Edgartown Light House and The Harbor View Hotel, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts
This unused postcard was probably originally available at the Harbor View Hotel, seen at the right. It is a tourist card produced by McGrew Graphics and printed in Kansas City, Missouri with has the number 531180 at the bottom of the center line on the reverse. At the upper left is a blurb: “The Harbor View Hotel Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard Island, Mass. 02539. Telephone (617) 627-4333. Overlooking our picturesque harbor is the famous Edgartown Light House. The Harbor View at the right, is equally famous.”
In the late 1700s and early 1800s there were a large number of vessels, mostly whalers, frequenting the harbor necessitating a lighthouse at the harbor entrance. The original Edgartown Lighthouse was a Cape Cod style two-story Keeper’s house, built of wood on wooden spiles, similar to piling, on an artificial island ¼ mile from shore in 1828. It was the first lighthouse at the entrance to Edgartown Harbor and also served as the lighthouse keeper’s home. In 1830 a wooden causeway, known locally as the “Bridge of Sighs,” was approved and built. People would gather on the causeway bridge to watch the whaling ships depart on voyages that could last up to 5 years, hence the nickname for the bridge. The old lighthouse structure, which had had several rebuilds and repairs, was demolished and replaced by the current cast-iron tower in 1939. Today it is surrounded by a beach made of accumulated sand around a stone causeway that connects to the mainland.
For additional information, see:
https://en.wikipedia,org/wiki/Edgertown_Harbor_Light
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