During the American Revolutionary War in July 1779, a battle took place on the site of the future lighthouse when British troops anchored offshore and staged an invasion of New Haven.

Ensign and Adjutant Watkins of the King's American regiment was the first of the British soldiers killed in the skirmish, shot while attempting to disembark on the shoreline.

Although the British went on to burn the nearby house of Amos Morris and several other residences in the area, they suffered heavy losses and ultimately abandoned their advance on New Haven.

[4] In 1804, the United States Congress passed a statute requiring the secretary of the treasury to build a lighthouse at Five Mile Point if land could be obtained for a reasonable price.

[5] That same year, Amos Morris Jr., son of the man whose home was the first to be razed during the 1779 British invasion, sold a suitable one-acre plot of his father's coastal estate to the federal government for $100.

[9][10] The fixed white light was made by eight oil lamps with 13 inches (33 cm) parabolic reflectors, but it was criticized for being too dim.

[10] In 1896, the lighthouse was transferred to the United States Department of War and was improved by a lessee named Albert Widmann.

[12] The $86,000 restoration included repairing cracked mortar, steam cleaning the interior and exterior and removing "guano [that had] accumulated over the decades".