By following a cart-track for a quarter of an hour one comes to the canal, a stone’s throw across, dividing the cape from the Nubble Rock. On the top of this bare crag the lighthouse-keeper’s dwelling and fog signal stand out bold and sharp against the blue sky. At the east, a clump of blanched ledges stretches off… This prospect comprises everything between Cape Ann and Cape Elizabeth in clear weather, and is every way admirable.

– Samuel Adams Drake, The Pine Tree Coast, 1891.