Shelburne, Vermont
Built 1871

Yes, there are lighthouses on New England’s west coast! There are, in fact, four of them on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain, with several more on the New York side. Here is the best known and most accessible of Vermont’s lighthouses.

Jeremy's Lighthouse Guide #22

It was originally located offshore, a mile from Colchester Point. Colchester Reef Light was built in 1871 at a cost of $20,000 to mark a group of three dangerous shoals. The building was designed by Albert R. Dow, a graduate engineer from the University of Vermont. His design was chosen over many entries in a national design competition run by the Lighthouse Service.

On January 29, 1888, a baby, Myrtle Button, was born at the lighthouse. When his wife Harriet went into labor, Keeper Walter Button sent for a doctor by ringing the fog bell, a signal to his assistant on shore. As they attempted to cross the ice to the lighthouse, the doctor and assistant keeper were carried by ice floes several miles to the north. They barely escaped with their lives. Harriet Button had her baby without benefit of a doctor, but all worked out well.

From 1933, when it was deactivated, until 1952, the Colchester Reef Lighthouse fell into disrepair. In July 1952, Electra Havemeyer Webb, founder of the Shelburne Museum, purchased the lighthouse from a couple who had bought it from the Coast Guard for $50. They had intended to use the lumber from the lighthouse for the building of a home on shore. Webb had other ideas.

A crew of five men dismantled the lighthouse and took it to Shelburne by barge, reassembling it in less than a month. It was placed on a new foundation at the Shelburne Museum and much restoration was done over the next several years. Today the lighthouse is one of 37 buildings on the grounds of the museum that has been called “New England's Smithsonian.”

For more HISTORYy of this lighthouse click here
For more on the Shelburne Museum, visit their web site

Copyright 2004 by Jeremy D'Entremont,New England Lighthouses
Photos are the property of the author and may not be used without permission.
Photos above from Jeremy D'Entremont.