First lighthouse built in the world was on the small island of Pharos, Alexandria, Egypt. The Pharos lighthouse foundation was built of stone and the tower of masonry. The lighthouse's lower portion was square with the middle portion octagonal and the top of the tower circular. The tower stood approximately 400 feet high. Its light was lit c.280 BC and deactivated between 1303/1323. (Credit to: Wikipedia Encyclopedia. No picture due to copyright and this lighthouse I did not visit.)
The Boston Light in Massachusetts was the first lighthouse built in the United States. It was built on Little Brewster Island in 1716 of granite blocks. The 1716 lighthouse was destroyed during the Revolutionary War but was rebuilt in 1783 to a height of sixty-six feet. In 1859 an additional fifteen feet was added to the tower. The structure is located about nine miles from downtown Boston. The current tower, pictured below, is eighty-nine feet total height, and the lantern room houses a second-order Fresnel lens. At the time of my visit here in 2001, this lighthouse continued in operation and manned by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The oldest existing and continuously operating lighthouse in the United States is the Sandy Hook Lighthouse in New Jersey. It was built in 1764 and is located on the grounds of Fort Hancock, NJ. Since construction, it has undergone reconstruction to ensure continued operation. This lighthouse is twenty-nine feet in diameter at the base and fifteen feet in diameter at the top. Its lantern room houses a 45,000 candlepower light which can be seen for nineteen miles. The U.S. Coast Guard transferred ownership of the lighthouse to the National Park Service in 1996. At the time of my visit here in 2001, this was an active light.
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