Notes:
(1) Ten Pound Island Lighthouse marks Ten Pound Island and aids mariners approaching Gloucester’s inner harbor.

      Gloucester was settled in 1623 as the second permanent settlement of the early Pilgrims in America.  Early settlers depended on the sea for survival and Gloucester Harbor’s first fishing wharf or fishing stages (drying areas) was built in 1624 by the Pilgrims who settled an area now known as Stage Fort Park.  Yet, Ten Pound island was primarily used for grazing sheep with grounds for 10 paddocks or “pounds” of sheep, which is the most likely origination of the island’s name: Ten Pound.  Another tradition claims the settlers bought the island from the Indians for ten British pounds.

      In 1713, the fisheries became Gloucester’s leading business when Capt. Andrew Robinson built the first fishing schooner which allowed fishermen to reach new fishing grounds.  By 1820, a Lighthouse was needed for the safe return of a increasing fishing fleet catching mackerel which became the became the principal fishery of the port.

      In 1821, a 20-feet high Stone Lighthouse was erected to guide the expanding fishing fleet around Ten Pound Island and to mark the entrance to the inner harbor of Gloucester.  The “birdcage” style Lantern exhibited a Fixed White light illuminated by ten oil lamps and reflectors.  A stone Keeper’s house was also constructed in 1821.

      By 1842, Keeper Amos Story noted the deteriorating conditions of the poorly constructed dwelling and tower by reporting the rotten wood work and leaky structures.  A new Lighthouse was built 39 years later.  During the 1850s, the Light was refitted with a Fifth-order Fresnel Lens.

      During the year of 1880, American artist, Winslow Homer, lived at Ten Pound Island Lighthouse with the Light Keeper.  A summer artist colony has existed at Rocky Neck in East Gloucester since Winslow Homer painted about fifty scenes of Gloucester Harbor in the summer of 1880.  A year later in 1881, a new 30-feet high cast-iron Tower, lined with brick, was built.

      From 1889 to 1954, the island was also used as a United States Fish Hatchery.  Ten Pound Island also served as the U.S. Coast Guard’s first continuously operational air station* known as “Base 7” from May, 1925 to February, 1935.  Three seaplanes were used for search and rescue operations yet many of the Coast Guard missions searched for the elusive “rum-runners” during the days of Prohibition.

      From 1956 to 1989, The U.S. Coast Guard replaced the Lighthouse by an automated light on a Skeletal Tower.  The 1881 Lighthouse was restored between 1987 and and 1989 due to the efforts of the Lighthouse Preservation Society, funding from the City of Gloucester, and a matching grant from the Massachusetts State Historical Commission.  The modern automatic light was moved from the Skeletal Tower to the renovated Lighthouse and activated on the 200th anniversary of the Lighthouse Service.

      Scenes of the Lighthouse and Ten Pound Island are in the movie, “THE PERFECT STORM,” a film documenting the loss of the 70-feet Swordfishing Boat, Andrea Gail, and her crew caused by a devastating storm of the century originally named the “Halloween Gale,” or the “No-name Northeaster of ’91.” The violent storm, named “The Perfect Storm” by the National Weather Service, was produced by the confluence of three violent weather systems: a High Pressure system, a extra-tropical cyclone, and Hurricane Grace that formed the Perfect Storm over Sable Island creating 100-feet high waves and 120-mph wind gusts at the storm’s peak intensity.  The violent tempest caused havoc along the entire Eastern Atlantic Seaboard with severe coastal flooding in New England.  Seven Massachusetts counties were declared disaster areas.

*The first U.S. Coast Guard’s air station was established on March 24, 1920 at an abandoned Naval Air Station in Morehead City, NC.  The experimental station was successful yet additional funding was not approved.

(2) The Lighthouse was restored by The Lighthouse Preservation Society and relighted on Lighthouse Bicentennial Day, August 7, 1989.

(3) 1821 Optic: 10 Lamps with Reflectors
The original Fifth-order Fresnel Lens is displayed at the Shore Village Museum, Rockland, Maine.

(4) Earliest recorded Keeper.

(5) Directions from Rt 128 in Gloucester:
      Exit onto Washington Street, Turn Right onto MA 127 (Western Ave).  Ten Pound Light can be seen along Western Ave from the Gloucester Fisherman Memorial to Stage Fort Park.  To enter the park, Turn Left onto Stage Fort Ave.

      From the mainland, the best view is from Stage Fort Park, Western Harbor (Rt 127).  Other noteworthy viewing locations are the Gloucester Fisherman Memorial (famous statue of a Gloucester Fisherman at the Wheel commemorating Fishermen lost at sea) and the Rocky Neck art colony.


      Although the Lighthouse can be viewed from several locations along the Gloucester waterfront, closer views are accessible only by private boat or by a Lighthouse cruise provided by several Cruise companies:

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