This Lighthouse in Maine had a Keeper until 1990

Goat Island Light Station, Cape Porpoise Maine

Date added: January 29, 2025

Categories:
Maine
Lighthouse

Light Tower, Southwest and Northwest Sides (1989)

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The light station at Goat Island was established in 1833 as a guide to the harbor of refuge at Cape Porpoise.

Located on the south side of treeless Goat Island, the light station serves not only as a navigational aid to the entrance of Cape Porpoise Harbor but also as a warning beacon to the numerous small islands and rock shoals that populate this short stretch of coast northeast of Kennebunkport. The original configuration of the station is not positively known, although the 1848 light list indicates that the tower was approximately twenty feet in height. In 1859 the tower and dwelling were pulled down and their present replacements built. Goat Island Light Station was one of the last manned lights in Maine. It was automated in 1990.

Site Description

Goat Island Light Station consists of a detached cylindrical brick tower, a one-and-a-half-story frame keeper's house, a boathouse and a brick oil house. The dwelling and tower were formerly connected by way of a long covered passageway.

The round configuration of the tower, built in 1859, clearly indicates its mid-nineteenth-century date of construction and thereby its relationship to a number of other Maine lights. The tower is twenty-five feet in height from its base to the center of the octagonal lantern. Its west face is punctuated by a single window near the base. A circular walkway and railing surmount the tower. The lantern is crowned by a spherical ventilator. Jutting from the north of the tower is a small brick workroom containing two doors. It was formerly connected to the long covered passage that extended to the house. An open wooden walkway has replaced this feature.

Facing north, the L-shaped 1859 keeper's house, which is sheathed in clapboards, has a three-bay facade and a pair of gable-roofed dormers. A pair of replacement bay windows flank the small, centrally placed gable roofed vestibule. Replacement windows, two on each story, are located in the gable ends. The one-and-a-half-story ell telescopes from the southwest corner. It has a gable-roofed dormer on its west side and a one-story wing extending to the south. The rear elevation features a short, enclosed hip-roofed porch and a dormer. Documentary photographs of the house show that when it was first built it was covered in board-and-batten siding and had no dormers.

Standing to the west of the dwelling is the 1905 frame boathouse complete with its boat slip. It has a door on its east gable end, windows on both side elevations and is covered in clapboards.

The brick oil house is located midway between the light tower and boathouse. It has a typical early twentieth-century configuration featuring a gable roof and a door and vent in one gable end.