We learn from Samuel Flanders, Esq., that a light house is to be erected at Gay Head the coming fall. It is to be located about five or six rods back of the present one. The light, at an altitude of 60 feet, will be seen by mariners over Noman’s Land, which will be of great service. A new dwelling house is also to be erected. An appropriation of $13,000 was made at the last session of Congress to cover the expense of constructing these buildings.
Keepers of the Light will premiere on WGBH 2 on Thursday, Nov. 15 at 9 p.m. and again on Nov. 17, 18 and 21. It will also appear on WGBX on Nov. 16, 17 and 18.
Lighthouses define the character of Martha’s Vineyard. They guide people from land and sea to the same shorelines, sheltering them under beacons of home.
Today, the Island’s lighthouses are deteriorating. Bricks are crumbling in the breeze, and iron is flaking away in the salt air. Before long, these landmarks could be reduced to brittle, rotting shells.
Almost a year to the day after the Gay Head Light resumed its watch over Vineyard Sound and the waters south of Aquinnah, memories of its historic move are still fresh on the Island.
Nobska Light in Falmouth, a familiar landmark on the ferry route between Woods Hole and the Vineyard, is being transferred to the town of Falmouth and the care of a new nonprofit group, Friends of Nobska Light.
The Gay Head Lighthouse Committee wants you to join in to help save the lighthouse and the committee is getting creative. Or rather, the time is for you to get creative and be a part of the lighthouse poetry project.
The idea is straightforward — write a poem about the Gay Head Lighthouse. Stroll your memories for moments spent with the lighthouse. Go back in time or stay with the precarious present moment when erosion threatens the future of the light.
The U.S. Coast Guard has abandoned plans to modernize the optic at the Gay Head Light and will instead maintain the current sweeping beam.
Lieut. Matthew Stuck of the Coast Guard aids to navigation branch said Monday that the Coast Guard has found a replacement optic for the current aging lens at the light. The replacement will likely happen sometime in the next few months.
“We plan to acquire the replacement and install it for the failing rotating beacon,” Mr. Stuck said. “Our hope is to maintain it for the indefinite future.”
