Crown Point Light

Crown Point Light

pre-1926 photograph of present Crown Point Light, showing attached keeper's house (USCG)
Location	on Crown Point on Lake Champlain
Coordinates	44°01′48″N 73°25′18″W / 44.0299°N 73.4216°W / 44.0299; -73.4216Coordinates: 44°01′48″N 73°25′18″W / 44.0299°N 73.4216°W / 44.0299; -73.4216
Year first lit	1858
Deactivated	1926
Construction	stone
Tower shape	circular colonnade
Height	55 ft (17 m)
Original lens	Fifth-order Fresnel lens

The Crown Point Light on Lake Champlain at Crown Point enjoys the unique distinction of having been converted from a conventional lighthouse into a memorial to the exploration of the lake by Samuel de Champlain.

History

Requests for a light to mark the point date as far back as 1838, but the original light on this site was erected in 1858 by Ellis and O'Neil, along the same lines as the Windmill Point and Isle La Motte lights, which they constructed in the same period. The light sat on a small point due east of Fort Crown Point, an 18th-century British star fort at the tip of the peninsula. The octagonal stone tower and attached keeper's dwelling remained in use, essentially unchanged, into the early 20th century.

The tercentenary of Champlain's explorations of the lake provided the occasion for celebrations marking the event, and commissions from New York and Vermont, put in charge of the festivities, decided to erect a monument. A suggestion in a newspaper prompted the notion to convert an existing lighthouse, and after some consideration of other sites, the Crown Point Light was chosen. The stone sheath of the tower was stripped away, leaving the brick spiral staircase sitting on the foundation. A new tower was constructed on and around this, consisting of a short tapered base, a ring of eight Doric columns, an elaborately carved cornice and parapet, and a new lantern atop the whole. On the side facing the lake, a projection from the base supported a monumental bronze of Champlain and two Indians, sculpted by Carl Augustus Heber; the French government sent a plaque by Auguste Rodin which was later placed below the other sculpture. A broad staircase led down to a pier projecting into the lake. A fifth order Fresnel lens continued to shine in the lantern giving a fixed white light, and the old keeper's house remained in place, attached to the new tower by a short passageway. The memorial was dedicated in 1912 at a ceremony presided over by President Taft.

The memorial served as an active lighthouse for only fourteen years. In 1926 its light was extinguished, and a small skeleton tower was erected immediately adjacent to the water. In 1931 construction of the Crown Point Bridge obscured the site, and the steel tower was moved to the grounds of the Windmill Point Light as part of the customs service effort to control liquor smuggling on the lake. The property was transferred to the State of New York, which continues to maintain it as part of the state park which forms the tip of the peninsula; the keeper's house was demolished, leaving the monument standing alone at the top of the bluff. The tower is marked on navigational charts, but no longer serves as an aid to navigation.

Gallery

• 

  The original Crown Point Light in 1911

• 

  Champlain Memorial Lighthouse, November 2010

References

• "Crown Point Light". lighthousefriends.com. http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=672. Retrieved 2008-05-20. 
• "Historic Light Station Information and Photography: New York". United States Coast Guard Historian's Office. http://www.uscg.mil/history/weblighthouses/LHNY.asp. Retrieved 2008-05-20. 
• "Crown Point Lighthouse". Cyber Lighthouses. http://www.cyberlights.com/lh/ny/crownpoint.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-20. 
• Holland, Frances Ross (1981). America's Lighthouses: An Illustrated History. Brattleboro, VT: S. Greene Press. pp. 181. http://books.google.com/books?id=f3Ej7zqQTM4C&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=%22crown+point%22+light&source=web&ots=voaUNsCnz9&sig=6evjZ4LFqdVI9M7sx4v_kFDduaU&hl=en. Retrieved 2008-05-20. 

Further reading

• Oleszewski, Wes. Great Lakes Lighthouses, American and Canadian: A Comprehensive Directory/Guide to Great Lakes Lighthouses, (Gwinn, Michigan: Avery Color Studios, Inc., 1998) ISBN 0-932212-98-0.
• Scott T. Price. "U. S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation: A Historical Bibliography". United States Coast Guard Historian's Office. http://www.uscg.mil/History/weblighthouses/h_lhbib.asp. 

• U.S. Coast Guard. Historically Famous Lighthouses (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1957).
• Wright, Larry and Wright, Patricia. Great Lakes Lighthouses Encyclopedia Hardback (Erin: Boston Mills Press, 2006) ISBN 1550463993