Saddleback Ledge Lighthouse

Saddleback Ledge Light Station Facts & Figures

• Station Established: 1839
• First Lit: 1839
• Construction: Material - Granite  |  Shape - Conical Tower
• Markings: Gray
• Fog Signal: Horn - One blast every 10 seconds
• Operation: Automated - 1954
• Height: Tower - 43 Feet  |  Focal Plane - 52 Feet
• Range: 9 Nautical Miles (10 Miles)
• Optics: Earlier - Fifth-order Fresnel lens (1855)  |  Current - VLB-44 LED (2017)
• Characteristic: Flashing white every six seconds
• Current Ownership, Maintenance & Preservation: U.S. Coast Guard

Visitor & Tour Information: The lighthouse is not open to the public. It is best seen by boat or plane. The Isle au Haut Ferry & Mailboat offers cruises that include Saddleback Ledge Lighthouse. Sea Ventures Charters (207-446-5484) offers custom, personalized charters from St. George aboard the 38′ diesel-powered Lady Anne. Air tours are also available with Penobscot Island Air. 

Lighthouse Trivia: C. L. Knight, a Maine writer and former lighthouse keeper, once described Saddleback Ledge Light Station as "one of the most remote and barren of all Maine lighthouse locations." It sits on a quarter-acre granite rock that rises about twenty feet above the high water mark. This stone ledge, named after its saddle shape, is located at the entrance to Isle au Haut Bay, between Vinalhaven Island and Isle au Haut. The ledge is so barren that there is no soil. The keepers at Saddleback Ledge, like those at the other remote stations, brought soil from the mainland each spring and planted a few vegetables and flowers. Winter storms would inevitably wash away the soil.

In the late 1800s, several publications printed a story about a lighthouse keeper who left his fifteen-year-old son at the lighthouse while he went to the mainland for the day. The keeper was unable to return for three weeks due to a monstrous storm that blew in. Even though his son had little to eat, he still managed to keep the lights on each night, indicating to the keeper that his son was still alive. The boy was nursed back to health after the keeper returned with supplie