The story
New London Ledge Lighthouse rises straight from the water at the mouth of the Thames River off Groton, Connecticut — a three-storey French Second Empire brick house on a concrete pier, built in 1909 to suit the grand shore estates and utterly unlike any other American light. Its resident legend is 'Ernie', named in telling as a keeper of the 1920s or 30s who, versions say, ended his life after his wife left — a death story carried gently and without detail — and Coast Guard crews stationed there until automation in 1987 filled genuine logbooks with his pranks: doors and hatches opening, decks swabbed by no one, blankets pulled, the fog horn sounding alone, boats set adrift, and footsteps on the spiral stairs; the final crew's log famously signed off to him. No keeper's death at the light is documented, which the record should say. Preserved by a foundation, the light is visited by seasonal boat tours and overnight programmes. Present Ernie as the Coast Guard's own cherished telling — logged, loved and unproven — with tour details from the foundation's pages.