Pemaquid Point Light — lighthouse
Dennis G. Jarvis · CC BY-SA 2.0

Pemaquid Point Light

  • 1 min read
  • 43.837° N 69.506° W

Interesting facts

  • The first lighthouse on the point was commissioned in 1827 under President John Quincy Adams.
  • After the first tower crumbled because salt water had been used in its mortar, the contract for its 1835 replacement specifically required fresh water only.
  • The original light used an Argand-Lewis parabolic reflector and could be seen for only about two miles.
  • Keeper Marcus Hanna earned his Medal of Honor for bravery on 4 July 1863 and his Gold Lifesaving Medal for a rescue at Cape Elizabeth in January 1885.
  • Maine residents chose the lighthouse by popular vote for their state quarter, which also shows a three-masted schooner modelled on the Victory Chimes.
  • The striped ledges below the tower began as sediments about 430 million years ago, later metamorphosed into gneiss and cut by white veins of igneous rock.
  • The bell house beside the tower originally held a fog bell rung by a weight-driven mechanism, with the weight hanging in its small tower.
  • Nearby lies the site of colonial Pemaquid, where English settlers stayed after their ship, the Angel Gabriel, was wrecked by the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635.

Why it is worth it

At Pemaquid Point the coast of Maine ends in great sloping ledges of banded grey rock that run down into the Atlantic like the tilted pages of a book, and on top of them stands a small white lighthouse. The combination of the rough shore, breaking surf and the neat tower above it has made Pemaquid one of the most painted and photographed lighthouses in New England; in 2003 it was chosen to appear on Maine's state quarter.

The first tower here was built in 1827, but it was so badly made that it soon began to crumble: the builder had mixed the mortar with salt water. It was replaced in 1835 by the present conical stone tower, whose light stands 79 feet above the sea. In 1856 it received a fourth-order Fresnel lens, which is still in service, one of only a handful of such lenses still working in Maine. The station was automated in 1934. One of its keepers, Marcus A. Hanna, is the only person ever to have been awarded both the Medal of Honor, for his service in the Civil War, and the Gold Lifesaving Medal. The keeper's house now holds the Fishermen's Museum, devoted to the fishing life of the peninsula, and the lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

The point marks the tip of the Pemaquid peninsula in the town of Bristol, Lincoln County, at the entrance to Muscongus Bay. The peninsula is a landscape of fishing harbours, coves and spruce woods reaching out into the Gulf of Maine.

Getting there

Pemaquid Point is at the southern end of the Pemaquid peninsula in Bristol, Maine. The nearest larger town is Brunswick, about 38 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport is Knox County Regional (RKD) near Rockland, about 41 km away.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in the United States 228The Most Beautiful Lighthouses in the United States 5The Most Beautiful Lighthouses 26The Greatest Engineering Wonders in the United States 26The Greatest Engineering Wonders 271

From the encyclopaedia

The Pemaquid Point Light is a historic U.S. lighthouse located in Bristol, Lincoln County, Maine, at the tip of the Pemaquid Neck.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

43.83667, -69.50583per Wikidata