As Bristol’s Pemaquid Point became an increasingly high traffic area due largely to the trading and fishing industries, President John Quincy Adams commissioned a lighthouse to be built on land purchased for $90 by the Federal Government from Samuel and Sarah Martin, descendants of survivors of the 1635 Angel Gabriel shipwreck at Pemaquid Point.

Pemaquid Point’s first lighthouse was built in 1827 and, due to the poor initial construction of the rubblestone building, was replaced by a white pyramidal tower in 1835. Stipulations in the contract with mason Joseph Berry specified the use of lime mortar touched only freshwater for the new construction. A fourth order Fresnel lens was installed in 1856. The keeper was removed from Pemaquid in 1934, making it the first automated sentinel in Maine. The lighthouse’s stationery fog bell was replaced by a gong buoy moored off Pemaquid Point in the 1930s.

The caption reads, "Pemaquid Light, Pemaquid Point, Maine."

The Tichnor Brothers printing company published this type of postcard circa 1938.