| The North Truro Lighthouse, more commonly known as the Cape Cod or Highland Light, was built in 1857 for $15,000, equipped with a first order Fresnel lens from Paris. As described on the New England Lighthouses web page, "This powerful light made Highland Light, the highest on the New England mainland, one of the coast's most powerful lights. Highland Light was for many years the first glimpse of America seen by many immigrants from Europe. ... Further testifying to its importance, the new lighthouse was assigned a keeper and two assistants. The station also received a coal-burning Daboll fog signal, powerful enough to cut through the frequent thick fog."
In 1996 the 404-ton lighthouse was moved to a site 450 feet back from its former location.
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"Over this bare Highland the wind has full sweep. Even in July it blows the wings over the heads of the young turkeys, which do not know enough to head against it; and in gales the doors and windows are blown in, and you must hold on to the light-house to prevent being blown into the Atlantic. ...
The keeper entertained us handsomely in his solitary little ocean house. He was a man of singular patience and intelligence, who, when our queries struck him, rung as clear as a bell in response. The light-house lamps a few feet distant shone full into my chamber, and made it as bright as day, so I knew exactly how the Highland Light bore all that night, and I was in no danger of being wrecked. Unlike the last, this was as still as a summer night. I thought as I lay there, half awake and half asleep, looking upward through the window at the lights above my head, how many sleepless eyes from far out on the Ocean stream -- mariners of all nations spinning their yarns through the various watches of the night -- were directed toward my couch."
From the chapter, "The Highland Light" in Henry David Thoreau's book, Cape Cod.
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