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Tallahassee, FL
$13.00
Title
Portland Head Light
Artist
Carla Parris
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photograph
Description
The New England state of Maine has 65 historical lighthouses still standing. They are dotted along the state’s rocky coastline and among its numerous islands.
The Portland Head Light, featured here, situated on a rocky promontory on the shores of Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, directly south of Portland, Portland Head Lighthouse, is perhaps Maine’s most popular lighthouse. It sits at the entrance to the shipping channel of the region’s beautiful Casco Bay.
The Portland Head lighthouse, built in 1791, was commissioned by George Washington and dedicated by the Marquis de Lafayette. It is the state's oldest lighthouse, and one of the nation’s oldest, as well. Its 80 foot white conical tower is one of only a handful of colonial-era lighthouses that have never been torn down and rebuilt.
Adjacent to the stone and brick beacon is a Victorian keeper's house, with a red roof and “eyebrow eves” on the porch, which was built in 1891 as a duplex for the head keeper, his assistant, and their respective families. This building now houses a museum. Other buildings still standing on the rocky point on the west side of the channel leading to Portland Harbor in Maine where this popular and picturesque Maine landmark is located include a 1975 reconstructed fog signal building, and 1891 oil house, and a garage.
On one of the rocks near the lighthouse, there in an inscription which references the events of Christmas Eve of 1886 when a British ship, the three-masted Annie C. Maguire, struck the rocks at Portland Head, and the lighthouse keeper Joshua Strout, his son, his wife, and volunteers, heroically saved all the ship’s crew by positioning a ladder as a gangplank between the shore and the ledge against which the ship was heeled.
Portland Head Light is a popular tourist attraction for visitors to the Lighthouse State. It can be viewed from the grounds of Fort Williams Park, including from the beautiful flower garden maintained by the volunteers of the Cape Elizabeth Garden Club, as well as from Portland Harbor and Casco Bay.
This Maine icon is a favorite subject matter for artists and photographers. It is also thought likely that the lighthouse was the inspiration for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Lighthouse,” as the poet, who was born in Portland, was a frequent visitor in his younger years.
Currently, the United States Coast Guard maintains the Portland Head Light’s actual light and its fog signal, while the remainder of the property is managed by the Town of Cape Elizabeth. The lighthouse was automated in 1989. Its present optic is DCB-224 (right), and it flashes white every four seconds.
This image was captured in August, 2018.
Uploaded
August 8th, 2018
Statistics
Viewed 191 Times - Last Visitor from White Plains, NY on 03/13/2024 at 8:01 AM
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