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In Montauk, Lighting the Way For Sailors

By George DeWan | Staff Writer

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Almost from its very beginning, the 80-foot-high lighthouse at Montauk Point was, in the words of an early visitor, ``a landmark of the first importance.'' The lighthouse was born in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, when it became clear that safe coastal navigation was essential to the new nation's economic well-being. President George Washington agreed with Congress that a series of lighthouses along the Eastern Seabord was a priority.

``Perhaps no building of this useful kind was ever erected on this side of the Atlantic in a spot where it was more necessary for the preservation of man,'' wrote Yale President Timothy Dwight on his 1804 visit to Long Island.

In 1795, Washington approved plans for a structure that would eventually rise 110 feet above the bluffs that mark the place where the eastern edge of Long Island meets the sea at Montauk Point. Opened in the spring of 1797, it was the first lighthouse built in New York State and the fifth completed by the U.S. government.

Legend holds that even before there was a lighthouse, before the white man came to claim the land, Montaukett Indians would build great fires at Montauk Point to call council meetings. And during the Revolutionary War, when the British occupied Long Island for seven years, the Royal Navy kept a huge fire burning on Turtle Hill -- the Europeans' name for the bluffs that resembled the carapace of a huge turtle -- as a signal beacon for their ships that were blockading Long Island Sound.

Now there stands on Turtle Hill a lighthouse that for two centuries has been a beacon for sailors navigating the treacherous waters that envelop the eastern end of Long Island. Sometimes the sea has won the battle, and the stories are legion of ships that have wrecked within range of the flashing beam that has a range of 24 miles.

In its lifetime, the lighthouse has progressed from smoky whale oil lamps to sophisticated modern lenses. Along the way, it has survived nature's onslaughts and human neglect. The bluffs on which it stands have been chewed at by erosion, and the tower has been buffeted by gales and hurricanes.

Built at a cost of $22,300 on what was originally a 13-acre site, the octagonal tower ismade of sandstone probably imported from Connecticut. By the middle of the 19th Century, the lighthouse was falling apart, and in 1860 it was completely overhauled rather than being torn down, as was originally planned. The wooden floors and windows were gutted and replaced by iron, and new iron decks and doors were installed. The most conspicuous change came in 1900, when the all-white lighthouse was given a horizontal brown band to distinguish it in daytime. Electricity and indoor plumbing weren't installed until 1938.

At one point, the lighthouse seemed doomed. In 1968, continued erosion threatened to topple it into the sea. But a major project turned things around, to the point where there has not been any major erosion in the control area for at least a quarter-century.

The Coast Guard fully automated the lighthouse in 1987, installing a new type of low-maintenance lens that uses a 1,000-watt bulb in front of a parabolic mirror. The Coast Guard then leased the property to the Montauk Historical Society for 30 years. Although the beacon still flashes on top, the remainder of the lighthouse has become a museum.

Today, 110,000 visitors a year visit the end of Long Island, the end of New York State, to see the extraordinary view from the Montauk Lighthouse. It is an almost mystical place, where the rising sun bathes the cliffs in an orange glow, and the ocean's waves play a percussive symphony against the shore.

It is a place for poets. Walt Whitman knew this place well, as he tells us in ``Specimen Days'':

I ... spent many an hour on Turtle Hill by the old lighthouse, on the extreme point, looking out over the ceaseless roar of the Atlantic.