In 1868, the Cominicut light was established to warn mariners of the dangerous shoal extending from the west side of Cominicut Point in Warwick, RI near the entrance of the Providence River. In 1883, the present light, a cast iron spark plug style, was built and has remained on the small rocky atoll ever since. The light gives off a white flash every 2.6 seconds and stands at 58 feet high with a focal plane height of 55 feet. Its fog horn emits two blasts every 30 seconds.

In 1874, a five room abode was built at the light for the keepers to stay at instead of having to make the dangerous one mile rowboat trip out to the light from the offshore station. Horace Arnold was the first keeper to stay at the light. His young son allegedly died at the light when he fell from the tower. In 1922, Ellsworth J. Smith was given the position as keeper. He and his wife of six years, Nellie and their two young children, Russell, two years old and Robert aged five, would live at the light and together maintain the buildings and grounds. This became a curse for the young Nellie who so wanted to socialize with the women on the mainland. 

Nellie contentiously asked for her husband to take her to shore but he, being hard headed and insistent, constantly reminded her of their duties as keepers and the importance of seeing them through. She became depressed and even threatened suicide, but her husband shrugged it off and stoutly refused her wishes. One possibility of his refusal was likely that she was 26 years his junior and the issue was more a matter of jealousy. Her being still young and beautiful made her a certain target for suitors along the shore where he could not keep his eye on her.

It soon became too much for young Nellie and she made plans to put an end to her torment of loneliness and depression. In the medicine cabinet was a bottle of mercury bichloride pills, a very potent and deadly drug. It was commonly used in those days if very heavily diluted to treat various illnesses. On the morning of June 9, 1922, Smith rowed to the Cominicut Village to procure some supplies. As soon as Ellsworth was out of sight, Nellie went to the medicine cabinet and took the bottle. She told five year old Robert that she was bringing Russell to bed. She put the toddler on her lap and gave him a tablet, telling Robert that it was candy. One tablet would have been lethal to such a small human. She then brought Russell upstairs, telling Robert she had some for him when she came back down. She returned and gave Robert two tablets and then took two herself. After trying to swallow the pills, Robert spit them out as he watched his mother fall into an unconscious state. He had ingested enough to make him very sick.

About 4 pm, keeper Smith moored his rowboat full of supplies at the light. He called out to his wife but received no answer. He entered the house with a load of groceries and saw his wife and Robert at the table. Robert was pale and too ill to move and his wife was deceased. He frantically searched the house for little Russell who he found upstairs in his bed, also deceased. He rushed Robert ashore where a doctor was able to administer an antidote in time to save him. The light stayed dark that night as the authorities were notified to make sure navigators of the shoal knew this. Keeper Ellsworth could not bear to return to the light where tragedy took his family. Nellie and Russell were buried quietly in a grave near East Greenwich, RI. 

By now, three people had lost their lives at the Conimicut Light, but their spirits never left. Keepers would report hearing a woman crying on dark nights and sometimes hear a child playing. Items would be moved about the lighthouse and a tool needed would suddenly appear as if taken from the boat by an unseen force. By the 1970s, there were no longer keepers living in the lighthouse and the ghosts of the Cominicut Light had all but been forgotten, but on a clear night, anyone sitting on Cominicut Point Beach, may spy a ghostly figure who appears to be working on the light, perhaps the ghost of Keeper Arnold’s son, and the sound of a young child laughing followed by a woman crying.