The Navesink Light Station also known as the Highlands light was mentioned in a 1765 history of New Jersey and is believed to have been constructed around 1756.
Construction of the first Twin Lights was completed in 1828. The light station consisted of identical, but unconnected, octagonal towers and a keeper's dwelling. The towers were made of blue split stone and stood 320 feet apart. The focal plane of the north tower was 246 feet above sea level.
US Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry purchased a firstorder and secondorder Fresnel
lens and in 1841 they were installed in the Navesink Light Station. It was
America's first use of the Fresnel lenses.
In 1841, the Lighthouse Board reported the Twin Lights were the "best
on the coast of the United States " But, it also found the dwellings
and outbuildings in serious need of repair.
Rather than rehabilitate the 1828 station, the Board decided to construct new towers. Work began in 1861 and was completed on May 1st the following
year. Strangely enough, architect Joseph Lederle chose to make the south
tower square and the north tower octagonal. The lighthouse was built of
brownstone quarried at Belleville, New Jersey. Total cost of construction
was $74,000.
The beam of the light was visible for 22 miles and its "glooming,"
or reflection in the night sky, could be seen from 70 miles at sea. Local
residents complained the powerful light kept their cows awake at night and
the animals refused to give milk in the morning. A happy compromise was
reached with the installation of blackout panels on the landward sides of
both towers.
The south tower's Fresnel lens was extinguished in 1949 when the light station was decommissioned by the US Coast Guards. For the first time in nearly two centuries, the Highlands of Navesink were darkened because the development of modern navigational aids made Twin Lights (and many other Light houses as well) obsolete. Shipping in and out of New York Harbor is guided now by highly sophisticated nautical aids.
The Navesink Attendant Light Station became a New Jersey State Historic
Site in 1960. It is administered by the Department of Environmental Protection,
Division of Parks and Forestry, State Park Service.
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