East Chop Lighthouse
by Catherine Gagne
Title
East Chop Lighthouse
Artist
Catherine Gagne
Medium
Photograph - Photograph - Photo
Description
The East Chop Lighthouse in Oak Bluffs stands on the site of one of the first telegraph signals, set up in 1828. Signals from Nantucket were received here and relayed on to Woods Hole, Bonnedale, South Plymouth, Duxbury, Marshfield, and Dorchester Heights. A series of raised and lowered arms and flags conveyed news about cargos of ships arriving at Nantucket. The first ship to be announced in this way was The Mercury, bringing in treasures from Sumatra. Jonathan Grout, Jr. set up the system but operated it only six years. In the mid-1800s, Captain Silas Daggett built a privately owned lighthouse on East Chop. It was funded by local merchants who sailed in the area and by some of the ships passing through. Many, however, refused to pay a fee after they arrived safely in port and this, too, lasted only six years.
In 1875, the U.S. government bought the lighthouse and its land for $6,000 and the present cast-iron structure was built on the cliff 79 feet above the sea. Until 1988, when it was painted white, the East Chop Light was fondly called the Chocolate Lighthouse, for its brown-red color.
These lighthouses were beacons in history as well as in navigation, for Vineyard Sound and Nantucket Sound once saw more ships sail through them than any other place in the world except the English Channel. The opening of the Cape Cod Canal in 1914, as well as local weather conditions, changed this.
Featured in: Lighthouses in drawings photographs, AAA Images, Amateur Photographers, Capture New England,
Uploaded
September 15th, 2014
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