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Geographic coordinates: 42° 32' 11" N 70° 47' 09" W
Nearest city: Beverly. Located on a 55-acre island on the approach to Salem Harbor.
Established: 1798. Present lighthouse built: 1820. Automated: 1972.
Height of tower: 59. Height of focal plane: 111 feet.
Earlier optic: Fourth-order Fresnel lens. Present optic: VRB-25.
Characteristic: Alternating white and red flashes every 20 seconds.
Fog signal: One blast every 30 seconds.
Baker’s Island is about three miles east of the entrance to Salem Harbor. With Salem’s foreign trade booming by the late 1700s, aids to navigation were needed to ensure the safety of the heavy shipping traffic. An unlighted beacon was placed on Baker’s Island in 1791. In 1796, President Washington signed an appropriation of $6,000 for a lighthouse on the island.
The first structure was a two-story dwelling with two towers about 40 feet apart on the roof. The first keeper was George Chapman, He later became blind, which was blamed on the brightness of the lighthouse lamps. Joseph Perkins, a former harbor pilot who became keeper in 1815, kept cows, pigs, rabbits, and sheep at the light station.
In 1816, the station was reduced from two lights to one. There were complaints that it was hard to tell the light apart from Boston Light, so two lights were restored to service in 1820. The extant conical rubblestone tower was built that year. It stood about 40 feet from a shorter 25-foot octagonal stone tower that had been built in 1816. The two towers were nicknamed the “Mr. and Mrs.” lighthouses.
In March 1825, keeper Nathaniel Ward and his assistant, a Mr. Marshall, went to the mainland to pick up supplies in a small boat. They were caught in a storm on the return trip, and both died after their boat capsized. The forty-nine-year-old Ward left a large family.
The shorter lighthouse was discontinued in June 1926, and it was demolished a short time later. The light in the taller tower was automated in 1972; the old Fresnel lens is now at the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland, Maine. The tower underwent an extensive restoration in 1993.
The Baker’s Island Association, which manages the island, held a license to use the two keeper’s houses for some years. In April 2005, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton recommended that ownership of the light station be transferred to the Essex National Heritage Commission (ENHC) under the provisions of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. For more information, contact the Essex National Heritage Commission, 221 Essex Street, Suite 41, Salem MA 01970. Phone 978-740-0444. Web site: www.essexheritage.org.
The island is not accessible to the general public. You can see the lighthouse distantly from points in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Beverly, Salem, and Marblehead, but it’s best seen by boat. Views are available from some of the lighthouse cruises offered by the Friends of the Boston Harbor Islands (781-740-4290, www.fbhi.org), Boston Harbor Cruises (617-227-4321, www.bostonharborcruises.com), and Mahi Mahi Cruises in Salem (800-992-MAHI, www.mahicruises.com).
Fascinating Fact 
When Walter Scott Rogers of Beverly became an assistant keeper in 1872, he was in ill health and weighed only 101 pounds. It was reported that by the time he left in 1881, his health had improved and he weighed 226 pounds.