Avery Point Lighthouse, Groton Connecticut

Date added: November 24, 2023 Categories: Connecticut Lighthouse

South elevation (Branford House, former Plant mansion, in background) looking north (2001)

The lighthouse was built in 1943, shortly after the Coast Guard had opened its Avery Point training center. Prior to this, the Coast Guard had conducted technical training at Fort Trumbull, on the New London side, for cooks, electricians, radio maintainers, and pharmacist's mates, but by 1940 the facility had become inadequate. The Coast Guard wanted to find suitable quarters in the vicinity of New London, where the service had its academy, not only for the expansion of the Fort Trumbull-based programs but also to consolidate other technical training, such as that for gunner's mates, machinists, and radio operators. The plan was for the State of Connecticut to purchase the 70-acre Branford House estate from the heirs of Morton F. Plant for $85,000 and in turn convey it to the Federal Government. Although the latter's initial request for $3 million for the center was defeated in Congress in April 1941, the Coast Guard and the State moved ahead, and eventually, a smaller appropriation was approved that allowed construction to begin. Using Branford House as the administration center of the complex, the Coast Guard erected numerous additional buildings for use as classrooms, laboratories, and barracks, along with ancillary buildings such as a mess hall, auditorium, hospital, recreational center, and steam plant. Most of these buildings utilized concrete-block construction and were expected to have a lifetime of 20 to 25 years. The new training center was officially placed in operation on August 1^st, 1942, and within a few weeks, some 3,000 men arrived. The center trained Coast Guard personnel in all the service's normal and wartime technical duties, including some 500 pharmacist's mates who served aboard destroyer escorts and transports and 6,000 motor machinist's mates who operated landing craft from Normandy to Guadalcanal. Appropriately for a base with a lighthouse, the center also operated an aids-to-navigation training program.

After the war, the center operated at a less harried pace but nevertheless graduated thousands of trained specialists every year. The center added to its curriculum as new technologies, such as radar and loran, emerged, and the programs were offered not only to members of the Coast Guard but also to officers and enlisted personnel from other United States military services and from other countries. The Coast Guard relocated its training programs in 1967 and the land was conveyed back to the State; however, the Coast Guard continued to use part of the facility as its Research and Development Center.

When the State of Connecticut offered to assist the project by obtaining the land, it proposed conveying it to the Federal Government under a statutory power, first enacted in 1929, that allowed the State Treasurer, with the approval of the Governor, to make such grants for the purpose of erecting "beacon lights" and other aids to navigation. The statute obliged the Treasurer to include a reversion clause in the deed to the effect that, should the Government fail to erect the aid to navigation, the State would resume possession of the land. It is not clear why Governor Robert Hurley chose to invoke this statute rather than ask the General Assembly for a special act, but it is probably safe to assume that he acted to accommodate the wishes of local boaters, fishermen, or other maritime interests. Although the Federal Government established lighthouses on its own initiative in the case of major landfall lights or markers for especially dangerous hazards, many other lights, perhaps a majority of all lights, were established as a result of lobbying by local citizens who wished to assist a particular area's commerce and other maritime activities. Thus, although the specific mechanism of the Avery Point Lighthouse's establishment was somewhat unusual, the overall process, the Federal Government responding to state and local interests, was common. The light was intended to particularly benefit small boats seeking to enter Baker Cove on the east side of Avery Point. It also served, in conjunction with the New London Ledge Lighthouse and the light on Pine Island (also erected as part of the Coast Guard training center), to mark a major entrance to New London Harbor from Fishers Island Sound.

Stylistically, lighthouse architecture has followed the general trends in American building. The nation's first lighthouses were plain masonry towers. During the Victorian period, Gothic bargeboard, Second Empire mansard roofs, and other ornamental flourishes appeared. Although a few turn-of-the-century lighthouses were built with some Classical Revival or Colonial Revival detailing, overall the movement from the late 19^th century onward marked a return to a simple, utilitarian appearance. The Avery Point Lighthouse, constructed at a time when resources were scarce, falls within the latter category; concrete-block construction was inexpensive and quick, particularly if no additional exterior finish was called for. However, the unique circumstances of this lighthouse, built on the grounds of a former captain of industry's estate, where apparently some marble balusters were available for re-use, allowed for a little decorative elaboration when it came to the lantern. At the time the lighthouse was built, the Coast Guard referred to its railing balusters and arched windows as providing "a touch of Williamsburg." Besides relieving the plainness of the structure, these Colonial Revival-style details related the lighthouse and the training center to the 1932 buildings at the Coast Guard Academy on the other side of the Thames River, which also had a Colonial theme. Its octagonal plan echoed not only the precedence of the nation's earliest masonry-tower lighthouses but also a tradition of lighthouse-building dating back to Classical times.

