Newburyport Harbor Rear Range Light, built in 1873 at 61½ Water Street near the Merrimack River, served as the rear beacon in a pair of range lights that guided ships safely upriver into Newburyport Harbor. After an earlier privately funded light was destroyed in a storm, Congress funded publicly maintained replacements in 1872. The rear light is a 53-foot brick tower with an eight-sided lens room, iron balcony, and distinctive river-facing paint scheme. Cared for first by local keepers and later by Plum Island Light staff, it was decommissioned in 1961. The tower endures as an important remnant of the city’s maritime past.

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Newburyport, Massachusetts · USA