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MOUNT DESERT— The lighthouse on Baker Island stands at an entrance to Frenchman Bay.
Since President John Quincy Adams ordered its construction, the lighthouse has stood there at that southwestern entrance for almost 200 years meant to help mariners through the ocean waters that touch the edges of the Cranberry Islands.
Two hundred years takes a toll on a structure, and Baker Island Lighthouse has stood against the winds and storms and tides for centuries.
It’s suffering.
The island isn’t the easiest place to get to for repairs. The lighthouse tower itself is deteriorating. The masonry has cracked. Surface material has crumbled, bits are failing. Stairs are broken. Windows are broken.
The beacon that’s helped mariners get through passages safely now needs its help itself.
The drive to restore the Baker Island Lighthouse was announced at the Friends of Acadia (FOA) annual meeting. Last Saturday, August 8, during a paddle raise at the nonprofit’s annual benefit, FOA raised more than $400,000 to start restoring it.
“For generations, Baker Island Lighthouse has stood as a symbol of safety, resilience, and connection,” Eric Stiles, Friends of Acadia president and CEO said in a press release. “We are grateful for the extraordinary outpouring of support we received from many generous donors who stepped forward to help ensure this beloved landmark remains part of Acadia’s landscape and story far into the future.”
The current lighthouse was built in 1855. The one it replaced was constructed in the 1820s.
Now, Stiles said, they are in “a race against time” to save it after nearly two centuries of wind, salt, weather, and age have taken its toll.
The keeper’s house has already been stabilized, asbestos removed. The next step is stabilizing the lighthouse tower.
“For FOA this project is especially meaningful for our 40th anniversary year,” Stiles said at FOA’s annual meeting.
That’s because FOA’s first major project was restoring Bear Island’s lighthouse back in 1988.
Lighthouses throughout Maine were damaged during a duo of January 2024 storms when state high tide records were broken in multiple areas and coastal properties and infrastructure sustained significant damage.
A survey by the American Lighthouse Foundation (ALF) at the time estimated that of Maine’s 67 lighthouses, at least 24 were damaged.
“Routine maintenance on a lighthouse is something you can schedule, you can budget for it. Offshore, that might be $20,000 every five years,” Ford Reiche, who restored and owns Halfway Rock Light in Casco Bay told the Island Institute in 2024, “but then you throw a storm at it and it’s $250,000, and that can’t be phased. That’s the thing that’s going to throw a lot of chaos at these lighthouse owners.”
The Baker Island Lighthouse has weathered the January storms, multiple hurricanes, and more. Baker Island is one of the Cranberry Islands. It was Frenchman Bay’s first light station.
According to Friends of Acadia, “William and Hannah Gilley, along with their three children, moved from Mount Desert Island to Baker Island around 1806–1812. William likely fished seasonally from the island in previous years, as did the Abenaki before him. The small Gilley family cleared fields, built homes, and lived year-round on Baker Island. When the lighthouse was built, William was appointed as its first keeper. The Gilleys would eventually have 12 children, some of whom left the island and others who chose to stay. Descendants of the Gilley family lived on Baker Island for 123 years.
“The original light tower was replaced by a 13-meter-high white brick lighthouse in 1855. The light was automated in 1966 and remains an active aid to navigation.”
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Donate to the Baker Island Lighthouse paddle raise
https://www.nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/baker-island.htm
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For a Bakers Island reference, check out "John Gilley of Baker's Island", by Charles Eliot (1899), describing the life of one of one of the Baker family. It's a Maine classic.