Goat Island Light

Year Built

1835

Cost

$6,000

Type

Cylindrical

Height

25 feet

Location

Kennebunkport

Automated Year

1990

First Lit

1859

Lens Type

Fifth order Fresnel Lens

Fog Signal

Horn every 15 seconds

Year Deactivated

Active

Color

White with black lantern

Last Keeper - Date

Bradley Culp (1985 – 1990)

Description

The conical rubblestone tower, topped by an octagonal wrought-iron lantern, was first lit in August 1833. The lighthouse stood twenty feet tall and had a focal plane of thirty-eight feet above mean high water. The original keeper’s dwelling was a stone house with three rooms on its first floor and another three rooms in its smaller upper story.

Brief History

•  Congress appropriated $6,000 on March 3, 1831 for a lighthouse at or near Cape Porpoise.
•  McCulloch was finally paid $300 for the title to Goat Island in 1846.
•  John Lord, the light’s first keeper, came from an upstanding local family and earned $350 per annum. Thatcher Hutchins succeeded Lord as keeper in 1841.
•  In 1992, the station was leased to Kennebunkport Conservation Trust, and in 1998, title to the station was turned over to the trust under the Maine Lights Program.
•  Problems with the foghorn began in 2007, the year Dombrowski hung American and Russian flags at the lighthouse to honor a visit to the nearby Bush estate called Walker’s Point by President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.