Bass Harbor Head Light

Bass Harbor, a picturesque village of the municipality of Tremont, is at the southwestern tip of Mount Desert Island in an area known to locals as "the quiet side." This pretty lighthouse in its rugged setting is visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year, and it easily ranks as one of the most-photographed lighthouses in all New England.

The 1855 annual report of the Lighthouse Board stated, "There is a very good harbor about four miles west of Mount Desert Harbor, called Bass Harbor. A light is necessary to assist vessels entering it." Congress soon appropriated a sum of $5,000, and title to the needed land was secured in 1857. A 32-foot-tall lighthouse was built at rocky Bass Harbor Head in 1858.

The cylindrical brick lighthouse tower is attached to the one-and-one-half-story, wood-frame keeper's house by a covered walkway. A fixed red light went into service on September 1, 1858. It served to warn mariners of the Bass Harbor Bar at the eastern entrance to Bass Harbor, and also to mark the southeast entrance to Blue Hill Bay.

Throughout its history as a staffed light station, Bass Harbor Head was home to a single keeper and his family. The house had four rooms and an attached kitchen. In 1878, the T-shaped dwelling was raised ten inches and the original board-and-batten siding was replaced with clapboards. The kitchen was extended in 1900, and an office was added to the first floor.

The station originally had a hand-rung fog bell. A new 4,000-pound fog bell replaced the earlier one in 1898, its striking machinery housed in a new fog signal building that still stands. An 1,800-gallon cistern in the dwelling's cellar collected rainwater for the use of the keeper's family. A 1902 brick oil house, 205 feet northwest of the lighthouse, still remains. There was not originally a pier at the station, and landing a boat was often difficult. A boathouse and boat slip were built in 1894, and a boat winch was added the following year.

The original fifth-order Fresnel lens was replaced in late 1901 by a fourth-order lens, manufactured in Paris by Henry-Lepaute. The lens remains in use today. The light is now automated and shows an occulting red light 56 feet above mean high water. The light was converted to electric operation in 1949. After automation in 1974, the station was retained as housing for a Coast Guard family.

Bass Harbor today is a secluded fishing village and the location of a ferry to Swan's Island. There is a large parking area near the lighthouse that often fills up in summer. A path leads down to the granite boulders neighboring the light station. To get a good view of the lighthouse it is necessary to climb a distance over the rocks; extreme caution should be taken.