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Boon Island Lighthouse Fun Facts
Location: Off York Beach on Boon Island
Closest City: York, Maine
Latitude: 43.18 Longitude: -70.4
Body of Water: Atlantic Ocean
Open to Public: No
Station Established: 1811
Present Tower Activated: 1855
Status of Light: Operational
Tower Height: 133 ft.
Optic: VRB-25, Solar Powered, 1993
Second Order Fresnel, 1855
National Register Reference #: 88000153
Listing Name: Boon Island Light Station
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The early history of the Boon Island lighthouse is littered with the ruins of consecutive towers built and subsequently destroyed by the ferocious storms that incessantly pound this site. It is quite a stretch to call this 700-foot long barren, plantless, rock ledge an island. Keeper's over the generations commonly brought soil from the mainland to the station to facilitate attempts at gardening.
All it took was the right storm to scuttle these horticultural forays onto the rocks and into the sea. For two centuries prior to the establishment of the station, nearby fisherman regularly staged emergency supplies as a "boon" to any mariners stranded on the island. Stories of cannibalistic behavior by shipwrecked mariners are common throughout the annals of Boon Island.
In mid-1800, at the urging of the Massachusetts Superintendent of Lighthouses, a fifty-foot wooden, octagonal beacon, 16 feet in diameter, was completed at a cost of $600. The station only withstood nature's wrath for four
years before being toppled in the fall of 1804. In the summer of 1805, a stone tower with beacon was erected but was later deemed an insuffcient aid to navigation. In 1811, bids were taken to construct a new tower which was completed by that winter for just over $2,500. This structure was sturdier than its predecessors but met the same fate in 1831 when it and its beacon were swept into the sea by a violent gale.
In 1852, the U.S. Congress designated $25,000 to build a granite, cylindrical lighthouse with focal plane 137 feet above sea level.
With a 25 foot diameter base that tapers to 12 feet at the top, this tower was to be signicantly larger and stronger than any of its predecessors and remains operational at the site today. Completed in 1855 with a second order Fresnel lens, the Boon Island lighthouse tower is the tallest in Maine. A keeper's house was also constructed in 1855. Over time, a foghorn and boathouse were added.
Keeper tours of duty on Boon Island were generally short. One exception was William W. Williams who spent 27 years on this isolated station from 1885 to 1911. Keepers used carrier pigeons to stay in contact with the mainland on a regular basis. The light was automated in 1980, two years after a blizzard in 1978 caused extensive damage. The keeper's house and all other buildings, excluding the tower and it black lantern, are no longer standing, having fallen victim to storm activity. A solar-powered VRB-25 aerobeacon replaced the 120,000 candlepower Fresnel in 1993. The Fresnel lens can be viewed at the Kittery Historical and Naval Museum in Kittery, Maine.
Boon Island, less than 1/3 of a mile wide, is just over six miles southeast of Cape Neddick and nine miles off the coast of York. In 2000, the lighthouse was leased to the American Lighthouse Foundation. The site is presently managed by a private, non-profit group called the Republic of Boon Island and is closed to the public.
Lighthouse Accessibility
- The site is closed to the public and is best seen by boat
or air.
- The lighthouse can be seen distantly from the shore in York.
- Check locally in Kittery, York Harbor, Cape Neddick,
Ogunquit, and Kennebunkport in Maine and
Portsmouth NH for Boat tour availability and directions.
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