Port Sanilac Light placement and the unique shape were dictated by and created because of budgetary constraints (Congress appropriated only half the money requested). Designed by Eleventh District Engineer Captain Charles E. L. B. Davis, the design has been called "both unique and architecturally significant in its elegance." The tower is white with a red roof. This "handsome" lighthouse shares its design with only one other, Ile Aux Galets, also known as Skilligallee Island Light, on Lake Michigan. The Port Sanilac Light tower is capped with a cast iron lantern room, which still houses a fourth order Fresnel lens manufactured by Barbier and
Morning Light (ship) course of 16 years. "Morning Light" was the last one they constructed. Slightly larger than their penultimate ship "White Star", "Morning Light" was the largest vessel in British North America when she was built in 1855. The ship was launched from Wilmot, Nova Scotia in 1856. "Morning Light" was mostly used by merchants transporting goods between St. John, New Brunswick and Liverpool, England. As with many ships, she had many different owners such as Jacob Valentine Troop and William Thomson and Jacob Fritz. Jacob V. Troop was one of the most important men in the shipbuilding industry in the 1800s