Crown Point Light
The Crown Point Light (also: Champlain Memorial Lighthouse ) is a memorial in honor of Samuel de Champlain on the southern tip of Lake Champlain at the inlet of the Hudson River . The building was erected on the site of a lighthouse that had been erected on this site in 1858 and marked a bottleneck, Chimneys Point . The memorial is located in Crown Point , Essex County , New York , right on the mid-river border with Addison County , Vermont . About 500 meters to the west are the ruins of Fort Crown Point .
The current tower replaced an octagonal stone lighthouse that had been built on this site in 1858 and, together with the lighthouses at Windmill Point and Isle La Motte, served as a signpost for navigation on Lake Champlain. To mark the 300th anniversary of the discovery of Lake Champlain, the states of New York and Vermont decided to erect a new tower at this point, which in turn was an octagonal, 17 meter high structure with Doric columns and a white beacon at the top . The new tower was inaugurated in 1912 by President William Howard Taft . The new tower is adorned on the river side by a statue of the discoverer Champlain and underneath it is a plaquette by the French artist Auguste Rodin , a gift from the French people for the 300th anniversary.
After the cessation of operations in 1926, the beacon was replaced by a steel tower further north, the attached guard's house was demolished and the tower continued to be used purely as a monument. The tower is marked as a landmark on nautical charts, but not as a lighthouse.
About three hundred meters north of the tower, a striking bridge construction spans the isthmus today, to which the replacement construction of the beacon from 1926 fell victim.
Web links
- Entry on the side of the US Coastal Protection (English)
- Articles and photos of today's monument (English)
- Entry on the page of the Lighthouse friends (English)
Coordinates: 44 ° 1 '47.6 " N , 73 ° 25' 17.8" W.