There is little doubt but that the early colonists recognized the necessity for beacons with which to guide their home-returning shallops to a safe anchorage, and that they took effective means to show the English and Dutch ships which should make their land-fall at night the safe way to the harbor. But the first authentic evidence of this being done at the public charge, is the record of the proceedings of the general court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, from which it appears that on March 9, 1673, a petition came from the citizens of Nantasket, Massachusetts (now Hull), for the lessening of their taxes, because of the material and labor they had expended over and above their proportion in building the beacon on Point Allerton, the most prominent headland near the entrance to Boston harbor. At that session also it appears that bills were paid from Nantasket for making and furnishing "fier-bales of pitch and ocum for the beacon at Allerton Point," which "fier-bales" were burned in an iron grate or basket on the top of a beacon, for the building of which Nantasket had furnished 400 boat-loads of stone. The first light-house on this continent was built at the entrance to Boston harbor, on Little Brewster Island, in 1715-16, at a cost of £2,285 17s 8-1/2d. It was erected by the order and at the expense of the general court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and it was supported by light-dues of 1d per ton on all incoming and outgoing vessels, except coasters, levied by the collector of imports at Boston. The maritime colonies followed the example of Massachusetts, and when the United States by the act of August 7, 1789, accepted the title to, and joint jurisdiction over, the light-houses on the coast, and agreed to maintain them thereafter, they were eight in number, and comprised the following lights, all of which are still in existence, though so greatly improved that they are the same only in purpose and in site: Portsmouth Harbor Light, New Hampshire; Boston Light, on Little Brewster Island; the Gurnet Light, near Plymouth, Massachusetts; Brant Point Light, on Nantucket, Massachusetts; Beaver Tail Light, on Conanicut Island, Rhode Island, in Narragansett Bay; Sandy Hook Light, New Jersey, entrance to New York harbor; Cape Henlopen, Delaware, at the entrance to Delaware Bay; Charleston Main Light on Morris Island, entrance to the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.