Baker Island Light Station

Baker Island Light Station is a white-brick lighthouse on a remote 162-acre island at the southwestern entrance to Frenchman Bay. It is not a roadside stop: reaching the island means arranging a boat and making a careful landing. The former five-hour ranger-interpreted cruise ended in 2024, and there is no scheduled public cruise listed now. A private charter may be an option, but there are no docks, floats, easy landings or public moorings. Confirm permission and safe conditions before setting out. The tower itself is not open to the public, and no visitor food or restroom service is documented, so bring what you need.

A rocky bar connects Baker Island with Little Cranberry at low tide, but it is a slippery crossing possible only a few days a year. Treat it as a hazard, not a shortcut. If you cannot arrange a safe boat visit, a ranger-led video tour is the practical way to experience the island's history.

The first lighthouse went up in 1828 after President John Quincy Adams ordered a light to warn ships away from the Cranberry Isles' shallow shoals. William Gilley, who farmed the island, became its first keeper. The original wooden tower was replaced in 1855 by the 43-foot white-brick tower still standing. Its light was automated in 1966; it continues to serve mariners, after local residents and mariners successfully opposed proposals to discontinue it in 1991 and 1997.

William and Hannah Gilley moved from Mount Desert Island around 1806 with three children. Their family grew to twelve, and the island was a working farm: they raised livestock and grew potatoes and corn. They sold butter and eggs nearby, then dried fish and common eider feathers in Boston to buy goods they could not produce themselves. Gilley descendants lived on Baker Island for 123 years, and buildings from the homestead still stand.

The shoals that prompted the lighthouse also made this coast dangerous: nine shipwrecks have been recorded around the island. A rocky bar reaches toward Little Cranberry at low tide. Residents have reported finding old maritime hardware in the shallows, though the underwater history has not been thoroughly excavated. The light station is part of that larger story of farming, navigation and a difficult Maine coast.

If you see Baker Island from a boat or manage to land, include the tower, keeper's house and some of the rocky, tree-lined island around them. That wider view shows the lighthouse as a remote working station and home, not just a white tower against the sky.