Seguin Light is a
lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Lighthouses mar ...
on Seguin Island, in the
Gulf of Maine
The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northeast ...
south of the mouth of the
Kennebec River
The Kennebec River (Abenaki language, Abenaki: ''Kinəpékʷihtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 30, 2011 river within the U.S. state of Maine. It ri ...
,
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...
.
Established in 1795, it is the second-oldest of Maine's coastal lighthouses, and the only lighthouse in the state housing a first-order
Fresnel lens. With its light at
above mean sea-level, the present tower, built in 1857, is its highest of the state's lighthouses. Automated in 1985, the buildings of the light station are now operated as a museum property by a non-profit organization, and are seasonally open to the public via scheduled ferry from Popham Beach in
Phippsburg. The light was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
as Seguin Island Light Station in 1977.
Description and history
Seguin Island is a island located about two
nautical mile
A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...
s south of
Fort Popham
Fort Popham is a Civil War-era coastal defense fortification at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Phippsburg, Maine. It is located in sight of the short-lived Popham Colony and, like the colony, named for George Popham, the colony's leader.
Pr ...
in southernmost Phippsburg. The light station is located at the island's highest point, and includes the lighthouse itself, the keeper's house, fog signal building, a small oilhouse, and a tramway for bringing supplies from the shore to the site. The tower is built of cut granite blocks, and is tall and in diameter at the base. The keeper's house is built of brick, and is stories in height with a gabled roof; it now houses a museum and shop. The oilhouse and fog signal building are also brick. The tramway consists of wooden rails mounted on timber piles.
The light station was established in 1795, in response to a petition by
authorities (Maine then being part of Massachusetts). The first tower was a wood-frame structure completed in 1797. It was replaced in 1820 by a stone tower, which was replaced by the present tower in 1857. Most of the extant structures on the island also date from the 1857 construction period.
[ It is the highest lighthouse on the Maine coast and has the only first order fresnel lens currently used in the state.]
Keepers
The keepers of Seguin Light were:
See also
*
References
{{Authority control
Lighthouses completed in 1857
Lighthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Lighthouses in Sagadahoc County, Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Sagadahoc County, Maine
Georgetown, Maine
1857 establishments in Maine