Faulkner's Island, a crescent-shaped island of no less than 3 acres located 3 1/2 miles south of Guilford Harbor in Long Island Sound, has long been important to the region's maritime history. Native Americans called it Massancummock, early Dutch explorers recorded it as Valken Eylandt, and English settlers translated that name to Falcon Island. Several generations of private owners farmed the island, even bringing oxen out in a scow for spring plowing. Before good highways and the railroad were developed, Long Island Sound served as a protective corridor for heavy maritime traffic, but the treacherous shoals around the island caused numerous shipwrecks with serious losses of cargo and life. In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the island as a government light station, and the octagonal lighthouse was built the following year. Its tapered walls of hammered brownstone rise 80 feet above sea level. Light keepers and their families lived on the island year-round, and Captain Eli Kimberly and Captain Oliver N. Brooks each served for more than 30 years during the 19th century. In 1976, the lightkeepers' Victorian dwelling was destroyed by fire, but the stone and cast-iron lighthouse survived. Soon afterward, the station was automated with solar power and remains an active aid to navigation maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1985, ownership passed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Stewart B. McKinney Wildlife Refuge, and the island became the site of the Northeast's largest breeding colonies for more than 150 species of migratory birds.

Photo: Conrad Ward