A semaphore station was established at East Chop in 1828 to display shipping information, but many local residents felt a proper lighthouse, like the one established on West Chop in 1817, was needed at the site. A local mariner named Captain Silas Daggett actively lobbied for a light there, but was unsuccessful at convincing the authorities of the necessity of another light.

In 1869 Captain Daggett grew tired of waiting and built his own lighthouse at East Chop, but that structure burned down just two years later. The Lighthouse Board then loaned three twenty-one-inch reflectors to Daggett, which he installed on top of a house nearby to produce a navigational aid. The makeshift light station was supported by donations and subscriptions from local mariners.

The Lighthouse Board eventually conceded the need for a lighthouse at East Chop as shown by the following 1873 entry in its Annual Report:

A light has been maintained for several years at this point by the subscriptions of the owners of steamships and by other private individuals. As there is no doubt as to the utility of the light, it is recommended that an appropriation for erecting a fourth-order light be made.

East Chop Lighthouse and dwelling in 1895

Finally, in 1875 Congress approved $5,000 to build a light station at East Chop. The government purchased Captain Daggett’s station in 1876, and noted that the building that served as the dwelling and light “was a slight wooden structure, little better than a shanty.” By mid-1877, a new one-and-a-half story dwelling and cast-iron tower were under construction at the station. The 40-foot-tall, conical tower was similar in style to several other New England lighthouses constructed during the late 1800s.

A fourth-order Fresnel lens initially shone from atop the tower at a height of seventy-nine feet above the water. The light’s characteristic was changed from fixed-white to flashing red in 1898, and then to flashing green in 1934. An oil house was added to the station in 1897, likely to house the more volatile kerosene oil used in the lantern.

The lighthouse was painted white at first, but in the 1880s it received a coat of reddish-brown paint and became popularly known as the “Chocolate Lighthouse.” In 1988, its daymark was returned back to white, as the dark color was causing excessive heat and condensation in the tower.

From 1902 to 1934 East Chop Lighthouse was maintained by a one-armed keeper named George Walter Purdy. Purdy was from Newfoundland where he had been a lobsterman. After moving to Massachusetts, he took a position aboard the lighthouse tender Azalea, where one day he was in the engine room showing someone how to run the motor when his sleeve got caught in the motor. His arm was mangled by the motor, and as gangrene had set in before they could get to New Bedford, the arm had to be amputated.

After losing his arm, Purdy was assigned to lighthouse duty, starting first at Sankaty Head on Nantucket, then at Gay Head and finally East Chop on the Vineyard. One of the Purdys’ four children, a son named Luther, was born at East Chop. Another child, Alice Purdy Ray, was born while he father served at Sankaty head and was interviewed later in life by Lindsey Lee of the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society about her life at East Chop.

The house there, they don’t build them like that anymore…The roof was slate. In the wintertime it was beautiful. You would never know what the weather was outside if you were in the house. You wouldn't know whether it was raining, blowing, sleet. The house was so solid it wouldn't show anything. It was just as nice and warm as could be. In the summertime it was cool.

There was another building they called a tool shed, and there was a barn across the street. You see, Dad decided he had to have a cow so he asked the town if he could put a cow across the street. There wasn’t anybody there. It was just open field. They said, “Go ahead,” so he went out and bought himself a cow.

And we used to have a vegetable garden. You should have seen the garden my family used to have in there. Oh, those rambling roses. They're still growing wild along the fence in front.

When the lighthouse was automated in 1934, Purdy and his family were given the chance to continue renting the house for $100 a month, but they declined as it was a bit lonely on the hill in the winter, so all the buildings except the tower were torn down. Alice Purdy Ray couldn’t understand why the government pulled down the dwelling rather than sell it to someone, but she found out why the home was so quiet when the wrecking crew discovered thick brick halls hidden beneath the dwellings wooden exterior.

East Chop Lighthouse remains an active aid to navigation, although the Fresnel lens was replaced by a modern beacon in 1984. The land surrounding the tower was sold to the town of Oak Bluffs in 1957 for use as a park, and in 1985 maintenance of the tower was handed over to the Vineyard Environmental Research Institute (VERI). Responsibility for East Chop Lighthouse, along with the lighthouses at Gay Head and Edgartown, was passed to what is now known as the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in 1994. In 2003, the museum paid $25,000 for a professional assessment of all three lighthouses by Gary Gredell, who had previously worked on the restoration of forty-six lighthouses on the east coast.

When funds from the Community Preservation Act were made available for lighthouse restoration by the towns of Edgartown and Oak Bluffs, the museum contracted Campbell Construction Group of Beverly, MA to overhaul the towers at East Chop and Edgartown. During the summer of 2007, the East Chop Lighthouse was refurbished inside and out at a cost of $140,000. The tower received new windows along with a fresh coat of white paint, and the electrical wiring that formerly connected to the side of the tower, much to the frustration of artists and photographers, was placed underground.

References

1. The Lighthouses of Massachusetts, Jeremy D'Entremont, 2007.
2. The Lighthouses of New England, Edward Rowe Snow, 2005.
3. Annual Report of the Light House Board, various years.