Great Duck and Little Duck Islands are located due south of Mount Desert Island and the Cranberry Islands. Although Great Duck Island Lighthouse wasn’t built until 1890, its necessity had been noted as early as 1842. In that year, lighthouse inspector I.W.P. Lewis recorded the following about Great Duck Island: “A light here would show the entrance to Mount Desert harbor as well as Bass harbor. It would prevent wrecks upon the reefs of Long island, and be a safe point of departure for all the coasting trade. Baker’s Island light is some five miles to the northeast of this island, and its utility to navigation is somewhat questionable. It is not a commanding or salient point, like Duck Island, nor does it afford a channel course to steer by, except through Bass Harbor straits, where the land is a better guide than any light. If Baker’s Island light were suppressed, and one established on Duck island, the coasting trade would be much benefited by the change.” From 1885 to 1888, the Lighthouse Board’s annual report repeated the need for a light and fog signal on Great Duck Island, citing the increasing popularity of Mount Desert Island as a summer resort.

View of station from water before tower was painted white Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

The Lighthouse Board initially requested $10,000 in 1885, but two years later the amount increased to $30,000, a sum which Congress appropriated in 1889. Eleven acres on the southern end of the island were acquired along with an acre on the east side of the island for a landing and a right-of-way across the island. When work commenced in May 1890, the first task was to build a double boat slip and boathouse at the landing, a 2,251-foot-long road across the island, and a barn, twenty by thirty feet in plan, to house the workers. A thirty-two-foot-square fog signal house was erected for a ten-inch steam whistle, along with a 25,000-gallon cistern fed by a rain-shed that measured 130 by 30 feet. The lighthouse consisted of a forty-two-foot, cylindrical brick tower, topped by an octagonal lantern and attached at its base to a service room. Three, six-room dwellings were built for the head keeper and two assistants.

The light was placed in operation on December 31, 1890, using a fifth-order lens that produced a red flash every ten seconds. The tower’s daymark was red, until May 20, 1900, when it was painted white. The intensity of the light was increased in 1902 with the installation of a fourth-order, Barbier, Benard & Turenne lens, but the light’s characteristic remained the same.

While some light stations didn’t have a fresh water source, Maine’s intense summertime fog made fresh water absolutely indispensable at Great Duck Island —a steam fog whistle couldn’t run without fresh water, or at least not for long. An arrangement for supplying the boilers with salt water in case of emergency was added in 1902, along with an additional cistern to prevent such emergencies. A 1,200-pound fog bell was rung by hand while steam for the whistle was building and in case the foghorn became inoperative.

Many notes in the Lighthouse Board’s annual report for Great Duck Island refer to its fog signal. The number of hours the whistle sounded and the amount of coal used were meticulously noted and varied from a low in 1896 of 1,071 hours and 47 tons to a high in 1897 of 1,542 hours and 60 tons. William Stanley, the station’s first keeper, told a reporter that the foghorn had once sounded for thirteen days straight. Given that all those tons of coal had to be hauled by wheelbarrow from a boat dock to the fog signal, the addition of a coal tramway in 1902, and the installation of a little railway in 1906, must have been dreams come true. A diaphone fog signal replaced the steam whistle around 1930.

Another dream come true for assistant keeper Nathan Adam “Ad” Reed was the opening of a school at Great Duck Island. Ad gave up his position as a ship captain so he could spend more time with his wife Emma and their sixteen children. Getting approval for the school was difficult, but he fought to keep his family together. At one point, Renay Reed, one of the Reed girls, became the school’s teacher after earning her teaching certificate in Castine. To create a school, a disused barn was altered and outfitted with a wood stove, homemade desks and chairs, and blackboards for eighteen students—fourteen Reed children, two from another keeper, and two from the north end of the island. The Reed family was likely the largest ever known in the Lighthouse Service.

Water storage shed, lighthouse, and fog signal building Photograph courtesy National Archives

In an interview with a high school magazine, Dalton Reed related that he moved to Great Duck in 1902 at the age of seven and stayed there for ten years until his father died in 1912 at the age of fifty-four. When Dalton saw a steamer coming, he knew it was likely the lighthouse inspector. Inspectors, usually retired navy commanders, came “once or twice a year to check the lighthouse….They would wear white gloves. They would wipe their hands on the white walls to see if there was any dirt. Everything in the whistle house had to be polished for inspection because it was all brass. They would also come in and check out our house to see if it was neat and clean.”

