Just 1,900 feet south of Stone Pillar is Algernon Rock, a rocky spine barely visible at high tide. Shortly after midnight on June 1, 1857, the 277-foot-long Canadian, owned by the Montreal Steamship Company, ran aground on this dangerous ledge. The vessel was a total loss, but all aboard survived.

To mark this threat to mariners, a timber pier, topped by a square, thirty-two-foot “reflecting tower,” was built on Algernon Rock in 1875 and 1876 at a cost of $8,729, after Parliament had appropriated funds for the project in 1874. Due to “difficulties experienced in connection with the reflecting apparatus,” this device, whose purpose seems to have been to simply reflect the light from South Pillar, was not put in operation. However, the pier and tower, painted white with broad black corners, served as a highly visible daymark. In the spring of 1879, the reflecting apparatus was destroyed by fire, but the pier and tower were not damaged.

It was then decided to install a sixth-order lens in the tower, and a fixed white light commenced operation at Algernon Rock on April 20, 1880. The keeper at Stone Pillar Lighthouse was also responsible for the light on Algernon Rock, but it was understood that he would hire an assistant to take care of it. In 1882, a breakwater pier was built at the rock to ensure the safety of the keeper’s boat.

In 1887, four new pieces of boiler plate were mounted on the pier at Algernon Rock to replace those that the ice had carried away the previous winter. The pier required repairs and additional iron plates in 1893 and again in 1898.

In 1905, the wooden pier was placed on a concrete foundation and refaced with concrete at a cost of $14,717.19. This work was carried out as the lighthouse was in danger.

Algernon Rock Light was made unwatched in 1927, and then in 1947, the wooden tower was demolished and replaced with a metal, skeletal tower. A buoy replaced the light shown from the skeletal tower in 1960, but the 1947 tower remained standing until a storm destroyed it on December 10, 2014.

References

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

No light is on the rock today.

Find the closest hotels to Algernon Rock (Roche à Veillon) Lighthouse