Stonington Historical Society Announces the Publication of “Stonington’s Old Lighthouse and Its Keepers"

Stonington Borough’s most-visited site, the Old Lighthouse Museum on Stonington Point, finally has a history to entertain and inform the curious and to fit the 1840 Lighthouse into its place in Connecticut and national history. 

The Stonington Historical Society, owner of the Lighthouse since 1925, commissioned the book, “Stonington’s Old Lighthouse and Its Keepers,” from two long-time editors, James Boylan and Betsy Wade. The publication date, August 24, will be celebrated with a party at 11 A.M. at the Lighthouse itself, with refreshments served. The public is invited.

The authors’ investigation in the National Archives in Washington and Waltham, Mass., disclosed the impact of corruption and graft in the Lighthouse establishment of the pre-Civil War era. Use of the efficient and reliable Fresnel lens, for example, was barred for years because of cronyism. 

Such problems almost inevitably struck Stonington. Construction of the current Lighthouse – the second at the Point – was so slipshod that the walls leaked from the beginning. The first keeper, William Potter—a captain of the militiamen who fought off the British in the War of 1812 -- and his wife, Patty, who became the second keeper, saw some of their children die young as a result of living in constant damp.

After fifty years and eight keepers, the light was doused and replaced by a beacon on a harbor breakwater. The building thus fell derelict until 1925 when the Stonington Historical Society bought it and turned into a local-history museum, evidently the first such conversion in the country. The building, having now served as a museum longer than as a lighthouse, attracts tousands of visitors summer.

The new book, which includes more than eighty illustrations, almost half in their original colors, was written as an adjunct to current plans to restore the Old Lighthouse and improve access for the public. The book also provides a glimpse of Stonington’s role in an almost forgotten aspect of American history.

Boylan and Wade previously served as editors of a book series for the historical society. They also saw to press the Society’s second edition of “The Davis Homestead,” the story of a Connecticut family farm created by a royal grant. Wade was an editor and columnist for The New York Times; Boylan was a professor of history and journalism at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and was founding editor of the critical magazine, Columbia Journalism Review. The designer, Marie A. Carija of Mystic, previously designed five books for the society.