Brown started work on the foundation of a fireproof lighthouse for Burlington Canal that would John be built at a cost of $10,479.98 using blocks of dolomite limestone. The sixty-foot-tall tower is very similar to the six Imperial Towers that Brown erected on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay around this same time. To form the foundation, piles were driven deep into the ground and then capped with timbers and cement. The wooden portion of the foundation was laid below water level so it would always be covered and protected against decay. While the Imperial Lighthouses on Lake Huron were equipped with Fresnel lenses, the stone tower at Burlington Canal used the older catoptric system as evidenced by this report from 1876 when Thomas Campbell was in charge of the light: There are six base-burner fountain lamps, and six 20-inch reflectors on two iron frames. One lamp shows towards Hamilton and five show out. The lantern is made of iron, has an iron floor, and measures eight foot across. The glass is 14 1/2 x 18 inches. The tower is a white round, stone building 60 feet high. There is a storm-signal drum attached. The place is well kept. The range light, which is under the care of the same keeper, has two base-burner fountain lamps on a frame, and one 20 and one 16-inch reflector. The lantern is three feet in diameter, with glass 14 x 16. The light is 28 feet high from the pier. It is also well kept. The main light was improved in 1891 by replacing the old lantern and illuminating apparatus with “new ones of modern pattern” at a cost of $1,290.71. The stone lighthouse finally received a fourth-order Fresnel lens in 1911, and its illuminant was changed to petroleum vapor burned under a incandescent mantle at that time. Pete Coletti was serving as keeper of the Burlington Canal lights when the 1858 stone tower was decommissioned in 1961 and replaced by a light mounted on the south tower of the railway bridge.
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