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Including Delaware’s Mispillion Lighthouse on our Doomsday List and naming it, as the Most Endangered Lighthouse in the United States does not necessarily mean that checks will fill up the mailbox at the American Lighthouse Foundation.

This is one of those lighthouses that seem to get “no respect” as Rodney Dangerfield always says. Why, we don’t know. But the fact remains that this lighthouse needs some help. Several months ago the American Lighthouse Foundation offered to match dollar for dollar the first $5000 in donations that were sent in. Yet less than $2000 arrived at the American Lighthouse Foundation.

Part of the problem is that the lighthouse, which was privately, owned, still remains in bankruptcy. A local attorney, Sam Burke, has been trying for months to purchase the lighthouse and he has expressed a positive interest in working with the Keepers of the Mispillion Lighthouse to restore the structure if he is able to secure ownership. In the meantime the group continues to try to raise money to be used when the day comes that they can use it to save the lighthouse.

The problem is time. The longer the lighthouse receives no stabilization, the more the chance that it could literally collapse or be vandalized. The immediate area next to the lighthouse is abandoned including a damaged marine and former restaurant.

Adding the structure to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 did nothing to help save the lighthouse.

If you would like to help, send a donation to the American Lighthouse Foundation, Mispillion Lighthouse Fund, P.O. Box 889, Wells, Maine 04090.

The American Lighthouse Foundation will hold the funds in an escrow account until such time as the Keepers of the Mispillion Lighthouse can get control of the structure to restore it. However, if that never happens the funds would be used for other lighthouse restoration projects, also a worthy cause.

This story appeared in the March 2002 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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