Fort Point Light (Maine)

The Fort Point Light, or Fort Point Light Station, is located in Fort Point State Park, in Stockton Springs, Maine. A lighthouse at this point has served as an active aid to navigation since 1835; the present lighthouse dates to 1857, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[3]

Fort Point Light

Fort Point Light in September, 2005.
Location	Penobscot River Entrance
Coordinates	44°28′1.682″N 68°48′42.058″W
Year first constructed	1836
Year first lit	1857 (current structure)
Automated	1988
Tower shape	Square Brick Tower
Markings / pattern	White
Tower height	9.5 metre
Focal height	88 feet (27 m)
Original lens	4th order Fresnel Lens
Current lens	Original
Range	15 nautical miles (28 km; 17 mi)
Characteristic	F W
Fog signal	HORN: 1 every 10s
USCG number	1-3580[1][2]
Heritage	place listed on the National Register of Historic Places
Fort Point Light Station
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Nearest city	Stockton Springs, Maine
Built	1857
Architect	US Army Corps of Engineers
MPS	Light Stations of Maine MPS
NRHP reference No.	87002269[3]
Added to NRHP	March 23, 1988

Setting

Fort Point State Park is located at the easternmost tip of Cape Jellison, a triangular peninsula which juts into Penobscot Bay at the mouth of the Penobscot River. The 120-acre (49 ha) park, established in 1974, includes, in addition to the lighthouse and related station buildings, the ruins of Fort Pownall, built in 1757.[4] The lighthouse is set just southwest of the easternmost point of the peninsula, and south of the fort's remains.

Description

The light station consists of a lighthouse with integrated keeper's house, a barn, an oil house, and a bell house. The square brick lighthouse tower is 26 feet (7.9 m) in height (measured to the height of the lantern), with a square parapet surrounding the octagonal lantern house. The lantern house is capped by an octagonal roof with a spherical ventilator. A narrow single-story brick work room connects the tower to the keeper's house, a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure with its main gable oriented north-south. Its main facade, facing west, is three bays wide, with the entrance set in the rightmost bay in an enclosed projecting gabled vestibule. A single story ell projects to the building's rear.[5]

Just east of the house stands a small barn, that is known to have been standing here since the 1890s. Also standing to the west is the small brick oilhouse, with a single door in one side, and pent gable ends on its roof. Further to the east stands the bell house, a roughly pyramidal wood frame structure finished in wooden shingles. The oil house was built in 1897, the bell house in 1890.[5]

History

The Fort Point Light Station was authorized by Congress in 1834, and built on land purchased from William Clewley, the first keeper. It was the first river light in Maine, built at a time when traffic on the bay and river were increasing. The present tower and keeper's house were built in 1857 as a replacement for the first lighthouse. The original lamp was replaced in 1935, and electrified in 1950. It was automated in 1988 and remains an active aid to navigation.

The light's fourth order fresnel lens is one of only eight fresnel lenses still in use in Maine.[6] The original fog signal, a 1,200-pound (540 kg) cast iron bell, has been replaced by a fog horn in the same building.[2][4] The lighthouse was leased to the state by the United States Coast Guard in 1989, and sold to it in 1998.

• 
  Fog signal tower in September, 2005
• 
  Fog signal bell

See also

• List of lighthouses in Maine
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Waldo County, Maine

References

1. "Historic Light Station Information and Photography: Maine". United States Coast Guard Historian's Office. 2009-08-17. Archived from the original on 2017-05-01.
2. Light List, Volume I, Atlantic Coast, St. Croix River, Maine to Shrewsbury River, New Jersey (PDF). Light List. United States Coast Guard. 2009. p. 31.
3. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
4. "Fort Point State Historic Site". State of Maine, Department of Conservation, Bureau of Parks & Land. Retrieved 2014-09-22.
5. "NRHP nomination for Fort Point Light Station". National Park Service. Retrieved 2015-09-22.
6. "Classical Lenses in Operation" (PDF). US Coast Guard. 2009-08-06. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-25.