Seacow Head Lighthouse was built during the summer of 1864 under a contract of £314 by David McFarlane and John Rankin. Besides the cost of constructing the tower, £86 was paid for the land and right-of-way, Malcolm McFarlane was given £30 for clearing the land, Thomas Robinson was paid £85 for the lantern, and £300 was expended for copper, lamps, glass, and materials for the frame.

The octagonal, heavy-framed lighthouse, 18.3 metres (60 feet) in height and measuring 3.4 metres (11 feet 3 inches) on each side at the base, originally stood on a stone foundation and exhibited its light at a focal plane of about 27 meters (88 feet) above the surrounding water. Situated on the coast near the turning point for reaching Summerside Harbour, the Seacow Lighthouse serves as both a harbour light and a gulf light.

Malcolm McFarlane served as the first keeper of Seacow Head Lighthouse starting in 1865. In 1867, after McFarlane was no longer keeper, two commissioners were appointed by the House of Assembly of Prince Edward Island to investigate chargers against the former keeper. The commissioners found that the evidence presented to support a charge that McFarlane had embezzled public property were so trifling that it would not have been sustained in a court of law, and thus Keeper McFarlane was cleared.

In 1877, William Mitchell, the agent for the Department of Marine and Fisheries on Prince Edward Island, visited Seacow Lighthouse with the General Superintendent of Lighthouses of Canada and had five of Sibler’s patent lamps and burners, with deep reflectors, placed in the lantern room. At that time, the keeper, Peter O’Ronaghan, was living in the lighthouse, which was very uncomfortable, and Mitchell encouraged the Department to consider constructing a keeper’s dwelling. Tenders were invited for the construction of the requested dwelling in 1879, and a contract for the sum of $777 was awarded to James Barclay of Ellerslie. The new dwelling was built at the station in 1880.

A new cast-iron lantern was placed atop the tower in 1902 replacing a worn-out, inferior lantern. The tower was also reshingled, and a new platform deck built. In 1906, the system of lamps and reflectors was replaced by a fourth-order Fresnel lens, supplied by Barbier, Benard & Turenne, of Paris, France. The lens consisted of two groups of two panels each with each panel subtending 90° in the horizontal plane. Every ten seconds, the lens would produce the following pattern: flash of 0.638 seconds, short eclipse of 1.862 seconds, second flash of 0.638 seconds, and long eclipse of 6.862 seconds. The lens completed one revolution every twenty seconds, and petroleum vapour burned under a mantle was used as the illuminant.

Seacow Lighthouse was automated on November 12, 1959, and the dwelling was sold on March 7, 1960 and removed from the site. The tower was moved back from the eroding bank in 1979.

Seacow Head Lighthouse appeared in the opening scenes of many of the episodes of Road to Avonlea, which was adapted from a few books by Lucy Maude Montgomery, author of Anne of Greene Gables. Seacow Lighthouse was also the model for Gus Pike's Lighthouse that appeared in the series. Two mock-ups of the Seacow Lighthouse, one of which was cut short for scenes that took place at the top of the lighthouse, were constructed in a field near Uxbridge, Ontario, for use in filming.

Keepers: Malcolm McFarlane (1865 – 1867), Thomas P. Huestis (1867 – 1872), James Wright (1872 – 1873), Peter (Patrick) O’Ronaghan (1873 – 1917), E. O’Ronaghan (1917 – 1919), T. J. Ranahan (1919 – ).

References

1. Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, various years.