CASTLE HILL LIGHTHOUSE

To help mariners through the East Passage of Narragansett Bay, Congress authorized $10,000 for the erection of a fog signal at Castle Hill in 1875. A year earlier the famous Harvard professor and zoologist Alexander Agassiz had built a large summer cottage at Castle Hill on the very property where the government wanted to put the signal.

Agassiz refused to sell his property. He and other local landowners did not want a fog bell sounding "at their very doors." In 1886 a lighthouse was proposed along with the fog bell at Castle Hill.

Agassiz finally sold a portion of his land to the Government, but then refused to grant the Government the right to pass through his property to the lighthouse site. Castle Hill is steep and rocky, and landing by boat is difficult. In 1888 Agassiz finally granted the right-of-way and construction began the following year.