Maine - Cape Neddick Lighthouse

The Cape Neddick Lighthouse is located at York, ME. Its beginning started in 1807 with repeated requests being ignored for several decades to build a lighthouse atop "the Nubble;" a few hundred feet offshore from the eastern end of Cape Neddick. Finally, in 1874 a forty-one foot cast-iron tower was authorized by President Rutherford B. Hayes, and the light station was placed in operation in 1879.

Nubble Light, as the lighthouse is more popularly called, is a cast-iron structure lined inside with brick. After completion the tower was painted red, but since 1902 it has been painted white. The distinctive red oil house was built in 1902, and the covered walkway connecting the keeper's house and tower were added in 1911. The light station originally had a fog horn bell and bell tower. This structure was razed in 1961. An 1891 fourth-order lens was still in use at the time of my visit, although it was not the original lens installed. A bucket suspended on a line across the channel was used to transport supplies to the station. The conical tower measures thirty-nine feet from the ground level to the center of the lantern, which shows a red light eighty-eight feet above the ocean. The last keeper left here in 1987 when the light was automated.

At the time of my visit in 1997, the station was maintained by the town of York and had received more than three-hundred offers from people desiring to be live-in caretakers. Some restoration work had been done with a 1989 grant from the Maine Historic Preservation Committee.

This lighthouse and grounds are among the most appealing and photographed in the world, with an estimated 250,000 visitors annually. In 1977 NASA sent Voyager II into space with several items aboard that were designed to teach extraterrestrial civilizations about our planet. A picture of "Nubble Light" was among the images included.

Maine - Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse

This lighthouse is located at Rockland, ME and sits at the end of a 4,300 foot long granite barrier. The barrier lays across the north side of the entrance to Rockland Harbor. Building started at the end of the nineteenth century and lasted over a twenty-year period. It sheltered vessels and wharves against the open ocean. Then, in 1895 a brick fog signal building was built atop a granite foundation at the outer end of the uncompleted sea wall, at the time. Seven years later, a twenty-five foot high square brick tower and attached two-story gambrel-roofed keepers house were added. The lighthouse projects from the northwest corner of the fog signal house. It was equipped with a fourth order Fresnel lens which provided navigational assistance until 1965. It was removed and replaced by an automated light.

Years later the City of Rockland acquired the lighthouse and formed The Friends of Rockland Breakwater Light. They raise funds to preserve and maintain the historic structure. I visited this lighthouse in 1997, and to get to this compact light station and see it up close, one had to walk the length of the forty-three-foot-wide breakwater. It contains over 750,000 tons of cut granite boulders. If you visit, pick up your feet or you'll be tripping on the jagged edges of granite.

Maine - Portland Head Lighthouse

The Portland Head Lighthouse is located at Fort Williams State Park, Cape Elizabeth, ME. Construction of Maine's oldest lighthouse began in 1787, but was abandoned before much could be accomplished due to lack of funds. In 1789 the new nation's first Congress appropriated $1,500 to complete the project. In November 1790 it was concluded, and President George Washington appointed Captain Joseph Greenleaf as the first keeper.

The fieldstone tower originally stood seventy-two feet high overall, but was shortened by more than one-third in 1813. It was restored in 1865 following public outcry over the loss of forty-two lives in the unfortunate shipwreck of the transatlantic steamer Bohemiam along the Cape Elizabeth shore. Local residents loudly protested a second lowering of the tower in 1883. They succeeded in having the cropped amount built back, and this time utilizing brick. The overall tower structure now rises eighty-feet above the rocky headland, and beams its white light from one-hundred-one feet above sea level.

The morning of my visit to this lighthouse in 1997, the fog was so thick the lighthouse was barely visible upon my arrival in the parking lot. After waiting for several minutes the fog finally moved and enabled me to cautiously walk along the rocky shore to get this picture. Although the top of the tower remained in the fog, I was able to take the picture at the moment the white light flashed through the fog. This can be seen better if you click on the picture.

