The Keeper's House at Marblehead Lighthouse
Near Put In Bay, Ohio
The stone house beside the Marblehead Lighthouse was built in the early eighteen twenties for Benajah Wolcott, the first keeper of what was then called the Sandusky Bay Light. Wolcott cut the limestone himself from local quarries and constructed a home built to last, which it has, for more than two centuries. His second wife, Rachel Miller Wolcott, took over as lighthouse keeper after his death, becoming one of the first female lighthouse keepers on the Great Lakes.
The Marblehead Light is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the American side of the Great Lakes, guiding ships through the western basin of Lake Erie since eighteen twenty-one. The keeper's house stands as the oldest surviving building in Ottawa County, Ohio, a quiet limestone reminder of how much early American commerce depended on the people willing to tend a flame through the night.
