Fort Point Lighthouse
Liverpool, Nova Scotia has one of the oldest lighthouses in Nova Scotia, built on an historic site close to the middle of town. Its first European tourists were deMonts and Champlain who landed in 1604. The lighthouse role came later in 1855 after the military roles that this piece of real estate play.
Fort Point Lighthouse was named after the fortified gun battery that once protected the town from the 1760s to the 1860s and which fired on the enemy during the American Revolution. This occupation was in addition to being a signal station and a gathering place for the town.
By the 1850s, the timber and huge shipping trade required that Liverpool’s make its harbor easier and safer to enter by day or night. In 1855, merchants, shipmasters and other merchants of Queens County petitioned the Nova Scotia legislature to have a harbor light built. Its original wood construction is wonderfully preserved owing to the diligecne of the caretakers and lighthouse keepers over the years.
Unlike the traditional” pepper-pot” shape, Fort Point has a uniquely-shaped gable roof described in geometric language by a 1872 sailing guide as “the frustrum of a pyramid on a square base.” In the years that followed, when ships loading timber tied up three deep at Liverpool wharves, the light proved indispensable in making the crowded and busy harbour safe.
Today the lighthouse is a protected park area open to visitors who drive a short, scenic route of 18 & 19th century homes to reach it.
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