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Owls Head Light II LbNA #16186

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Jun 30, 2005
Location:
City:Owls Head
County:Knox
State:Maine
Boxes:1
Planted by:Hoosier Honey Bee
Found by: FelixPezGirl
Last found:Jul 13, 2011
Status:FFFFFFFFOFFFFFFFFFFF
Last edited:Jun 30, 2005
STATUS: PULLED FOR THE WINTER ON 10-13-12; WILL REPLACE SPRING 2013

"Owls Head ushers at once upon a scene almost too beautiful to profane with speech when we are looking at it, impossible to find language to do it justice when memory would summon it before us again."

Samuel Adams Drake, The Pine Tree Coast, 1891

HISTORY:

Owls Head Light was commissioned by President John Quincy Adams in 1825 because of the growing lime trade out of nearby Rockland Harbor. The brick and mortar light tower is only 30 ft tall but it sits on a promontory 100 ft above the pounding surf. A fourth order Fresnel lens was installed in 1856 and remains in use today. Isaac Sterns was the first lighthouse keeper and 16 civilian keepers followed him. In 1963, it became a US Coast Guard Light Station. Six more Coast Guard keepers followed until the light was automated in 1989. The 1854 keeper's house remains a residence for Coast Guard personnel. Owl's Head has a rich lore of shipwrecks in stormy seas and frigid water rescues. For more information read; "Lighthouses of New England" by Edward Rowe Snow and "All Among the Lighthouses" by Mary Bradford Crowninshield.

DIRECTIONS:

From the intersection of Park and Main St.'s in Rockland, turn south on 73. Go 1.9 miles and turn left on North Shore Drive. Go 2.5 miles and turn left on Main St., just after the sign for Owls Head Light State Park. About 300 yds ahead, by the Owls Head General Store, turn left on Lighthouse Rd. This paved road turns to gravel at the park entrance 1000 yds ahead. Continue into the park and leave your car in the parking area. Enjoy the spectacular views of the Maine coast and islands in Penobscot Bay from many vantage points.

A path off to your left from the parking area leads to a rocky beach. Grab a table for a picnic by the sea. Save some time for beachcombing along the rocky shoreline. Sea urchins, starfish, snails, periwinkles, muscles and barnacles abound in the intertidal zone. At low tide, seaweed covered rocks are exposed.

Stroll the grounds of the Coast Guard Light Station. A ramp and steps will take you up to the light but the tower and keeper's house are not open to the public. Beware of foggy weather; the blast from the fog signal can damage your hearing if you're too close.

NEW: There is now a chain link fence that prohibits entry onto the grounds of the Coast Guard Light Station after sunset. I guess that's the price we have to pay for homeland security. However there is a lovely new kiosk with historical information and the stairway and light tower has been rennovated.

CLUES:

Take the path to the beach. Go to the first picnic table you see ahead of you. Turn around and take 31 paces back the way you came. You will see a path on your left that leads at a steep angle up a wooded hill. Start climbing. You will pass a group of birch trees on each side of you before the path levels out a bit. Stop, 2 steps after the last triple-trunked birch on your left. Take a bearing of 214 degrees. You will see a tree with curvy surface roots about 5 paces off the path. Nestled in the roots, hidden by stones, is Owls Head Light II. You might want to take the box back down to the beach to stamp up at a picnic table. Please be discreet when finding and replacing it.