Edgartown Harbor Light

[photo]
Historic photo of first Edgartown Harbor Light, from the perspective of a row boat
Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard
First established in 1828, Edgartown Harbor Light consisted of a two-story house with a lantern rising from the roof. The station occupied the top of a rectangular stone pier requiring the first lighthouse keeper to row a short distance to shore to obtain supplies. A wooden causeway constructed in 1830 connected the lighthouse to shore and in 1847 a stone breakwater replaced the causeway. The condition of the light station worsened throughout the years and the Hurricane of 1938 caused extensive damage.

[photo]
Edgartown Harbor Light
Photo by Jeremy D'Entremont, www.lighthouse.cc

In 1939, the Lighthouse Service merged with the U.S. Coast Guard, which assumed all duties related to aids to navigation. The U.S. Coast Guard immediately demolished Edgartown Harbor Light, but retained the stone pier. Edgartown residents rejected the Coast Guard's initial plan to erect a beacon atop a skeletal tower. Instead, a 45-foot tall, conical, cast-iron tower constructed in 1875 at Crane's Beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts, where it had been one of two range lights, was moved to Edgartown by barge, and reassembled on the original stone pier in 1939. The new Edgartown Harbor Light was at once automated and unmanned, thus concluding 111 years of employing lighthouse keepers at the station. The Coast Guard restored the light station in 1985. In 1990, a solar-powered modern optic replaced the fourth-order Fresnel lens. Over the decades sand gradually filled in the area between the lighthouse and the mainland, therefore Edgartown Harbor Light is now located on the beach and it continues to operate as an active aid to navigation.

Edgartown Harbor Light is located off North Water St. on the west side of Edgartown Harbor opposite Chappaquiddick Island. Edgartown Harbor Light is owned by the U.S. Coast Guard and leased to the Martha's Vineyard Historical Society. At this time, the lighthouse is not open to the public as there is no internal staircase. In 2001, the lighthouse was dedicated as the Children's Lighthouse Memorial. For further information visit the Memorial's website.

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