Episode Details

The Isles of Shoals are a cluster of nine islands located several miles off the seacoast of New Hampshire and southern Maine. A lighthouse on White Island — the southernmost of the island group — went into service in early 1821. It was a stone tower, later encased with wood and shingled. A new 58-foot brick lighthouse tower was built on White Island in 1859, and the new tower was fitted with a second-order Fresnel lens.

In 1993, White Island became the property of the State of New Hampshire. Over the years that followed, the lighthouse tower developed major cracks in its exterior, mostly on the northeast side that bears the brunt of storms. The good news is that Sue Reynolds, a seventh-grade science teacher at the North Hampton School on the New Hampshire seacoast, started a nonprofit organization called the Lighthouse Kids to save the lighthouse. The effort led to a 2005 restoration.

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