For fun, Dalton would play checkers or other games. One winter, Dalton and his brother were playing hide and seek in the kitchen in the dark when they heard a strange noise “and looked out the window and saw these white forms.” The boys ran and told their father “that something white was coming through the gate and it was making an awful noise…. About the time he got to the door, these ghosts rapped at the door.” A boat had broken down and two fishermen had been forced to row a long time through flying spray and vapor. “They were nothing but a solid bed of ice. We took them in and got their clothes off them. The noise we had heard was them walking with frozen oil skins.”

“My father used to buy flour in the fall,” Dalton remembered. “Twelve to fourteen barrels of flour would last us the winter. They were all brought out at one time by boat and the government would furnish so much. We also brought crackers and different types of cereals. We used a lot of molasses. We didn’t eat much meat but we did have plenty of nice fresh fish and lobster.” Dalton would spearfish for flounder and use a hook for cod, haddock, and pollock. “We used to dry the fish. We would salt them down over night.... I used to like dried fish when it became cheesy; that is, after the maggots and worms had been at it. We would put pepper on the maggots to kill them.”

Everyone in the family had chores. “My mother was the doctor, seamstress, cook and cleaner,” said Dalton. “My father would lobster, fish and repair all the shoes for the family.” Dalton’s father shared responsibilities for lighthouse keeping during much of his time on Great Duck Island with William Stanley and Captain Joseph “Joe” Gray.

In a 1938 interview, Captain Gray said that he began as a keeper before there were telephones, radios, and regular mail deliveries, and those on the island could long be isolated due to storms. Gray started as an assistant at Great Duck before becoming head keeper eight years later in 1909. “I remained 18 years at this station and enjoyed every minute of the time I spent there,” said Captain Gray. “We planted a garden every spring, and there were plenty of berries for canning on the island. When I first went there we used a sail boat, but later a motor boat was assigned to the station. During the World War, eight navy boys were stationed on the island to look out for enemy submarines, and we boarded the men at the lighthouse. These lads sighted no subs, but they certainly had a happy, carefree life while they remained on the island.”

On September 15, 1931, the fishing schooner Rita A. Viator struck rocks near the station with a heavy sea running. As the vessel was being pounded to pieces, Keeper Andrew H. Kennedy and his two assistants, Earle E. Benson and Leverett S. Stanley, sprang into action and rescued the schooner’s captain and crew. Secretary of Commerce Robert P. Lamont sent special letters of commendation recognizing the keepers’ adherence “to the traditions of the Lighthouse Service.”

Aerial view of station with its three dwellings Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

On February 6, 1955, just two days after arriving at Great Duck Light, and five days after arriving in Maine, Judy Schwartz, wife of Coast Guard keeper Richard Schwartz went into early labor. When bad weather required the rescue tug to dock on the opposite side of the island, she and her husband were forced to slog through deep snow for one-and-a-half hours to reach it. When she ultimately reached the hospital, Judy gave birth to a baby boy.

Great Duck Island is estimated to support a whopping twenty percent of Maine’s seabird population; the island earned its appellation in the 1700s from its pond that attracted numerous ducks. The island’s avian life has shaped its history and managed to live in harmony with the light station and its keepers.

When it was recognized in the late 1800s that the hat trade’s use of feathers and the eating of birds and their eggs were driving some species to extinction, the American Ornithologists’ Union sought to protect the birds by passing legislation and deputizing lighthouse keepers. The April 1900 issue of the Union’s The Auk noted: “The Union has always found the U.S. Lighthouse Board very heartily in sympathy with the work of bird protection….” The same issue mentioned that the Lighthouse Board had “issued special orders to the light keeper [William F. Stanley] at the Great Duck Island Light Station, Maine to prevent the destruction of the colony of Herring Gulls that live on that lighthouse reservation.” In another issue of The Auk, Keeper Stanley told a writer that Indian hunters “claimed to have killed, on the two Duck Islands, during the year 1899, at least twenty-eight hundred gulls.”

In 1984, the Maine Chapter of the Nature Conservancy purchased most of Great Duck Island. After Great Duck Island Lighthouse was automated in 1986, the Coast Guard destroyed all but one of the keeper’s houses, as well as most of the outbuildings.

