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Great Duck Island Lighthouse Fun Facts
Location: Blue Hill Bay Approach
Closest City: Frenchboro, Maine
Latitude: 44.1423 Longitude: -68.2451
Body of Water: Gulf of Maine
Open to Public: No
Station Established: 1890
Present Tower Activated: 1890
Status of Light: Operational
Tower Height: 42 ft.
Optic: VRB-25, Solar Powered, 1986
Fifth Order Fresnel, 1890
National Register Reference #: 88000159
Listing Name: Great Duck Island Light Station
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Located 5.5 miles southeast of Bass Harbor at the Blue Hill Bay approach, Great Duck Island is known for its birds and legends. The island plays host to thousands of birds each summer that turn this isolated strip of land into a huge nesting ground. In addition to ducks, Black Guillemots and Leach's Storm Petrels are known to nest here. The Nature Conservancy, which bought the island in 1984 from a psychiatrist that used it as a counseling retreat, has estimated that this island alone is the seasonal home of 20 percent of all of Maine's nesting seabirds.
Built in 1890, the Great Duck Island lighthouse holds the record for greatest number of keeper's children in one family. Nathan Reed, keeper from 1902 to 1912, and his wife Emma were parents to 16 children while tending to the light here. Reed helped established a one-teacher schoolhouse on the island which was attended by his children as well as the children of two other keepers and a lobsterman who lived on the island. It was not unusual for inhabitants of Great Duck Island to go weeks and months without contact from the mainland. Maine's nasty gales even prevented the mail boat from making regular stops. Once the weather cleared, inhabitants would receive bundles of mail and old newpapers that had accumulated during the latest storm.
The cylindrical, white, brick and granite tower stands 42 feet high and has remained much the same as when it was built. While the schoolhouse is no longer standing, the 1.5 story, wooden keeper's quarters (1890), brick fog signal building (1890), storage building (1890), boathouse (1890), stone oil house (1901), and boat ramp are still at the site. The Great Duck Island lighthouse was one of the last in Maine to be run by keepers, not being automated until 1986, when it fifth-order Fresnel lens was replaced with a solar-powered VRB-25 aerobeacon. The fog signal building was renovated in 1994 by the Nature Conservancy. The boat ramp was renovated in 1999. The keeper's quarter have been converted into the Alice Eno Biological Station, an ecological research facility, by the College of the Atlantic which now owns the island.
As one legend tells it, a ship wrecked near the island, killing the entire crew. Two crewman were found amongst the rock, huddled in a frozen embrace. Island inhabitants took it upon themselves to bury the unfortunate mariners. The ground was so cold they had to use picks. Upon being notified of the tragedy, the sailors' families came to the island to claim the bodies. Once the families saw the care with which their loved ones had been treated, they allowed them to remain on the island and fenced the gravesite. It became a tradition of keepers on this island to lay a wreath each Memorial Day at the gravesite.
Another shipwreck story involves the reuniting of a captain and his dog. The captain had abandoned a doomed ship for a lifeboat. The captain's dog was hit in the head by an oar during the escape, fell into the water, and was presumed dead. In fact, the dog made it to Great Duck Island where it was nursed back to health by a daughter of the current keeper. Two years later, the captain happened to stop at Great Duck and saw the dog. Calling out to him, the dog immediately came running, happy to see his old master. The two enjoyed their visit for two days until it came time for the captain to leave.
The dog followed the captain into his dory as if to depart. The keeper's daughter, saddened at the thought of losing her friend, cried out. Upon hearing this, the dog ran back onto the island and into the arms of the young lady that had so cared for him.
The Great Duck Island lighthouse and surrounding area are managed by the College of the Atlantic Island Research Center and are closed to the public. Not easilty visible from land, photo opportunities are best found by boat or air at the south end of the island.
Lighthouse Accessibility
- This lighthouse is not accessible by land and is best
seen by boat or air.
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