The lighthouse was described in 1764 as follows: “This House is of an Octagon Figure, having eight equal sides; the Diameter of the Base 29 feet; and at the Top of the Wall 15 Feet. The Lanthorn is 7 feet high; the Circumference 15 Feet. The whole Construction of the Lanthorn is Iron; the top covered with Copper. There are 48 Oil Blazes. The Building from the Surfaces is Nine Stories; the whole from Bottom to Top 103 Feet.”
A lot of about 4 acres “at the point of Sandy Hook, in Monmouth County,” was ceded to the United States by the State of New Jersey on November 16, 1790, and on March 1, 1804, the State of New Jersey “consented to the purchase of a lot on the north point of Sandy Hook, for the purpose of erecting a beacon.” Appropriations for a beacon “to be erected on the north point of Sandy Hook” were made in 1804 ($2,000), 1805 ($6,000), 1807 ($1,200) and 1817 ($1,200). In 1832 there were two beacons on the Hook, “one on the north point, ranging with the light and buoy of the upper middle; and the westernmost one and light ranging with the buoy on the SW. spit, in both of which are lamps.”
In 1852 the Lighthouse Board reported “The tower of Sandy Hook main light was constructed in 1764, under royal charter, of rubblestone, and is now in a good state of preservation. Neither leaks nor cracks were observed in it. The mortar appeared to be good, and it was stated that the annual repairs upon this tower amount to a smaller sum than in the towers of any of the minor lights in the New York district. * * * The illuminating apparatus is composed of 18 21 inch reflectors, and argand lamps which were fitted new, according to the best information on the subject, in 1842.”
The light is a 60,000-candlepower, third-order electric light, fixed white, in a white stone tower, 85 feet above ground and 88 feet above water, visible for 15 miles. [(1)] [(2)] [(7)]
NEW YORK
CROWN POINT MEMORIAL, LAKE CHAMPLAIN
In 1858 a light was placed on a 7-acre site at Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, near the historic Grenadier Battery, historic ruins of French and English fortifications. The base of the tower was 57 feet above water and the focal plane was 86 feet above water level. A fixed fifth-order, white light was there in 1894. In 1888 a steamboat wharf had been built to accommodate visitors by water to the fortifications.
In 1926 the light was discontinued and the site conveyed to the State of New York. The States of New York and Vermont, as part of the commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the lake by Samuel de Champlain, removed the old tower and built in its stead an ornamental cylindrical tower of cut granite blocks, surrounded by eight Doric columns. On the pedestal is an heroic group in bronze with Champlain as the central figure, presented by the Republic of France. The bronze group was designed by Rodin, the famous French sculptor. [(3)]