The Cape Ann Museum is pleased to present Lighthouses of Cape Ann, an illustrated talk with New England lighthouse expert Jeremy D’Entrement, on Saturday, November 29 at 3:00 p.m. This program is free for members or with Museum admission.
Jeremy D’Entremont has been photographing and writing about lighthouses for the past 30 years. He is the author of hundreds of articles and more than a dozen books on lighthouses and maritime history, including The Lighthouse Handbook: New England and Great Shipwrecks of the Maine Coast. He has been recognized as the leading expert on New England’s historic lighthouses and has appeared on the History Channel, the Travel Channel, Public Television, and National Public Radio speaking on the topic. He is the historian for the American Lighthouse Foundation and the founder of Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses. Jeremy’s presentation will focus on the rich history of the lighthouses of Newburyport, Ipswich, and Cape Ann, with an emphasis on the human interest stories of lighthouse keepers and their families. The presentation will be illustrated by historic images and Jeremy’s own recent photos.
The Cape Ann Museum recently completed stabilization and installation of the first order Fresnel lens originally housed in the south lighthouse tower on Thacher Island off Rockport. The project was a collaborative one, done with the Thacher Island Association. In 1861, first order Fresnel lenses, made in Paris, were installed in the newly constructed lighthouse towers on Thacher Island. The lenses remained in place until 1980 when they were decommissioned and removed from the Island; just one of the two—the lens in the south lighthouse—was preserved. Recently, the United States Coast Guard has been sending these magnificent lenses back to the communities where they were originally used to be preserved within museum settings. The gallery in which the lens is now permanently installed includes a mixture of artifacts and interpretative materials designed to help visitors appreciate the beauty and power of the lens along with the history of Thacher Island. In addition to the first order lens a smaller fourth order Fresnel lens, originally installed in the lighthouse at Eastern Point, is also on exhibition. Jeremy D’Entrement’s lecture is one of many that the Museum hopes to offer related to the newly acquired Fresnel lens.
For more information, visit capeannmuseum.org.