Stratford Shoal Light

Stratford Shoal Light, officially Stratford Shoal Light, is a lighthouse on a shoal in the middle of Long Island Sound approximately halfway between Port Jefferson, New York and Bridgeport, Connecticut.LocationThe Stratford Shoal Light is located roughly midway between New York and Connecticut, from Old Field Point Light in New York and from Stratford Point Light in Connecticut. There was some debate about whether the lighthouse is New York or Connecticut. It was originally the state of New York, not Connecticut, which ceded the area on which the lighthouse is located to the federal government, but most modern official maps place it within Connecticut's side of Long Island Sound by about.The lighthouse is located on Stratford Shoal which is a little over a mile in diameter and as little as nine feet below mean lower low water. The shoal has been identified as a danger to navigation for centuries.HistoryAdriaen Block, the first European to explore Long Island Sound, identified two low islands at the site of current Stratford Shoal during his 1614 voyage. These islands were eroded below the surface of the water within 100 or 200 years. The shoal was first marked for navigation in 1820 by a pair of spar buoys placed on its north and south ends. In 1831, Congress appropriated $1,000 to erect a warning beacon on the shoal, but no further action was taken on the project. The beacon was to have had the shape of an iron spindle.