Built in 1828. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. 17 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1887.
From the record
“Edgartown Harbor Light is a lighthouse located in Edgartown, Massachusetts, United States, where it marks the entrance to Edgartown Harbor and Katama Bay. It is one of five lighthouses on the island of Martha's Vineyard.”
Wikipedia article Edgartown Harbor Light, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 23 National Register listings published here for Dukes County · listed in 1987 · category: Structure · built in 1828.
National Register reference number.87001465- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Then and now
1887 to 1994
The ground this property stands on, surveyed
107 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are
United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.
18871994
Fires near this property
11 since 2018
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 11 fires within 5 miles of Edgartown Harbor Light
between 2018 and 2020, burning about 2 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
9
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
1
Fireworks
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 3,701 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Edgartown Harbor Light between 1828 and 1975: 2,343 Animalia, 1,018 Plantae, 171 Chromista, 115 Unrecorded, 42 Fungi, 12 Bacteria.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A AND P STARRETT, A. B. Hervey, A. B. Seymour and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
1 working within 5 miles of Edgartown Harbor Light: 1 past producer.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Edgartown, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 2000 and 2021: 4 thunderstorm wind, 2 flood, 1 hail.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Beach Road and Main Street were closed in Edgartown due to flooding. In Vineyard Haven, a car was stuck in flood waters on Water Street near the Black Dog bakery. The bakery itself was flooded with a foot of water. Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs was flooded and impassable. In West Tisbury, Beach Road was flooded and impassable in the area of the gas tanks.
Amateur radio operators reported two mesonet wind gust observations from Edgartown...58 mph at Cape Poge at 615 PM EST and 69 mph at Chappy Ferry Point. The Edgartown Police reported half of a tree down on School Street at 630 PM EST.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is reproduced in full on its own page, word for word and never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 87001465, 11 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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