A misunderstanding has arisen that the Avery Point Lighthouse was built for commemorative purposes. The story dates from as early as 1955, when an article in the U.S. Coast Guard Magazine asserted that the lighthouse's purpose of serving "as a reminder of the illustrious names from the past" appeared in the deed from the State of Connecticut. However, that language does not appear in the deed, which instead refers to "the promise of the United States of America to erect and maintain on or over the land hereinafter described beacon lights or other buildings and apparatus to be used in aid of navigation.". Prior to the conveyance, Admiral R. R. Waesche stated in a letter to the U.S. Attorney General that "actual use of the property will be made to accommodate two bona fide navigational lights [the Avery Point Lighthouse and a light on Pine Island]," so it is clear that even before construction began, the Coast Guard intended to establish an actual operating light at this location. The fact that the Avery Point Lighthouse appeared in the Coast Guard's Notice to Mariners in 1944 and continuously thereafter in the List of Lights with an official Light Number confirms that the lighthouse was considered a functional aid to navigation throughout the period of its operation.

The Town of Groton has a long maritime history. Originally Groton was part of New London, but by 1705 the population on the east bank of the Thames River had reached the point where the General Assembly established it as a separate town. In addition to the farming families that occupied the interior of the town, Groton's early inhabitants included mariners, fishermen, and shipbuilders in the communities that grew up along the town's several coves and tidal rivers. In 1868 the U.S. Navy established its first facility in Groton, a navy yard on the east bank of the Thames River that later became one of the nation's most important submarine bases.

Today Groton has, in addition to the Avery Point Lighthouse, one other historic lighthouse within its borders, the 1860s Noank Lighthouse.

Site Description

The Avery Point Lighthouse, built in 1943, overlooks the rocky shore of Long Island Sound at the southern tip of the peninsula in Groton, Connecticut, known as Avery Point, which forms the eastern side of the entrance to New London Harbor. The lighthouse consists of an octagonal concrete-block tower, 26 feet tall, surmounted by an eight-sided lantern constructed of wood, the lighthouse's overall height is 41 feet, including the poured concrete slab foundation. The tower measures 14 feet across at the base and somewhat less at the top because of a slight batter (1/8" to the foot). The tower's concrete block walls are gray-brown in color, with a coarse surface created by exposure of the underlying aggregate. Window and door sills and headers are a lighter-colored cast concrete, as is a coping course at the top of the tower. The entrance, with its panel-and-glass wood door, is at the base of the north side; the south side has two windows, while the east, west, and north sides each have one. Most windows are boarded up, but some remain open, with expanded-metal screens protecting six-pane wooden casement sash. The deck at the top of the tower is surrounded by a railing of white marble balusters that were salvaged from a garden or terrace on the property at the time the lighthouse was built. The lantern, 7 ½ feet in diameter, has glazed arched openings and a steep concave eight-sided galvanized-iron roof topped by a wooden ball finial; the corners of the lantern are treated as pilasters, with applied moldings forming the capitals.

The interior of the tower is open for the first 17 feet, above which a watch deck is reached by means of a straight iron ladder. The interior finish is plain, with simple board window surrounds and plaster walls.

Originally the lighthouse had a fixed white light created by an array of eight hanging 200-watt bulbs, one shining through each arched opening in the lantern. The lights were controlled by an electro-mechanical timer and so needed little attention unless a bulb burned out. The array created a 100-candlepower beacon that was visible for up to seven miles at night. The plane of the light was 55 feet above mean sea level. In 1960 the light was changed to flashing green and the candlepower increased to 200. The lighting apparatus was removed from the lantern after the light was discontinued in 1967.

There are no storage buildings, signaling apparatus, or other ancillary structures associated with the lighthouse. At the time of its construction, the lighthouse shared the Avery Point peninsula with a major U. S. Coast Guard training facility, so there would have been no need for storage or maintenance facilities dedicated solely to the lighthouse. Today, the several remaining concrete-block buildings of the Coast Guard training center form part of the University of Connecticut's Southeast Regional Campus. In addition, the campus includes modern classroom and research buildings and the mansion and stables of the former Morton Plant estate (1904), known as Branford House, both of which are stone buildings elaborately detailed in the Tudor Revival style.

Operating Lighthouses in Connecticut
Falkner Island Lighthouse (1802) Falkner's Island
Lynde Point Lighthouse (1838) Old Saybrook
New London Harbor Lighthouse (1801) New London
New London Ledge Light Station (1906) New London
Penfield Reef Lighthouse (1874) Bridgeport
Stratford Point Lighthouse (1881) Stratford
Stratford Shoal Lighthouse (1878)
Tongue Point Lighthouse (1894) Bridgeport
Saybrook Breakwater Lighthouse (1886)
Southwest Ledge Lighthouse (1876) New Haven
Greens Ledge Lighthouse (1902)
Peck Ledge Lighthouse (1906) Norwalk

Map of Lighthouses in Connecticut