From the time the current lighthouse was built in 1859 until it was electrified around 1933, four keepers, their assistants, and their families lived and worked on this seaside landscape at the Cape May lighthouse station: Downes Foster from 1861-1879, Samuel Stillwell from 1877-1903, Caleb Woolson from 1903-1924, and Harry Palmer from 1924-1933. For most of those years, the site included the lighthouse and oil house as well as dwelling houses, a barn and stable, a storehouse, vegetable and flower gardens, privies, and a water works. Two identical keepers’ houses were built within a year after the lighthouse was completed in 1859; each one-and-a-half-story house had three rooms on the first floor, front and back porches, and a stairway leading to four second-floor bedrooms. Wooden privies stood behind the property about 30 feet behind the lighthouse, while lawns and gardens extended more than 50 feet south toward the sea. The 1860 keepers’ houses proved inadequate for the three keepers needed at the station, forcing the two assistants and their families to crowd into one house in conditions the lighthouse Board considered thoroughly unsatisfactory and harmful to discipline and efficiency. Inspection reports began requesting another keeper’s house as early as 1880, and a two-story addition on the east side of the assistant keepers’ house was finally completed in 1901; that house was enlarged and remodeled again around 1920. An unknown arsonist burned the assistant keepers’ house to ashes in September 1967. The remaining keepers’ house now serves as a private home for state park employees. Harry Palmer, the last keeper at Cape May, was also an avid gardener, winning second place from the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce in 1931 for his well-kept lawn and garden, then a first-place award and blue ribbon in 1933; he was especially proud of his pole beans, tomatoes, corn, and the hydrangeas that flourished on the property.