  The characteristic has been fixed green since 1941. Before the cylinder was installed, the light was produced by a green bulb.

      The lighthouse remains an active aid to navigation and is part of the Fort Constitution Historic Site, adjacent to an active Coast Guard Station.

     In 1998 the lighthouse was made "environmentally friendly" at a cost of over $73,000. The Coast Guard had all the lead paint removed from the exterior and interior of the tower, and it was then repainted. 

     In early 2000 the American Lighthouse Foundation was issued a license to care for the lighthouse. A chapter of the foundation, the Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse, was founded in 2001 to care for the lighthouse, the oil house, and the wooden walkway. 

     Directions:  From I-95 or U.S. Route 1, take the waterfront exit and/or follow the signs to the Strawberry Banke area.  Follow Marcy Street (RT 1B) through this area toward New Castle;  the road becomes New Castle Avenue.  Continue on 1B into New Castle to Wentworth Avenue.  Turn left  (Ft. Constitution Historic Site sign), then bear right to the parking area.  The light can also be seen in the distance from Ft. McClary in Kittery, Maine.

          The grounds of Fort Constitution are open to the public during the day, and there is a good view of the lighthouse from the fort. Visitors are not allowed into the area near the lighthouse, except during open houses held by the Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse.

Jeremy on Duty

      Portsmouth Harbor Light, the only mainland lighthouse on New Hampshire's 18-mile seacoast, can also be viewed from tour boats leaving Portsmouth.

     Credits:  I would like to thank Jeremy D'Entremont, webmaster of, http://www.newenglandlighthouses.net/, for sharing the above history.  Jeremy is a speaker, author, historian, and tour guide who is widely recognized as the foremost authority on the lighthouses of New England.  To view a story on him, go to, (Jeremy D'Entremont).  

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