In 1998, the roughly twelve acres encompassing Great Duck Island Lighthouse became the property of Bar Harbor’s College of the Atlantic (COA) under the Maine Lights Program. Today, Great Duck Island serves as a biology, ecology, and wildlife study center for COA. Fortunately for the birds and unfortunately for lighthouse lovers, the island is closed to visitors from spring to mid-fall. COA has been a good steward of the station, having spent over $120,000 for restoration and maintenance. The remaining keeper’s dwelling is staffed by COA faculty and students for much of the year.

Keepers:

• Head: William F. Stanley (1890 – 1909), Joseph M. Gray (1909 – 1919), Vinal O. Beal (1919 – 1921), Edmund A. Howe (1921 – 1928), Ruel W. Powers (1928 – 1929), Andrew H. Kennedy (1929 – 1936), Alton S. Cheney (1936 – 1939), James H. Freeman (1939 – 1943), Thomas L. Keene (1947 – 1948), John Woodley (at least 1955), Todd Osier (1958 – 1959), Jesse B. Tolson (1959 – 1961), Kendell L. Alley (1961 – 1962), Roger L. Drinkwater (1962 – 1963), Arvid W. Young (1963 – 1964), Albert N. Ross (1964 – 1966), Kendell L. Alley (1966 – 1972), Phillip Dobbins, Larry Baum (1982 – 1984), Duncan Grant (1984 – ), Donald Parker ( – 1986).
• First Assistant: Willis Dolliver (1891 – 1894), John B. Thurston (1894 - 1900), Ephraim N. Johnson (1900 – 1901), Joseph M. Gray (1901 – 1909), Nathan A. Reed (1909 – 1911), John E. Purington (1912 – 1914), Wilbert F. Lurvey (1914 – 1917), Austin L. Sinnett (1917 – 1918), Myrick R. Morrison (1918 – 1921), Frank Faulkingham (1921 – 1923), Montell D. Gott (1923 – 1929), Earle E. Benson (1929), William F. Dawes (1929), Leverett S. Stanley (1929 – 1930), Earle E. Benson (1930 – 1931), William L. Lockhart (1931), Leverett S. Stanley (1935 – 1940).
• Second Assistant: John B. Thurston (1891 – 1894), Edward T. Spurling (1894 – 1898), Almon Mitchell (1898 – 1899), Ephraim N. Johnson (1899 – 1900), Elmer Reed (1900 – 1902), Nathan A. Reed (1902 – 1909), Rodolphus B. Ladd (1909 – 1912), George R. Allen (1912 – ), Walter E. O’Brien (at least 1913 – 1914), William R. Keene (1914), Robert T. Sterling (1914 – 1916), Austin L. Sinnett (1916 – 1917), Myrick R. Morrison (1917 – 1918), Montell D. Gott (1918), Harvard R. Beal (1918 – 1920), Ernest V. Talbot (1920 – 1921), Montell D. Gott (1921 – 1923), Elmo J. Turner (1923 – 1924), Leverett S. Stanley (1924 – 1929), Harold E. Seavey (1929 – 1930), Leverett S. Stanley (1930 – 1935), Darrell L. Mann (1935 – 1941), Philip A. Davis (1941 – 1943).
• USCG: Richard Schwartz (at least 1955), Alfred Dow (at least 1958), Robert Lundberg (1958 – 1959), Cleo H. Alley (at least 1959 – 1960), Leroy A. Brown ( – 1960), Robert F. Bosley (1960 – 1961), James A. Dickey (1960 – 1961), Richard S. Spooner (1961 – 1962), Richard J. Roaf (1962 – 1963), Richard F. Viera (1962 – 1963), Maleski (1962 – 1963), Willis (1963 – 1964), Sherwood (1963 – 1965), George H. Ames (1963 – 1965), Carl A. Hodges (1964 – 1965), Paul V. Murphy (1965 – 1966), Jean L. Paquin (1965 – 1967), Clifton W. McKenney (1966 – 1967), Linwood W. Olsen (1966 – 1968), Kenneth M. Figliuzzi (1967 – 1968), Dana Parker (1967 – 1970), Robert E. Sturgis (1968 – 1969), Clifton W. McKenney (1969 – 1970), Newman (1969 – 1970), Stanley B. Crossman (1973 – 1975), Rob Derick (1975 – 1976), Robin Runnels (1970s), Richard Clark ( – 1986), Matthew Asselin ( – 1986).

