

It is therefore deemed of considerable importance to provide a dwelling for the keeper on the spot.Īfter Congress provided $7,500 on March 3, 1871, the Lighthouse Board had planned to build a dwelling with a light atop it at the end of the northern extension to the breakwater, but when the extension was delayed, a temporary beacon was used to mark the limit of the work, and the dwelling was built between the two beacons in 1875.

To fail to light them at any time would be a very serious business for those navigating the lake, but especially so when the weather is such as to render it hazardous to go to the breakwater by boat. In the spring and fall these beacons are reached by the keeper with great difficulty, not to say sometimes at the risk of his life. In 1870, the Lighthouse Board requested funds to build a keeper’s dwelling on the pier after providing the following justification: The original towers exhibited fixed white lights at a height of twenty-one feet above the water using sixth-order lenses. The wooden towers were exposed to wind, ice, and even fire – the northern tower burned in 1870, and in 1876 the southern light was knocked over in a storm. Wooden lighthouses were first placed on the ends of the breakwater in 1857 to mark the entrances to the harbor, after Congress provided $2,000 for their construction on August 3, 1854, and as the breakwater grew, the lights were relocated. A 360-foot section of breakwater was completed north of the extended original breakwater in 1890, leaving a 200-foot opening between the two. In 1867, the breakwater was extended 1,500 feet to the north using the same type of construction as in the original breakwater: wooden cribs, 80 to 100 feet long by 30 feet wide, that were filled with stone ballast. Completed in 1854 at a cost of $28,727, the V-shaped breakwater was 1,000 feet in length but was subsequently lengthened as wharf construction continued to grow along the Burlington waterfront. The harbor at Burlington, exposed to winds from the south and the northwest, offered little protection for vessels until work on a federally funded breakwater began in 1837. Steamers Vermont and Ticonderoga leaving Burlington These two canals led to the growth of the port at Burlington, and by 1873, Burlington had become the third largest lumber port in the country. In 1823, the forty-six-mile-long Champlain Canal was completed, linking Lake Champlain to the Hudson River and the New York City market, and twenty years later, the twelve-mile-long Chambly Canal was constructed in Quebec, bypassing the Richelieu River rapids and allowing cheap Canadian lumber to flow from the St.
