Highland Lighthouse, Highland Road, Truro

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Highland Light is the successor to the first lighthouse built in and is the oldest and tallest lighthouse on Cape Cod. PART

Historical Information Highland Light

Thoreau, Henry David, Cape Cod (New York and Boston: V, II, Thoreau spent a night at the Highland Light in 18U9; he therefore describes the original structure of The editor includes a footnote explaining "The Lighthouse has since been rebuilt, and shows a Fresnel light." "The Highland Lighthouse, where we were staying, is a substantial- looking building of brick, painted white, and surmounted by an iron cap. Attached to it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story high, also of brick, and built by the government. As we were going to spend the night in the lighthouse, we . . . told our host that we would like to accompany him when he went to light up . . .

he led the way first through his bedroom, which was placed nearest to the lighthouse, and then through a long, narrow, covered passageway, between whitewashed walls like a prison entry, into the lower part of the lighthouse, where many great butts of oil were arranged around; thence we ascended by a winding and open iron stairway . . . to a trap-door in an iron floor, and through this into the lantern . . . to a trap-door in an iron floor, and through this into the lantern . . . The light consisted or fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth concave reflectors twenty-one inches in diameter, and arranged in two horizontal circles one above the other, facing every way excepting directly down the Cape. These were surrounded, at a distance of two or three feet, by large plate-glass windows .

. . with iron sashes, on which rested the iron cap. All the iron work, except the floor, was painted white. And thus the lighthouse was completed.. HIGHLAND LIGHTHOUSE MA-750 IPage 2}

Cape Cod Lighthouses

Notes taken "by E. A. Connally in Wellfleet, July-August Kittredge, Henry C, Cape Cod: Its People and their History, (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin., p. 310 throughout its entire colonial history, the Cape had not a single lighthouse . . . and though for fourteen years after we became indepen- dent, sailors had to steer by the stars alone in skirting Monomoy and Peaked Hill Bars, yet once they began, our Congressmen kept on voting money for lighthouses until the coast was adequately illuminated. The first to be built on the Cape was Highland Light. Its foundations were laid in on what the Reverend Levi Whitman of Wellfleet called 'a mountain which is of solid clay in Truro.' It stood unchanged while two generations of sailors kept a safe offing on even the darkest nights.

Then in it was rebuilt into one of the foremost lighthouses of the world, a position which it has held ever since. Its candle- power lantern is unequalled by any other oil burner on this continent. It was soon evident that the varied maritime activities of New England were a source of great profit to the country. Everything that aided."" navigation was therefore encouraged in Congress, and another lighthouse was put up in at Race Point, back of Provincetown. It is now gone as it is completely under water. The fact that the next to appear was on Billingsgate Island, at the entrance to Wellfleeet Harbor, shows clearly what the government thought of the Bay shore fisheries.

This light and its nearest neighbor on the Bay, built at Sandy Neck, Barn- stable, four years later, guided the destinies of fishermen and packet p. 311 captains through the busy decades that followed . . . these two lights still blink reminisceritly . . . In the Government took a grant to a piece of beach grass and sand on Monomoy Point and later erected a lighthouse which showed Chatham fishermen the way home and which, with the Great Point Light on Nantucket, gave coastwise vessels a crossbearing through the dangerous water of the Sound. Georges Bankers were guided in safety around the very tip of the Cape by the Long Point Light, which made its appearance in A dozen years later . . . three lighthouses were put up on Nauset Beach about a mile north of the entrance to the Harbor.

These, with the twin lights of Chatham, and a smaller one at Hyannis, handed vessels on from lighthouse to lighthouse all the way from the Nobsque Point Beacon at Falmouth (built to deep water beyond Peaked Hill Bars and the Race. The old stone tower on Point Gammon went out of business when Bishop and Clark's was put up three miles south of it on a ledge in the Sound. Two others were erected somewhat gratuitously, one at Pamet Harbor, Truro, in and the other at Wood End, Provincetown, in The former was discontinued after six years, when the harbor silted" up to^a'Tnere creek; but Wood End still fills the gap between the Race and Long Point." HIGHLAND LIGHTHOUSE MA-750 (Page 3) CAPE COD LIGHTHOUSES About Cape Cod (Boston, Structure: Name Location Top of Lantern Estab.

Rebuilt above ground Long Point SW side of entrance 37' to Provincetown White square tower Wood End On beach near the 39' Provincetown White pyramidal tower Entrance Race Point On NW point of kQ* Cape Cod White tower Cape Cod On highlands on 66' (Highland NE side of Cape White tower, covered connecting Light) walkway to dwelling. Oldest and tallest light house on Cape Cod. Successor to first light house on Cape Cod. Light is above water. Nauset Beach On beach at Eastham, U81 East side of Cape.

White conical tower Chatham On W side of kQ* Chatham Harbor White conical tower Bishop and On N part of ledge 65' Clerks off Hyannis Gray granite tower Nobs&a Point Point E of 1+0 entrance to Woods White tower Hole Harbor Wing13 Neck Buzzard's Bay 18U9 Hexagonal tower, covered connecting walkway to dwelling. For "3 sisters" and Billingsgate Light See: Eastham, Massachusetts, (by Eastham Tercentenary Committeei Old photos of lighthouses are now gone. HIGHLAND LIGHTHOUSE MA-750 (Page h) CAPE COD LIGHTHOUSES Jeremiah Digges, Cape Cod Skipper (Provincetown, pp. Light house now standing at High Land was built in replacing an earlier structure. Up to it burned oil, now with electricity installed it burns a single lOGO-Watt bulb of candle-power.

The huge bulls-eye lenses stretch this out to the equivalent of four billion candle power. It can be seen for twenty miles under normal conditions. Highland Light Shebnah Rich, Truro Cape Cod or Landmarks and Seamnrks (Boston, 188U) p. 20U . . . "When Isaac Small, the grandfather of Thomas fields and I. Morton Small, sold the Government the Lighthouse site, it embraced ten acres. Since then . . ." Highland Light, North Truro Simeon L. Deyo, History of Barastable County, Massachusetts p. "I. Morton Small, born in 18U6a is a son of James and Jerusha (Hughes) Small, grandson of Isaac, great-grandson of Francis and great- great-grandson of Samuel Small. He has been marine telegraph operator at the Highland station since i860.

He has owned the Highland House since having succeeded his father, who had kept a summer boarding house for eleven years. He married Sarah E., daughter of John Small." Captain Winslow Lewis see D.A.B. Author. Description of the Lighthouses on the Coast of the United States. (Boston, Invented: "Patent Lamps and Reflectors." Winslow Lewis, Review of the Report of I.W.P. Lewis on the State of the Lighthouse on the coast of Maine and Massachusetts (Boston, 18U3). Prepared by: E. A. Connally Historian National Park Service Cape God Survey Summer