Gay head lighthouse history

History – – Gay Head Light – the first lighthouse on Martha's Vineyard When the first Congress of the newly formed United States government met in , one of its first acts was to assume responsibility for lighthouses and other aids to navigation along the country's coastline.

The Gay Head Lighthouse was the first lighthouse constructed on Martha’s Vineyard. In , because both islands were deeply involved in the whaling industry, maritime traffic had increased to the point that Peleg Coffin of Nantucket wrote his Congressman asking for a light to be erected at Gay Head.

An report on lighthouses in the United States ranked Gay Head Light as the ninth most important seacoast light, the highest rank of any light north of New York.

Gay Head Lighthouse was the first lighthouse built on Martha’s Vineyard and one of the first in the U.S. to receive a first order Fresnel lens in Many men in the Aquinnah community, including members of the Wampanoag tribe, worked at the lighthouse.