Five Mile Point Lighthouse, New Haven Connecticut

Date added: November 23, 2023 Categories:

Lighthouse and keeper's dwelling looking northeast (1990)

In 1789, the newly constituted United States government assumed responsibility for aids to navigation, the first provision for federal public works. There was no clear delineation of responsibility for lighthouses in the federal government until the Treasury Department's Fifth Auditor's Office was given control in 1820; it remained there until 1851. The number of lighthouses increased from just a handful in 1789 to 55 in 1820 (including the original Five Mile Point Lighthouse of 1805), 210 in 1838, and 325 in 1845, when the second Five Mile Point Lighthouse was placed in service. During this period virtually all the lighthouses were of the "landfall" variety, marking the entrances to busy ports. Most of the appropriations for new lighthouses responded to lobbying by individual communities for improved port facilities.

New Haven could easily support its claim for improved aids to navigation. In the late 18^th century and the first years of the 19^th century, traffic through the port expanded many times over as a result of the China trade, the numerous seal hunters based in the city, and the growth of coastal and West Indies trade. New Haven merchants capitalized on their city's role in shipping to become a principal market center for much of Connecticut and the Connecticut Valley. Between 1801 and 1807, more than a million dollars worth of goods passed through the port each year. The first Five Mile Point Lighthouse, which the government completed in 1805, was built to direct the China traders, sealers and packets through the wide mouth of New Haven harbor.

The Embargo Act of 1807 cut New Haven's maritime trade in half, a blow from which the port never recovered. By the time economic conditions assumed some normalcy after the War of 1812, the Erie Canal and a superior deepwater harbor had propelled New York into commercial and maritime leadership. After that, most of the vessels piloted into New Haven past Five Mile Point Lighthouse carried coal consumed in the growing factories of southern New England. When the government built the new lighthouse in 1845, New Haven could no longer claim attention as one of the few dozen most important ports in the nation. In the second half of the 19^th century, public expenditures on the port increased dramatically while the amount of tonnage that passed through New Haven continued to decline. Besides competition from New York, the port of New Haven suffered because of the relatively shallow harbor depth of 15 feet, and because the 4-mile-wide mouth of the harbor permitted wind and waves to slam into the berthing and lading areas. The federal improvement programs involved dredging the harbor and building breakwaters across its mouth. The completion of East Breakwater in the 1870s altered the harbor approach and made Five Mile Point Lighthouse obsolete. Southwest Ledge Lighthouse, at the western end of the breakwater, marked the new channel. When Southwest Ledge was completed in 1877, the government decommissioned Five Mile Point Lighthouse. It remained as federal property until the city acquired the property in 1924 for Lighthouse Point Park.

Through the mid-19^th century, lighthouse construction continued to apply the same vernacular construction methods used for lighthouses during the colonial period, masonry was the only realistic solution to the unique combination of height and stability necessary for landfall lighthouses. Although colonial lighthouses did not follow any centralized policy or design standards, as early as the 1760s a standard pattern had emerged. A typical example was the 1764 Sandy Hook Lighthouse in New Jersey, with its octagonal plan, thick masonry walls (in this case of brick), few windows, and lack of stylistic elaboration. It did not resemble a house or barn, but its construction was well within the capabilities of the builder relying on traditional masonry techniques. Among the surviving examples of similar lighthouses that served Long Island Sound are Montauk Point (1797) and Eatons Neck (1799) in New York, and New London (1801), Falkner's Island (1802), and Lynde Point (1838) in Connecticut. Five Mile Point Lighthouse also shares the same characteristics, and is entirely typical of this era in American lighthouse construction.

One advantage to the continued use of masonry construction was that material and expertise to build the lighthouses could usually be found locally. This was certainly the case with Five Mile Point in the 1840s: the East Haven quarry of Jabez Potter furnished the stone, and New Haven builder Marcus Bassett received the construction contract.

The last all-masonry towers for landfall lights were built in the early 1860s. After that, iron structural members, such as staircases and lanterns, augmented the traditional methods. The 1868 masonry tower at Little Gull Island in Long Island Sound, for instance, has a cast-iron staircase. By the early 1870s, the government had developed standard plans for prefabricated, all-iron lighthouses made of plates that could be bolted together on site. The lantern on Five Mile Point Lighthouse, which probably dates from the late 1860s or early 1870s, illustrates the use of the new iron-construction technique applied to upgrade an existing structure. The 1860s also saw the beginning of stylistic elaboration in the design of lighthouse towers, such as Little Gull Island, which has a Classical pediment over its entry. Subsequent lighthouses, in all materials, usually featured peaked or molded lintels at windows and entries, or fancy brackets supporting gallery decks. Five Mile Point Lighthouse thus stands near the end of the traditional period in American lighthouse design.

Site Description

Five Mile Point Lighthouse, which was placed in service in 1845, is an octagonal brownstone tower with white-painted walls. Some 30 feet east of the lighthouse stands the keeper's dwelling, a brick building erected during the War of 1812, when an earlier lighthouse was in place at this site. Five Mile Point Lighthouse (so-named because it stands about five miles from the center of New Haven) marked the eastern side of the entrance to New Haven Harbor from Long Island Sound. The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1877, when Southwest Ledge Lighthouse, which stands on a breakwater south of this site, was placed in service. The lighthouse and dwelling stand in the city-owned Lighthouse Point Park, which includes an early 20th-century carousel, a ranger station, and a bathing pavilion, and several acres of waterfront property.

The lighthouse is built on top of a ledge outcropping. It is about 80 feet tall, and each of its sides is approximately 10 feet wide at the base. The walls, foundation, and steps are all built of large brownstone blocks. The west side of the tower, which faces the harbor, has three small rectangular window openings, one at ground level, one halfway up, and one immediately below the lantern deck; the sash has been removed and the openings are filled with brick or plywood. The entrance, facing south, is a simple rectangular opening fitted with a steel security door. The tower is. surmounted by a round lantern made up of cast-iron plates bolted together; the lantern has a conical roof. The lantern was probably installed in the late 1860s or early 1870s, when American lighthouse technology began to use prefabricated iron components.

The tower is lined with brick, and the total wall thickness is approximately 3-1/2 feet at the base. The walls taper to a thickness of about two feet at the top. The stone walls and the brick lining are tied together by means of brownstone blocks placed at regular intervals around the tower. The circular stairway consists of large granite winders, each of which has a central lobe to accommodate stacking. Inside the lobes, there is probably a doweled or keyed joint, but no such feature is visible. The outside edge of each step is let into the brick lining. The back sides of the steps are chiseled to make a gracefully curving helix. Iron eye-bolts in the brick lining are all that remain of the railing. The steps ascend continuously with no landings to the watch-deck immediately below the lantern, where they end in a floor made of a single granite slab. From the watch deck, an iron ship's ladder provides access to the lantern, which has vertical beaded-board walls below the windows. There is no historic equipment in the lantern. An iron door in the base of the lantern permits access to the gallery surrounding the lantern.

The keeper's dwelling is a gable-roofed, 2-and-1/2-story brick house with flat granite lintels. Its south-facing facade features three symmetrically placed bays with a central entry; a 20th-century porch obscures the first story. A cross-gabled ell extends from the back of the house. Both the main body and the ell have simply molded, partially returned wooden cornices, above a frieze of raised brick. A low-frame shed is attached to the rear of the ell; when the light was in operation, this shed was probably used to store illuminating oil and other supplies.