History
The first Vermilion Lighthouse was a wooden structure that was built in 1847 by a $3000 grant from the Congress of the United States. In 1859 the lighthouse received a $5000 renovation that rebuilt the structure and added a whale oil lamp and 6th order Fresnel lens. In 1866 Congress appropriated funds to build a new, permanent lighthouse made from iron. Cast in Buffalo, New York in three tapering octagonal sections, the iron used for the lighthouse was recycled from smooth-bored Columbian cannons that had been rendered obsolete after the Battle of Fort Sumter in the American Civil War. As Vermilion native Ernest Wakefield wrote, “The iron, therefore, of the 1877 Vermilion lighthouse echoed and resonated with the terrible trauma of the War Between the States.” The ironworkers used sand molds of three tapering rings, octahedral in shape.
Completed in 1877, the new lighthouse was 34 ft (10 m) high and had an oil lantern with a 5th order Fresnel lens. In 1919 the oil lantern was replaced with an acetylene light. After it was discovered to be leaning to one side, in 1929 the lighthouse was removed and replaced with an 18 ft (5.4 m) steel tower. The old iron lighthouse was transported back to Buffalo where it was later renovated and reinstalled as the East Charity Shoal Light on the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1935.
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