An engineering study recommended instead that lights be built 24 miles (39 km) downstream, and an appropriation was made in 1874 to build a light on Port Tobacco Flats, with a day beacon for Mathias Point.

By the time construction began the two were switched, and the light was completed in 1876.

Matthias Point was like no other screw-pile structure on the bay, with much decorative woodwork and a distinctive three tiered structure that some described as resembling a wedding cake.

It was intended that this light replace that at Upper Cedar Point; in the end the number of complaints led to the latter's reactivation in 1882.

Mathias Point Light itself was automated in 1951 and replaced in 1961 by a beacon mounted on the old foundation.