UPDATE: SCHS — Photo of the Week / 3.11.23 — Women’s History Month | Horton Point Lighthouse

Photo of the Week

——– Week of March 10, 2023 ——–

FROM THE SCHS LIBRARY ARCHIVES

“How shall we know it is us without our past?”
– John Steinbeck

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WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

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Horton Point Lighthouse, looking toward the Long Island Sound, 1899. (Photograph from the Henry W. Prince Collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society Library Archives.)

This 1899 view looking toward the Sound shows the picket fence that enclosed the backyard of the lighthouse property and a small building to the right that was later moved.

Constructed by the United States Lighthouse Service in 1857, Horton Point Lighthouse is one of eight historic lighthouses located in Southold Town. The tower and adjoining keeper’s residence were built on the lot of Barnabas Horton’s original 1640 land grant. The tower is 58 feet tall, and it once held a 3rd order Fresnel lens.

Managed by several people during its history until its automation in 1933, Stella Maria Prince Terry (1867-1927) of Southold was the only woman to serve as lighthouse keeper at Horton Point. Her service ran from June 1903 to November 1904 as Acting Assistant Keeper, a federal position, by order of President Theodore Roosevelt. Stella lived at Horton Point Lighthouse for thirty-four years.

Thanks to the efforts of local historical fiction author Mary Korpi, Stella Prince has finally, in February 2023, been added to the official Coast Guard List of Women Lighthouse Keepers, over a hundred years after she served.

Join us for a Book & Bottle lecture on Saturday, March 18, 2023, at 1:00 PM, with Mary Korpi, author of The Lady Lighthouse Keeper. Korpi will tell us about her research journey into Stella’s life for her work of historical fiction, and how that experience led her to advocate for and ultimately achieve recognition for this remarkable woman from Southold. A small pop-up exhibit of Prince family journals and photographs will be on display during this event, and the author will make her book available for purchase at $20 each.

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