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The Martha's Vineyard Museum
 The
following is from New
England Lighthouses, A Virtual Tour, reprinted with permission
from the author, Jeremy D'Entremont. If you are interested in
lighthouses, it's a great site.
The first white settlement on Martha's Vineyard
was established in 1642, and those settlers called the area "Great
Harbor." The well-protected harbor at Edgartown was one of
the island's best.
Martha's Vineyard, like Nantucket, developed a booming
whaling industry in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Between
them, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard owned one quarter of America's
whaling fleet just before the Revolution. By the 1800s, more than
100 Edgartown men were captains of whaling ships. The magnificent
houses built for these captains are still among the most beautiful
in New England.
The whaling industry was going strong in 1828 when
the U.S. Government purchased a plot of land from Seth Vincent
for $80 for the purpose of building a lighthouse at the entrance
to Edgartown Harbor.
A two-story house with a lantern on the roof was
built for about $4,000, with a fixed white light visible for 14
miles. The building was erected by a Mr. Bowker, working for contractor
Winslow Lewis. The house had three rooms on the first floor and
two on the second. This type of lighthouse building was commonly
known as "Cape Cod style," but today no such structures
survive on Cape Cod, with the exception of the much changed Bass
River Lighthouse.
Edgartown Light sat offshore on a stone pier; the
keeper had to row a short distance to the mainland. In 1830 a
wooden causeway was built to the lighthouse at a cost of $2500.
The walkway became known locally as the "Bridge of Sighs"
because men about to leave on whaling voyages would frequently
walk there with their wives or girlfriends.
The first keeper of Edgartown Light, Jeremiah Pease,
was an accountant and surveyor in addition to his lightkeeping
duties. Pease kept the light for 13 years, earning $300 a year.
He later returned to serve six more years as keeper. Both times
Pease, who was a Democrat, was removed for political reasons by
the Whigs. Politics played a large role in the appointment of
keepers before the formation of the Lighthouse Board in 1852.
In 1838 a lighthouse inspector wrote:
"...It cannot be long before Government will
have to reconstruct this breakwater and Light-house, as the
worms have made great havoc with them, and the sea threatens
them with total destruction."
Sylvanus Crocker became keeper in 1841 for $350
per year. Crocker had been employed in the construction of the
lighthouse as a carpenter. In October 1842 Keeper Crocker reported:
"The whole structure was badly done. The
light-house originally stood on a wooden pier; three years ago
it was necessary to replace this with one of stone, the old
pier being entirely decayed and rotten. The frame of the house
was light and weak, and the building always leaky. The lantern
stands upon the roof of the house, and is shaken by the force
of storms, causing other leaks in the roof... The causeway has
been knocked to pieces five or six times, and has been an expensive
concern to keep in sufficient order to cross it with safety.
It is my opinion, the whole establishment was very badly built
in the first place."
In 1847 a new stone breakwater was built for $4700,
replacing the old wooden one. An 1850 inspection reported that
Keeper Crocker was not living in the lighhouse, but had moved
into another house close by, undoubtedly because he considered
the lighthouse unsafe.
The lighthouse and walkway were damaged and repaired
many times through the years. The Hurricane of 1938 pretty much
finished off the old building. The Coast Guard took over the Lighthouse
Service in 1939, and they wasted no time in demolishing Edgartown
Light.
Plans to erect a beacon on a skeleton tower were
objected to by residents, so the Coast Guard came up with an alternate
plan: the relocation of an 1873 cast iron tower from Crane's Beach
in Ipswich. The lighthouse was disassembled and brought by barge
to Edgartown. The 45-foot tower received a modern automatic light
flashing red every six seconds. The days of lighthouse keepers
in Edgartown had ended after 111 years.
The Coast Guard refurbished the lighthouse in 1985.
They sandblasted and repainted the tower and repaired damage done
by vandals, some of it from gunshots.
The lighthouse was leased to the Vineyard Environmental
Research Institute (V.E.R.I.) in 1985. A new plastic lens was
installed in 1990 and Edgartown Light was converted to solar power.
In 1994 the license was transferred to the Martha's Vineyard Historical
Society.
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