During the War of 1812, British vessels lurked ominously off the shores of Guilford, and one day some soldiers from a warship landed a small craft at Faulkner’s Island. As the landing craft approached, Keeper Stone helped his three sons hide under some hay while his three daughters hid in compartments under the bake ovens. An officer entered the kitchen and approached the nervous Thankful Stone, who surely feared the worst. But the officer calmly and politely told her that the family had nothing to fear as long as they kept a good, clear light burning in the tower.

The British kept their word. A surgeon from a British ship was sent to the aid of Keeper Stone after he had sprained his ankle. Stone’s daughters were entertained as guests by the English officers. In fact, according to one article "no ‘stones’ were left unturned to make the occasion one long to be remembered in the lives of the participants."

By the 1970s, the Coast Guard was formulating plans for the automation and destaffing of the station. But as it turned out, the era of Faulkner’s Island as a staffed station came to an abrupt and depressing end in a fire on March 15, 1976. The keeper’s house was destroyed, but the tower survived.

A group called the Faulkner’s Light Brigade formed in the early 1990s to work for the preservation of the lighthouse. Restoration work on the exterior of the tower was completed in late 1999. Extensive erosion control methods have also been implemented on the island in recent years. The Light Brigade holds an annual open house on the island in September or October.

For much more on this lighthouse, see Lighthouse.cc or buy the book Lighthouses of Connecticut by Jeremy D’Entremont, published in 2005 by Commonwealth Ediitions.