The endangered lighthouse at Cedar Point, Long Island, holds more than 150 years of history within its battered walls. The original wooden structure was built in 1839 as an aid to whalers traversing the Sag Harbor area. The port was important to commerce in the 1800s and Cedar Island, which set some 200 yards off shore, was deemed a good site for the new lighthouse.

The narrow channel was attracting larger vessels moving between Cedar Island and Shelter Island to reach Sag Harbor. The new lighthouse was outfitted first with Winslow Lewis lamps and reflectors placed in the lantern room of the 35-foot structure. It later received a sixth order Fresnel lens, when area lighthouses were refitted with the more efficient lights.

Storms and weather took its toll, and the wooden structure showed leaks and damage. In the 1860s, many of the wooden sentinels were rebuilt, and Cedar Island Light was refurbished in granite on a granite pier, with the four-story tower rising from the middle of the L-shaped two-and-a-half story building.

By the turn of the 20th century, erosion and storm damage had reduced the three-acre island to half its size. Between 1903 and 1907 thousands of tons of riprap was deposited on the north and west sides of the small island. This had no sooner been completed as a breakwater than a huge wave enveloped the island and flooded the lighthouse, according to a local newspaper report.

In 1934, Cedar Island Light - like several other area lighthouses - was decommissioned and replaced with a skeletal tower that was automated. Two years later, the now-surplus island, which now measured less than an acre, was auctioned off. The auction netted $2,002 for the old lighthouse and the land, but not the new skeletal tower. Erosion and floods had now reached midway up the old structure and it was regarded as unsafe and uninhabitable.

The following year, the infamous September hurricane not only caused great damage to the area, but the storm deposited so much sand that what was once Cedar Island now was part of the mainland, forming a small peninsula.

Though other lighthouses on Long Island have been restored, Cedar Island Light remains in its endangered state, though volunteers have done a small amount of restoration. Pigeons roost in the tower and the building itself is sealed.

Now part of Cedar Point Park, preservation plans continue, thanks to efforts by the Cedar Island Lighthouse Committee of the Long Island Chapter of the US Lighthouse Society. Until these volunteers are successful, an important part of lighthouse heritage remains seriously endangered. The Long Island Chapter of the US Lighthouse Society raised funds, and completed the restoration of the adjacent Oil House, May 2004 as the first step towards the renovation of the lighthouse.