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Geographic coordinates: 44° 22' 03" N 67° 51' 52" W
Nearest town: Steuben. Located about two miles southeast of Petit Manan Point, on the southern approach to West Bay, Dyer Bay, Harrington Bay, and Pleasant Bay.
Established: 1817. Present lighthouse built: 1855. Automated: 1972.
Height of tower: 119 feet. Height of focal plane: 123 feet.
Previous optic: Second-order Fresnel lens. Present optic: VRB-25.
Characteristic: White flash every 10 seconds.
Fog signal: One blast every 30 seconds.
President James Monroe authorized the building of a lighthouse on Petit Manan Island to guide shipping traffic toward several bays and harbors in the vicinity and also to warn mariners of a dangerous bar between the island and Petit Manan Point on the mainland. The small original tower was replaced by the extant granite tower in 1855.
In 1869, a storm made the tower sway violently, causing the clockwork weights that turned the lens to come loose and fall. The falling weights destroyed some of the steps in the tower’s cast-iron spiral stairway. In 1887, the tower was strengthened with the addition of iron tie rods driven from the top to huge bolts in the lower section.
Maizie Freeman Anderson grew up at Petit Manan, where her father, James H. Freeman, was keeper in the 1930s. She later recalled one particularly high tide when the entire island was under a foot of water and the chicken coops were floating in a cranberry bog.
The second-order Fresnel lens, almost 10 feet high, is now at the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland. A fog bell from the station is at the elementary school in the town of Milbridge. After the light was automated, Petit Manan Island was turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and became part of the 3,335-acre Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge. It’s now part of the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge. The island supports a mixed-tern colony of common terns, arctic terns, and roseate terns. There’s also a breeding colony of puffins as well as common eiders.
A renovation carried out in 1997-98 included repointing, lead paint removal, and the replacement of stair treads that were destroyed in 1869.
The tower can be seen very distantly from a trail at Petit Manan Point in the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Puffin-watch cruises out of Bar Harbor (207-288-9800, www.barharborwhales.com) go close to Petit Manan Island for an excellent view of its feathered residents as well as the lighthouse. Robertson Sea Tours Adventures (207-546-3883 or 207-483-6110, www.robertsonseatours.com) in Milbridge also offers a Petit Manan puffin cruise and a lighthouse cruise. Downeast Coastal Cruises (207-546-7720, www.downeastcoastalcruises.com), departing from Milbridge, offers a variety of options for charter cruises.
Fascinating Fact 
This is considered one of the foggiest spots on the Maine coast, with an average of about seventy foggy days each year. A fog bell installed in 1855 was replaced by a steam-driven fog whistle in 1869.