History
Westfield was once part of the Town of Portland and the natural harbor there was known as Portland Harbor. When the Town of Westfield was established formally in 1823, the harbor area became known as Barcelona.
The lighthouse was established in 1829 through the efforts of Thomas B. Campbell. The conical tower and attached keeper's cottage were constructed of fieldstone, with a natural, emplaced foundation. The light was emitted by eleven lamps with 14 inch reflectors. It was the first lighthouse in the world to be powered by natural gas, which Campbell transported from a "burning spring" about a mile distant by means of wooden pipes. Thirty years later, in 1859, the lighthouse was deactivated, but it still stands today, in private ownership.
The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Read more about this topic: Barcelona Light
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)