Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard

Vacations -

Lighthouses

Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse, ME

Situated on a cliff at the southern end of Mount Desert Island in Maine, by the entrances to Bass Head Harbor and Blue Hill Harbor, the Bass Harbor Head lighthouse was built in 1858 with a 32 foot tall cylindrical, brick tower.  It had a hand-rung fog bell which was replaced in 1898 with a much larger bell that hung from a new building that remains, though the bell has been moved.  The lighthouse was automated in 1976, and remains in use as accommodation for a coast-guard family.  There is a public path to the bell and lighthouse, see the image on the right, although the buildings and most of the grounds are private.  It remains in active service, and shows a red light from the fourth-order Fresnel lens that was installed in 1902, replacing the earlier fifth-order lens. 

Egg Rock Lighthouse, ME

The lighthouse was built in 1875, and comprised a square brick tower standing in the center of the lighthouse keeper’s house.  It had a fifth-order Fresnel lens with a fixed red light.  This structure survived, barely and with many reconstructions, until 1900.  At this time, a second story and a new dormer roof were added, with a more powerful fourth-order Fresnel lens in the following year, and a compressed-air fog horn in 1904.  The lighthouse was automated in 1976 with the removal of the lantern, and the addition of aerobeacons.  Following a number of protests, a new lantern was installed that now houses a VRB-25 aerobeacon. 
 
Attribution
The Smithsonian
The picture to the left is taken from a postcard dated around the late 1940s as the bell was removed around 1949. 
To the right is an historical picture from the Coast Guard Service records.  It shows the bell tower that was added in 1876 and removed later.  This was replaced in 1898 by a new bell with its mechanism housed in a smaller building in front of the old tower, that still stands. 
This picture is somewhat later, taken after the bell was removed and put on display. 
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