Deer Island Thorofare Light

Year Built

1857

Cost

$5,000

Type

Square Tower

Height

25 feet

Location

near Stonington, Penobscot Bay

Automated Year

1958

First Lit

1857

Lens Type

Fourth Order Fresnel Lens

Fog Signal

Original: Bell - Current: Horn: 1 every 15s, operates continuously

Year Deactivated

Avtive

Color

White with black lantern and red trim

Last Keeper - Date

Richard Kwapiszewski (at least 1954 – 1958)

Description

The station had a building with small square brick tower and a keeper's house. The keeper's house burned down in 1959 and the rest of the buildings were removed shortly thereafter.

Brief History

•  Congress appropriated the requested amount in August, 1856, and six-acre Mark Island was purchased from David and Mercy Thurlow that December for $175.
•  In 1878, the keeper’s dwelling, originally painted brown, was clapboarded and painted white.
•  Ralph Stanley Andrews, Sr., who was a keeper at Mark Island from 1945 to 1948, slipped while boarding a dinghy from a motorboat in the summer of 1946, and as a result, was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down.
•  On September 10, 1958, a battery charger in the basement of the dwelling exploded, causing a fire that quickly spread to other areas of the house.
•  Late in 1997, the Maine Lighthouse Selection Committee, which oversaw the transfer of thirty-five lighthouses under the Maine Lights Program, announced that Island Heritage Trust would be the new owners of Deer Island Thorofare Lighthouse.