Oak Orchard Lighthouse & Point Breeze

Oak Orchard Harbor and Point Breeze developed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a harbor, shipbuilding, resort, and yachting center centered on the lighthouse at the end of the west pier. Funds for a safe, accessible harbor were first appropriated in 1835, construction of the west pier began in 1837, and the piers were extended and the harbor dredged in 1867. Wooden schooners were built at the Murray Shipyards at what is now Point Breeze, the schooner Milan sank off Oak Orchard Harbor in 1848, and early sailing vessels continued to enter the harbor around 1900. A tavern later known as the Black North was built in 1857. The original Oak Orchard Lighthouse was constructed at the end of the west pier in 1879-1871 at a cost of $4,000 including the lighthouse keeper's house, and a 1909 government survey indicated that its lighting equipment was still in place. The lighthouse was permanently discontinued on May 1, 1914, and was destroyed by a winter storm in December 1916. Its light was a fixed, 360°, non-flashing fifth order lens lantern with a fifth-order kerosene burner, single round wick, and five-day tank attachment, manufactured by Barbier, Bernard and Turenne of Paris, France. Kerosene was stored in a boiler-plate steel fuel building near the origin of the west pier; that building survived as the only remaining artifact of the original lighthouse and was later donated to the Cobblestone Museum. The first lighthouse keeper, John Kelly, served from 1871 until sometime after 1891; he and his family lived in the keeper's house on the west side of the Oak Orchard River south of the river mouth, and he died in 1901 in Buffalo and was buried at Mt. Albion Cemetery. Local tourism and recreation also shaped the area: the Orleans House hotel was destroyed by fire in 1911, the Lakeland Hotel was later built on its site, bootleg Canadian whiskey entered the harbor by boat during Prohibition, snipe racing became popular in 1935 and remained so into the 1950s, and the Oak Orchard Yacht Club was formed at Point Breeze in 1839 and purchased its first property in 1949 from Mary Winghart, owner of the Winghart (Lakeland) Hotel. In 1942 the Lakeland Dining Hall and House of Mystery, owned by the Wingharts, were destroyed by fire. New piers and a breakwall were built in 1973 by the Army Corp of Engineers, a lighthouse committee formed in 2003 to rebuild the lighthouse, a historically accurate replica was dedicated and opened to the public in 2010, an LED navigational light was donated that same year by the Oak Orchard Yacht Club, and a memorial brick walkway and sandstone benches were installed in 2012.

Carlton, New York · United States