Bluff Point Lighthouse tours a growing success

VALCOUR | Tours of the historic Bluff Point Lighthouse left ripples from ready captains who ferried scores of history buffs slowly to and from Valcour Island. The Peru Dock was a busy place on one of only two lighthouse tour days planned by the Clinton County Historical Association (CCHA). The second is set for Aug. 6. But July 9, the weather held just long enough to get everyone over and back. Docents provided interesting historical bits of information, especially about life in the cottage and the keepers' work. A portrait of the second Bluff Point lightkeeper shows him wearing a Confederate uniform in the Civil War. "He was injured and they provided him a job here," the tour guide said of William Herwerth. "He wasn't here very long before he died, but his wife Mary Jane (Hooey) Herwerth stayed on." Mr. Herwerth was lightkeeper at Bluff Point from 1876 to 1881. Mrs. Herwerth stayed on through 1903, nearly 30 years. They raised four children in the lighthouse quarters. Living space on the first floor included a living room and a kitchen, a pantry and the lightkeeper's office. There were four bedrooms upstairs. History of the bluestone lighthouse incorporates changing lights amid a legion of camps and campers that once had summer places on Valcour Island. It was built in 1874 out of stone that historians say came from Willsboro or Westport, though it looks a lot like the bluestone limestone from Essex Quarry. Mineral oil was first used to light the lamp's wick and history notes that it took about 86 gallons in a year to keep it lit. The lens was originally a 5th Order Fresnel lens. It is the same Victorian design as the Barber Point lighthouse, which was built the year before. The 36-foot light tower atop an elegant, red-shingled mansard roof helped guide ships through the Valcour island channel. Bluff Point is one of 12 lighthouses built on Lake Champlain between 1826 (Juniper Island) and 1874. The lighthouse lamp was replaced by a tower with an automated light on Bluff Point light in 1930. A sprawling osprey nest inhabits the tower's steel platform now. In 1954, the Historical Association was granted a state conservation easement to maintain the building, which they have continued to do. Valcour Island was added to the Adirondack Park in the 1970s, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) maintains 29 primitive tent sites on Valcour along with the 9.2-mile Valcour Perimeter Trail. In 2004, the light from the tower was moved back into the lighthouse peak. DEC restored the light's use in conjunction with CCHA and the U.S. Coast Guard, putting it back into operation. The Clinton County Historical Association does provide tours of the Bluff Point Lighthouse every Sunday in late June, through July and August, though visitors have to use their own watercraft to reach the island. The lighthouse is open from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The second guided tour of Bluff Point on Aug. 6 costs $30 per person for the boat trip and the short half-mile hike to the lighthouse perch. For more information or to make a reservation, call the Clinton County Historical Association at (518) 561-0340. Boats leave every 20 minutes from 9:20 a.m. to 1:20 p.m. from the Peru Dock. To find out more about the lighthouse, visit the Historical Association website: clintoncountyhistorical.org

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Bluff Point Lighthouse tours a growing success

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