References

1. The Lighthouses of Maine, Jeremy D’Entremont, 2009.
2. Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board, various years.
3. Guardians of the Lights: The Men and Women of the US Lighthouse Service, Elinor de Wire, 1995.
4. “Lighthouse Keepers Saved Lives Of Birds, As Well As Humans,” Lighthouse Digest, Ted Panayotoff, July 2008.
5. “Roving Specialists,” Lighthouse Digest, Myron L. Corbett, May 2007.
6. “Lighthouses in His Blood,” Lighthouse Digest, Ron Pesha, July 2006.
7. “Capt. Joseph M. Gray. Memories of a Maine Lighthouse Keeper,” Lighthouse Digest, May 2005.
8. “Lighthouse Keeping on Duck Island. An Interview with Dalton Reed,” Lighthouse Digest, Robyn Haas, November 2004.
9. “Seven More Maine Lighthouse Transfers Approved, ”Lighthouse Digest, March 1998.

The southern portion of the island that is home to the light station is currently owned by the College of the Atlantic, which conducts research on the island. The remainder of the island is owned by the State of Maine, the Nature Conservancy, and a private summer resident.

A close-up view of the lighthouse can be had on a Lighthouse Cruise offered by Bar Harbor Whale Watch. For an aerial view, you can take a flight with Maine Coastal Flight Center out of the Bar Harbor airport.

The lighthouse is owned by the College of the Atlantic. Grounds/dwelling/tower closed.

Find the closest hotels to Great Duck Island Lighthouse

Kraig writes:

Esteall Stanley, wife of William Stanley, the first head keeper of Great Duck Island Lighthouse, provided the following information on the island’s birds.

Mrs. Stanley, the wife of the light-keeper, owns and runs a beautifully located and well kept summer hotel at South West Harbor. To her the Committee is under very great obligations for the active part she took in furnishing us with valuable information and aid in the work. Her intelligent knowledge of the birds and love for them made it especially pleasant for the writer to talk with her. She stated that the breeding gulls arrive regularly each year about March 27, hardly ever varying twelve hours from that date. They are not mated when they arrive, and for at least a month they daily have great meetings and caucuses until all are mated. No nest building is commenced until the mating is completed, and the laying season usually commences about May 27, or fully two months after their arrival on the breeding grounds. The nests are very crude and rough affairs when built in the trees, simply a mass of sticks, and within the last few years a few feathers have been added. The gulls are very easily tamed; on one occasion her children found some young birds that had lost their parents. These were brought to the light-station and were fed and cared for until they were grown to full size. Even then, although they were strong of wing and mixed in with the other birds when off feeding, they came regularly every day and sat in a row on the piazza of the lighthouse and called for food.

On another occasion they brought up a brood of four orphaned gulls and took them to the hotel when they went there for the summer. The birds lived on a ledge of rocks near the hotel grounds and were so tame that the guests of the house could pick them up and handle or hold and feed them as though they were domestic animals. They remained with them until late in the season and were finally wantonly shot by some passing gunners, who left them lying on the rocks as an evidence of their wicked cruelty.

In response to the question whether the dark colored birds ever mated with the white birds, Mrs. Stanley said that they did when they were two years old. Her reason for this belief was as follows: On one occasion a young gull had lost one of its legs just above the knee. The wound healed but the bird was a cripple and had to hop and stand on the perfect leg. They fed the bird and it became very tame. In the fall it left with the other gulls and returned with them the next spring, exhibiting its old familiarity. That season, when the bird was only one year old, it did not mate. It remained on and about the island all the season, departing with the others on their southward migration. The following season it returned again and was still partially dark colored. It secured a white mate and raised a brood of young. Mrs. Stanley, to illustrate how the birds have been persecuted in the past, told the writer that a gang of stone cutters from Black Island, where there is a large quarry, came to Duck Island on one occasion and while there gathered up at least two or three bushels of eggs, and after having set up a mark used the eggs as missiles. The warden informed the writer that the Indian hunters claimed to have killed, on the two Duck Islands, during the year 1899, at least twenty-eight hundred gulls. Mrs. Stanley said that this year the number of gulls about the Duck Islands and in South West Harbor showed a very marked decrease over the numbers in 1899 and before. All of the garbage from the hotel is taken out into the harbor and is dumped on the ebb tide. Some hundreds of gulls were always awaiting the dumping hour, but this year the flock was exceedingly small in comparison with the numbers prior to 1899.