Palmer Island Lighthouse

Whales
lights
and
hurricanes
The Palmer Island Lighthouse is a little light only 24 feet tall. It was built back in 1849 out of rubble and cost less than two thousand dollars to construction. Certainly not one of the great New England lighthouses but still historic and cool.
The light was originally built to help whalers get back into New Bedford when the city was once the whaling capital of the world. Moby Dick took place in New Bedford and it has a long and proud nautical history. The city was built on whale oil.
The light and it’s fifth order Fresnel Lens served until the gigantic hurricane barrier across New Bedford harbor made it unnecessary and so it was deactivated when the barrier was completed in the mid sixties.
Palmer’s Island was once six acres and even had a hotel and dance hall on it. Lots of wild stories about the debauchery and bacchanalian exploits of the whalers that stopped here. But in 1938 that all changed.
The hurricane of 1938 is legendary in New England. Nobody really knew it was coming and the massive waves swept into New Bedford harbor and destroyed most of the town and washed away much of the island. Nothing was left of the little island but the lighthouse.
The poor little lighthouse was vandalized and just left to rot until a group of citizens decided to restore and bring the little light back to life. It was repaired and relit in 1999 and now serves as a historic symbol of New Bedford’s glorious nautical past.
The light isn’t easy to reach, it can be walked out to in very low tides but only if you don’t mind getting wet. A kayak is a much better choice to get out to the island. Not a tall, particularly lovely or majestic lighthouse. Just a little light that did it’s job for many decades and now serves as a reminder of the whaling history of New Bedford.