A SKETCHBOOK ODYSSEY

Nauset Light was constructed in 1877 and was originally one of two lights in Chatham It was moved to Eastham in 1923 to replace the Three Sisters of Nauset, three small wood lighthouses that had been decommissioned. Nauset Light was originally all white, but in the 1940s was painted with the red section at the top, creating the iconic appearance of the lighthouse. The light was automated and the keeper’s house was sold in 1955. Due to coastal erosion, by the early 1990s Nauset Light was less than 50 feet from the edge of the 70-foot cliff on which it stood. In 1993, the Coast Guard proposed decommissioning the light. Following a great public outcry, the non-profit Nauset Light Preservation Society was formed and funded, and in 1995, it leased the lighthouse from the Coast Guard. The organization arranged for the light to be relocated, in November 1996, to a location 336 feet west of its original position – which by then was only 37 feet  from the cliff’s edge. Pilot Falcon fountain pen with Noodler’s Bulletproof black ink and Holbein watercolors in a Stillman and Birn Beta sketchbook.