In the late nineteenth century Maine enjoyed an unusual amount of political influence in Washington, much of it due to the presence of Congressman Thomas Brackett "Czar" Reed, who served three terms as Speaker of the House. Beginning in 1891 the seven steamship companies which served Portland began to point out to the Lighthouse Board that each year they carried over half a million passengers past Spring Point Ledge off Willard Beach, and by 1895 work had begun on the present "sparkplug" lighthouse, set on a concrete-filled caisson. Spring Point Ledge Light was lit in May, 1897. More persistent lobbying, in which the Marine Society probably played a part, brought the Cape Elizabeth Lightship No. 74 on station just over five miles offshore in 1903, and by 1904, following two shipwrecks in 1902, there was at last a lighthouse on Ram Island Ledge.
By 1906, when a story on the Marine Society, headlined as "110 Years Young," appeared in the Portland Sunday Telegram, it was in rooms at 11 Exchange Street. There were fifty-two members, five of them honorary, and four living former presidents, Captains Plummer, Keazer, White and Norton. The president was Captain T. J. Laithwaite. The story refers to the Society’s quarters as "new rooms," in which each day could be found retired captains "playing cribbage or talking over the good old days when the American flag floated over the staunchest, fleetest and largest fleet of sailing vessels of the time." Among the regulars were Captain John H. Humphrey of Yarmouth and Captain William Leavitt, who had founded the firm of Chase Leavitt on his retirement from the sea in 1876.
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