Presque Isle Harbor, one of Lake Huron's safest harbors of refuge, takes its name from the peninsula, a French term meaning "almost and island." Indians and Frenchmen portaged across the peninsula to avoid several miles of open lake. As more vessels came to the harbor, Congress appropriated $5,000 in 1838 for a lighthouse, and Jeremiah Moors of Detroit completed it in 1840. Today it is one of the oldest surviving lighthouses on the Great Lakes. Pat Garrity, its last keeper, was appointed by President Lincoln, and four of Garrity's children, raised in the keeper's house, became lighthouse keepers. In 1870, a new lighthouse to the north was completed along with two range lights for the entrance to the harbor.