When the United States Government was organized in 1789 there were ten lighthouses owned by the Colonies, but the Boston Light was in operation thirty years before the others.  Sandy Hook Light, New York Harbor, was established in 1764 and its original masonry tower is still standing and in use.  It is the oldest surviving lighthouse in this country.  It was built with funds raised by means of two lotteries authorized by the New York Assembly.  A few days after it was lighted for the first time the following news item appeared in a New York paper: 

On Monday evening last the New York Light-house erected at Sandy Hook was lighted for the first time.  The House is of an Octagon Figure, having eight equal Sides; the Diameter at the Base 29 Feet; and at the top of the Wall, 15 Feet.  The Lanthorn is 7 feet high; the Circumference 33 feet.  The whole Construction of the Lanthorn is Iron; the Top covered with Copper.  There are 48 Oil Blazes.  The Building from the Surface is Nine Stories; the whole from Bottom to Top is 103 Feet.

From these early years the number of lighthouses has steadily grown, until now the United States maintains lights along 50,000 miles of coast-line and river channels, a distance equal to twice the circumference of the earth.  It maintains at the present time about 15,000 aids to navigation at an annual cost of about $5,000,000.  In 1916 this country was operating 1706 major lights, 53 light-ships, and 512 light-buoys—­a total of 5323.

The earliest lighthouses were equipped with braziers or grates in which coal or wood was burned.  These crude light-sources were used until after the advent of the nineteenth century and in one case until 1846.  In the famous Eddystone tower off Plymouth, England, candles were used for the first time.  The first Eddystone tower was completed in 1698, but it was swept away in 1703.  Another was built and destroyed by fire in 1755.  Smeaton then built another in 1759.  Inasmuch as Smeaton is credited with having introduced the use of candles, this must have occurred in the eighteenth century; still it appears that, as we have said, the Boston Light, built in 1716, used oil-lamps from its beginning.  However, Smeaton installed twenty-four candles of rather large size each credited with an intensity of 2.8 candles.  The total luminous intensity of the light-source in this tower was about 67 candles.  Inasmuch as this was before the use of efficient reflectors and lenses, it is obvious that the early lighthouses were rather feeble beacons.

According to British records, oil-lamps with flat wicks were first used in the Liverpool lighthouses in 1763.  The Argand lamp, introduced in about 1784, became widely used.  The better combustion obtained with this lamp having a cylindrical wick and a glass chimney greatly increased the luminous intensity and general satisfactoriness of the oil-lamp.  Later Lange added an improvement by providing a contraction toward the upper part of the chimney.  Rumford and also Fresnel devised multiple-wick burners, thus increasing the luminous intensity.  In these early lamps sperm-oil and colza-oil were burned and they continued to be until the middle of the nineteenth century.  Cocoanut-oil, lard-oil, and olive-oil have also been used in lighthouses.