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Chronology of Aids to Navigation
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appropriation was made "for placing a bell near the lighthouse on West Quoddy Head," Maine. (Putnam, p. 228).
1820 About this time, spar buoys began being substituted for barrel buoys, because they had been found to be more reliable and much less expensive. (Putnam, p. 217).
1820 The first lighthouse was built at the mouth of the Mississippi River, on Franks Island, although "there appears to have been a temporary light on the blockhouse at Belize about 1817." (Putnam, pp. 113-134).
1820 The first lightship in the United States was stationed in Chesapeake Bay, off Craney Island, at the entrance to the Elizabeth River, near Norfolk. (Putnam, pp. 201-202).
1820-1852 During this period, the Secretary of the Treasury assigned the "care and superintendence of the lighthouse establishment" to the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury. (Putnam, PP- 38, 43).
1822	The French physicist, Augustin Fresnel, beginning in this year, lighthouse practice by developing a built-up annular lens comprised of a central spherical lens surrounded by rings of glass prisms, the central portions of which refract and the outer portions both reflect and refract in the desired direction the light from a single lamp placed at the central focus," (Putnam, p. 192).
1823	A lightship was stationed off Sandy Hook, thus being the "first outside vessel placed off the coast of this country." (Putnam, p. 60).
1825 A lighthouse was built at Fort Gratiot at the outlet of Lake Huron, being the first light to mark the passage through the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers. (Putnam, p. 153).
1827 "Congress enacted a bill to construct a lighthouse at Natchez, Mississippi. The light was never used and in 1835 a writer proposed that it should either be lit or used as an observatory." (Adamson, p. 304).
1831	(1 January) As early as this date, a contract was made to provide the Portland Harbor (Barcelona) Lighthouse on the south shore of Lake Erie in New York with natural gas "at all times and seasons" and to keep the apparatus and fixtures in repair at an annual coast of $213.00. (USCG, p. 65).
1832	"The first lighthouse on Lake Michigan was placed at the mouth of the Chicago River," being "located on the south bank just west of old Fort Dearborn." (Adamson, p. 318).
1835	A contractor, without bothering to obtain official approval from the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury, changed the Mobile Point Light from a fixed to a revolving light. (Weiss, p. 6).
1836	(23 July) A band of hostile Indians attacked and burned the Cape Florida Lighthouse. * (USCG, pp. 16-18).
1837	The first lightship on the Great Lakes was stationed at the junction of Lakes Huron and Michigan. (Putnam, p. 153).
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/h_USLHSchron.html
5/17/2005