page_title: Cape Ann Light Station
section_title: Thacher Island North Light
hierarchical_section_title: Cape Ann Light Station / Thacher Island North Light
caption_attribution_description: English: The twin lighthouse system on Thacher Island off Cape Ann, Massachusetts. The south lighthouse is on the left.
context_page_description: The Cape Ann Light Station on Thacher Island, off Cape Ann in Rockport, Massachusetts, is nationally significant as the last light station to be established under colonial rule and the first station in the United States to mark a navigational hazard rather than a harbor entrance. The current pair of lighthouses were built in 1861. They were both equipped with first order Fresnel lenses, which stood approximately 10 feet high and weighed several tons.
  After being decommissioned in the early 1980s, the lens from the south tower was moved to the U.S. Coast Guard Museum at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. In 2013 a joint effort by the Cape Ann Museum and the Thacher Island Association brought the lens back to Cape Ann. The first order lens is now on display at the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
  When these lights were built, there was no way to produce a flashing light and, occasionally mariners would confuse one light for another with disastrous results. The only way to create a distinction was to build more than one light. There were two lights at Plymouth and three at Nauset Beach.
context_section_description: Thacher Island North Light is the northernmost of the two lighthouses that comprise the station.
caption: The northern lighthouse is to the right in this 2009 photo.
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