Ned's Point Light Station: Keeps its Lights Glowing

The large weather-worn tower has stood watch over the oceanfront park in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, for over 183 years. A busy boat-building harbor town during the first part of the 19th century, in 1835, John Quincy Adams brought an idea to the US Congress; to build a lighthouse at Ned’s Point.

Leonard Hammond—a local contractor—was selected to construct a 35 foot stone structure (using stone from the shoreline and granite from a local quarry—and was later enlarged to 39 feet high), along with an oil house, lighthouse keeper’s residence, and barn. The project was not Hammond’s first effort, nor his last; before Ned’s Point Light, he and his crew built the ever-popular Gay Head Light on Martha’s Vineyard, later to sail to the Gulf of Mexico and erect two more navigational structures.

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