Accessibility: 
Geographic coordinates: 41° 39' 31" N 69° 59' 02" W
Nearest town: Chatham. Located on Harding’s Beach, at the west side of the entrance to Stage Harbor, near the southeast corner of Cape Cod.
Established: 1880. Present lighthouse built: 1880. Deactivated: 1933.
Height of tower: 48 feet.
Previous optic: Fifth-order Fresnel lens. Present optic: None.
Chatham’s Stage Harbor (named for racks used for drying fish) developed into a busy fishing port. Congress appropriated $10,000 for a light station at the harbor’s entrance, and a 48-foot cast-iron tower with a fifth-order Fresnel lens went into service on July 15, 1880. Enoch Eldredge, the first keeper, was paid $560 per year.
In 1918, keeper Mills Gunderson died, and his son, Stanley, took over as keeper. In 1933, an automated light on a skeleton tower replaced the lighthouse. Stanley Gunderson complained to the Boston Post: “To save money, they put in something that is far more expensive and less reliable and all that economy and put another employee on the unemployment list. Rather a poor way to reduce unemployment and surely no help toward better times.”
The government removed the lantern, and the property passed into private hands. The same family that first bought the property, the Hoyts, still owns it. There has never been electricity at the station and no plumbing except a single pump. Henry Sears Hoyt once told Yankee magazine about his first visit to the lighthouse in the 1930s: “A more desolate spot would be hard to imagine. . . . A howling gale, whistling around angry sea, but nevertheless a grand place.”
The lighthouse can be reached after a one-mile hike on Harding’s Beach in Chatham. Please keep in mind that the house and tower are private property, and respect the privacy of the residents. To reach the beach from Route 28 in Chatham, take Barn Hill Road south to a right on Harding’s Beach Road. Follow to the parking area. A fee is charged in summer. For more information on Harding’s Beach, you can call Chatham Parks and Recreation at 508-945-5175.
The lighthouse can also be viewed across the water from the town landing at the end of Sears Road in Chatham. The Monomoy ferry passes the lighthouse; see the next entry for details.
Fascinating Fact 
In 1914, Keeper Alfred Howard was praised for rescuing a horse that was stuck in the mud in a nearby marsh. In the following year, he was commended for coming to the aid of the passengers of a disabled pleasure boat.
