Touring Eugene O'Neill's New London

Since the Colonial era there has been a New London Lighthouse to mark the entrance to the harbor. It was the first lighthouse in Connecticut and the fourth in New England. In 1801 the Federal government assumed responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the facility, and the lighthouse was rebuilt.

A keeper’s house was added in 1863 and records from this period make reference to a foghorn, and though it cannot be documented, it is likely there was a horn long before this time. Ledge Light was built in 1909, and at that time the foghorn was relocated. The foghorn could be heard at the O’Neill home on Pequot Avenue, a sound that torments Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night. "It won’t let you alone," she tells the serving girl. "It keeps reminding you, and warning you, and calling you back. (She smiles strangely.) But it can’t tonight. It’s just an ugly sound. It doesn’t remind me of anything" (Collected Plays, 1162).

New London Lighthouse, c. 1900

The New London Lighthouse is also mentioned in Ah, Wilderness! In the play, newspaper editor Nat Miller is surprised when his wife says that she plans to spend the Fourth of July holiday resting and talking with her sister-in-law. "You can gossip any day," he says, admonishing and cajoling her. "This is the Fourth. Now I’ve got a better suggestion than that. What do you say to an automobile ride? I’ll get out the Buick and we’ll drive around town and out to the lighthouse and back" (Collected Plays, 904).