The Cape Cod Lights

"A man may stand there and put all America behind him." Henry David Thoreau

On Sunday, we took a driving tour on the Cape, heading north from Chatham – ironically, taking this direction meant we were going “down the Cape.” A highlight of the afternoon was visits to two of three lighthouses we checked out during our trip; after seeing the Chatham Light on Saturday during a walk on the beach, we checked out the Nauset and Highland Lights further north on the Cape.


There are several others here, including one at Race Point at the far north tip of the Cape near Provincetown – we saw it from a distance but it is on accessible by walking, and some further west towards the mainland, or “up the Cape.” We may check them out on some future trip. The history of these lights is very interesting, and they’ve been an important part of New England navigation since the early 1800’s.

The first, Chatham Light, is still operating as a Coast Guard facility and is not open to the public, but it is close to a parking area and is one of a number of things that you can check out there at the Cape Cod National Seashore. This area was once guarded by two lights, which differentiated it from the Highland Light to the North…apparently they were mobile on skids so they could be aligned with the shifting openings of the barrier islands that guard the harbor.

The second light was decommissioned eventually, and moved to Nauset. We visited and actually climbed this light during Sunday’s outing – it’s the one in the photo that opens this post.

Besides the fact that it was originally in Chatham, this light has several points of interest associated with it: it is used as the logo for Cape Cod potato chips…I just learned that today from a scan of Wikipedia. For history, there were three lights here originally, again, to differentiate the location from Highland and Chatham, but you could see where this might get out of hand. So they decommissioned those “Three Sisters,” which were wooden towers, and moved one of the two Chatham Lights here instead.

The Three Sisters were moved to a little park nearby. It’s an easy walk from there to the current light – and you can park at the Three Sisters location for free, without having to pay an entry fee at the National Seashore area.

There is plenty of additional historical interest in this light – after it was decommissioned, it went into private hands along with the keeper’s house. The Wikipedia article on the light talks about how it was returned to the National Park Service and how it is open today, managed by a historical association.

The final light we visited was the Highland Light, in Truro. This light is still operated by the Coast Guard, although the facility is open to tours. It is also in the middle of the National Seashore area, so there are NPS facilities all around it, including a golf course that I would like to try at some point. Highland Light was authorized by George Washington himself and became the first light on the Massachusetts coast.

This light was the subject of an Edward Hopper painting, which was a point of interest for us, since Mary’s cousin Larry also frequently paints here at this part of the Cape. There’s a link to an image of the Hopper painting here: http://www.culture-making.com/post/highland_light_north_truro_massachusetts_by_edward_hopper

On a final note, the Nauset Light and the Highland Light are both in relocated locations. The eastern shore of the Cape is subject to the same coastal forces that affect Long Island, the New Jersey shore, the Outer Banks, and even Daytona Beach – a southward flow of the water constantly erodes the beaches and barrier islands. So these two lights have both been moved back from the cliffs along the shore to save them - in the photo to the left, the original location of the Highland Light is visible near the observation deck at the end of the path. One of the companies involved in both light moves was contracted for the big move of the Cape Hatteras light following its success with these two.

Wikipedia links to articles about the lights follow, along with another link to the NPS page about the National Seashore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Light

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauset_Light

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod_Highland_Light

http://www.nps.gov/caco/index.htm