Maine - Goat Island Lighthouse

The Goat Island Lighthouse is located at Cape Porpoise, ME. Originally it was called Cape Porpoise Harbor Lighthouse for the place of shelter it oversees. The cylindrical lighthouse stands at the South end of Goat Island, on the East side of the entrance to Cape Porpoise Harbor. The original tower was built of split stone in 1835 and stood twenty feet high. It was replaced in 1859 by the present one made of brick, painted white, and slightly larger.

Goat Island was the last Maine light station to have an active Coast Guard keeper. Former Boatswain's Mate "Brad Culp" gave up the post in the summer of 1990. During his tour of duty, Culp received occasional visits by U. S. president George Bush, at the time, who enjoyed vacation retreats to his family home at nearby Walker's Point. Secret Service agents attached to the president used the former keeper's house as a security post, coming and going via helicopter.

In 1992, the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust leased the light station and maintain it for educational purposes, at the time of my visit in 1997. Fog made it challenging to take this photo.

New York - Dunkirk (Point Gratiot) Lighthouse

The Dunkirk (Point Gratiot) Lighthouse is located off the harbor of Dunkirk, NY, Lake Erie. It is the second lighthouse to be here. The first one was built in 1827 a short distance from here. This tower and dwelling pictured above were built in 1857 to replace the first one. The dwelling is made of red brick and the sixty-one foot high tower is made of limestone. The square tower contains a spiral cast-iron staircase with fifty-five steps to the lantern room. At the time of my visit in 2001 the tower was open to the public.

New York - Barcelona (Portland Harbor) Lighthouse

This lighthouse and dwelling are located on a bluff off Portland Harbor, Lake Erie, Barcelona, NY. Both were built of split field stone, native to the area. The tower is forty-feet high with a twenty-two foot diameter base which tapers up to ten-feet in diameter at the top. The walls are three and a half-feet thick at the base, and graduate to two-feet thick at the top. At the time of construction in 1829, eleven stationary oil-lamps were installed.

Later that same year the contractor, Judge Thomas Campbell, knowing that gas lights were being used successfully at Fredonia, became interested in the possibility of using gas instead of oil for the lighthouse lamps. On land near the lighthouse a "burning spring" was located, and that plot was purchased. The presence of the "burning spring" and the inflammability of its product had been known long before settlement of the county, according to records of French explorers, and from an early survey of the township.

Gas was piped about three-fourths of a mile from the spring to the lighthouse in wooden pipes, and then to the top of the lighthouse in iron pipes. On July 5, 1830, using the original lamps, gas lights were turned on in the lighthouse, thereby making the Barcelona Lighthouse the first lighthouse in the world to be lit by natural gas.

In 1859 use of the lighthouse was discontinued. According to the deed, the land on which the lighthouse was built was to revert back to the original owner at such time it was no longer needed for a lighthouse. At the time of my visit in 2001 this was a private residence.

New York - Latimer Reef Lighthouse

The Latimer Reef Lighthouse was built in 1884 and is located at the West end of a half-mile long reef, in the main channel of Fisher Island Sound, New York. Due to its close proximity to the state of Connecticut, it is thought by many to be a lighthouse of that state instead of NY. I took this picture from the Connecticut shore line in 2001. At the time of my visit this was an active light.

Pennsylvania - Presque Isle Lighthouse

The Presque Isle Lighthouse is located in the Presque Isle State Park, Lake Erie, PA. It was built in 1873. The final lighthouse design incorporated brick construction and the tower is five courses thick to enable it to withstand the severe cold and winds coming off the lake. Overall cost was $15,000 and the tower was originally forty-feet high. Then in 1896 the tower was increased to a height of fifty-seven feet. The tower is square on the outside, but inside it is circular and has a spiral staircase.

Attached to the tower is a ten-room residence that has retained much of the original architectural character. Conveniences such as running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity were not added until many years later. The interior of the residence still reflects a typical nineteenth century French architectural design with rounded corners and hand crafted woodwork. Most of the wood was milled from trees near the lighthouse.

The "oil room", later battery room, located at the base of the stairway was used to store a one night supply of oil for the lamp. Keepers kept a night-long vigil to ensure continuous flashing of the light to aid the heavy lake traffic of the 1800's. I visited this lighthouse in 2001, but was unable to see inside due to it being a residence.