Edgartown Light

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Edgartown Harbor Light

(Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts)

By the early 1800s, Edgartown had become a very active whaling port on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard. As an aid to the whaling ships the U.S. Government purchased land at the entrance of the Edgartown Harbor for a lighthouse.

This first lighthouse consisted of a two-story house with the lantern room on its roof. It emitted a white light that could be seen for up to 14 miles. Although initially built offshore, requiring the keeper to use a boat to get to the mainland, a wooden walkway was built in 1830 that extended from the lighthouse to the shore. Due the need for continued repairs, the wooden walkway was replaced by a stone breakwater in 1847.

Lighthouse inspectors and keepers wrote-up the lighthouse as being poorly built and leaky. The keeper in 1850 was reported to have been living in another house nearby, possible because he felt unsafe in the lighthouse. When the U.S. Coast Guard took charge of the lighthouses in 1939 they demolished the lighthouse.

To replace the demolished lighthouse, the Coast Guard disassembled and relocated a 45-foot tall cast iron tower from Crane’s Beach in Ipswich. The tower was equipped with a automatic flashing red light that flashed once every six seconds. The lens was later replaced in 1990 with a plastic type and converted to solar power.

Over time, sand gradually filled in between the lighthouse and the mainland and today if you visit the lighthouse you will find it sitting on a beach.

The lighthouse is now leased to the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society who are responsible for the maintenance of the light.

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