It is time to set the record straight. Ever since I inherited my aunt’s house and moved back to my hometown, I have been hearing that rich, out-of-towners bought the Pequot lighthouse keeper’s house and cut off public access. The Lighthouse Service split the properties in 1928 after the lighthouse was automated and on-site keepers unneeded. They kept a tower and maintenance access to Pequot Avenue. That was passed to the Coast Guard and finally to the Maritime Society.

The house and surrounding property were sold to my great-grandmother and passed down within my family. Our yard never belonged to the Coast Guard or the Maritime Society; and was never legal public access. But while my aunt’s estate was in probate after her death, trespassing was so prevalent that volunteers assumed that it was legal. Landscaping was destroyed and structures laid in both neighboring yards.

So much unnecessary money and ill will would have been avoided if the Maritime Society had stayed within its own property.

Elizabeth Dimock (Norris) Ring

New London