Boston Light

First erected in 1716, Destroyed in 1776 by British forces, re-erected in 1783 as the first US built lighthouse. This helps guide sailors as Boston Harbor is a famously complicated navigational harbor with shallow channels, many of the Boston Harbor Islands, submerged bars, and strong currents.

In the 1700s Boston served as Britain’s busiest North American port, trading in goods from all over the world. However, the geography of the harbor proved difficult to navigate, with shifting tides alternately revealing and hiding deadly rocks and shoals. This resulted in the loss of many a fortune and sailors to its waters. The first two lightkeepers drowned.

Boston Light became a point of conflict between British and colonial forces during the American Revolutionary War. Occupying the lighthouse in 1774, British forces maintained control until July 1775, when a small colonial force arrived on Brewster island via whale-boats and set fire to the lighthouse. Although British marines started to rebuild the lighthouse, another outfit of 300 colonial troops stopped their progress a few weeks later. British troops destroyed the original Boston Light by setting off a series of timed explosives as its last act of retribution upon leaving Boston in June of 1776.

So, while Boston Light was the first lighthouse station to be built in the territory that eventually became the United States, the original structure's destruction during the Siege of Boston means it cannot lay claim to the oldest standing lighthouse in the country. In 1783 it was rebuilt in the same style and dimensions as the original and became the last lighthouse in the country to be automated in 1998.

-Source Links-

https://www.nps.gov/places/boston-light.htm