An etching that appeared in the book The Pine Tree Coast shows the lights at Matinicus Rock, an island 25 miles from Rockland.

Congress and President John Quincy Adams authorized building two lighthouses on the island in 1827 to aid mariners in their approach to Penobscot Bay.

Storms damaged or destroyed the keeper's house and many of the outbuildings several times.

The illustration is from the book by Samuel Adams Drake published in 1891. The half-tone etching was made by H.G. Peabody of Boston, Harry Brown and Jackson and Jinney of Portland.