Owls Head Light. Haunted Lighthouse Series.

Oct 13 2021, 7:00 am in

President John Quincy Adams authorized the building of Owls Head Light, Maine in 1825. Not a tall light but it stands on a cliff and is exactly 100 feet above sea level. And guess what? It’s haunted……….

 

It has an awesome history of dedicated keepers and rescuing mariners. One of the most famous was when a schooner broke apart on the ice-covered rocks below the light.

The light keeper organized a rescue party and they found a block of ice enveloping a man and a woman seemingly dead. But the rescue party brought the block to the kitchen of the keeper’s house and chipped away, slowly raising their temperature of the water and began to exercise their limbs.  After two hours the woman showed signs of life. An hour later the man opened his eyes and wanted to know what was going on.

There was a dog, Spot, that barked to warn sailors away from the rocks. And… did I mention it’s also haunted? 

In the mid-1980s a light keeper’s wife spoke of the night her husband went outside to secure some construction materials. She felt him return to their bed or thought she did.

She asked if all was well outside. Receiving no reply she turned over and saw only an indentation of a body in the bed next to her. The indentation moved, as if an invisible person was shifting in the bed. After a few minutes, she asked the visitor to go away so she could get some sleep. 

Right! Okay, I could have done that. But by phone from the next county.

The next morning the light keeper told his wife that when he’d gotten out of bed the night, he saw a cloud of smoke hovering over the floor. The cloud, he said, went right through him and into the bedroom.

The next keepers to take over the light were warned about the ghost but didn’t believe it. They chose a room said to be a favorite of the ghost for their daughter’s bedroom. For the entire time they were there the child had an imaginary friend she said looked like an old sea captain. Once, in the middle of the night, the little girl went into her parents’ room excitedly telling them, “Fog’s rolling in! Time to put the foghorn on!” Nobody had ever spoken of such things in front of her, the parents were mystified by the use of such jargon. 
Another common occurrence is the appearance of footprints in the snow, seemingly beginning from nowhere and going up the wooden stairs that lead to the lighthouse tower. On some occasions the keepers find the door to the tower open, the lens and brass inside freshly polished.

Um… I want someone to clean my house by draw the line at a ghost doing it. What about you?

                                                   Rita

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Currituck Lighthouse – Haunted Lighthouse Series.

Oct 6 2021, 7:00 am in

Currituck Lighthouse on the northern North Caroline Outer Banks was first lit on December 1, 1875 and is 162 feet high with 220 steps to reach the lens. It is a first order lighthouse, meaning it has the largest of seven Fresnel lens sizes. This light has a 20-second flash cycle (on for 3 seconds, off for 17 seconds), and can be seen for 18 nautical miles. The distinctive sequence enables the lighthouse not only to warn mariners but also to help identify their locations. Currituck was the last brick lighthouse built on the Outer Banks. Its brick facade was left unpainted to distinguish the light from other lighthouses, and allows one to grasp just how many bricks it took to build. Like a million!

And it’s haunted………..

Well, not the light itself but the North Room of the light keepers house.  Of course, now the light is automated, but until the 1939 the light was manually operated, you know, by people, and their families who lived on the property. And it seems some of these people could still be hanging about.

The Johnson family was the first to live in the keeper’s quarters. They adopted Sadie Johnson after the death of her parents. While living there, it was believed Sadie’s bedroom was the North Room. That is, until she drowned. There are two versions of her death. One says Sadie was often told not to play in the sand by the shore but paid the no attention. One day she didn’t return from her sand castle building. The next day her body washed ashore. Another version says she was swimming with her friends and disappeared. Since then it has been thought her spirit returned to her old bedroom. In both versions everyone assumed the drowning was a horrible accident. Until the next deaths occurred, that is.

 A lady visiting the keeper’s wife was given the north bedroom.  She was stricken with a mysterious illness and died. Another keeper’s wife contracted tuberculosis and was confined and quarantined to the north bedroom. With family and friends kept away it’s said she lost interest in living and she too became a victim of the North Room. After she passed, so the story goes, her clothing and sheets were put into a barrel and kept in the room for fear of the disease spreading. After the automation of the lighthouse in 1939, the home fell into disrepair but the barrel remained in the North Room. Children from the village of Corolla were told not to go into the North Room. But you know kids. All they heard was go into the room. The kids opened the barrel and their parents found them playing with the clothes and sheets. The clothes and sheets were immediately burned.

Is a supernatural phenomenon really to blame for those deaths? No one can say for sure. What is known is that the North Room remains a dark, foreboding area in the historic house. Many a guest has refused to enter the room, citing a chill hanging in the air and feeling an icy breath on their necks. The light keeper in the 80s said a guest who spent the night in the house said during the night someone, or something, kept trying to pull the sheets off the bed. Really? And she stayed in the bed? O. Hell no.  Others have reported seeing visions.

The current keepers says there are no ghosts. It is simply drafts and a creaking, groaning old house. Whether ghosts actually haunt the North Room is uncertain. For over a century, the room has seen the loss of loved ones and their presence may remain, keeping watch over the North Room.

What do you think?

Rita

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Haunted Lighthouses on the US East Coast

Sep 29 2021, 7:00 am in

I couldn’t decide which east coast Haunted Lighthouse to feature this week. There are so many.  So, what the heck,  I decided to  do several.

 

 

     I’ll start with the Ram Island Light located on Casco Bay, Maine.  In 1900, because of a long history of shipwrecks in the area, Congress appropriated funds to build the 90 foot high granite light. With the many shipwrecks come several ghostly stories. One sailor tells how his boat was caught in a terrible storm. Wild waves and lightning streaking across the sky turning night to day. He was unsure of his bearings until he saw a woman dressed in white, shinning as if full of electricity, standing on the reef at Ram Island, waving her hands in warning. He goes on to say if it weren’t for her he would have struck the ledge. He was never able to find out who she was.  Another fisherman: “I was in danger of running into the rocks when I saw a burning boat near shore, about to smash on the rocks and in the boat was this woman, warning me away. I quickly changed direction. The next day I saw no trace of the burning boat or the mysterious woman.”

 

     The ghost of a beautiful young woman dressed in white walks the shores of the beach near Hendrick’s Head Lighthouse, Southport, Maine. There is speculation she’s the ghost of a woman found drowned there one morning, or…is the ghost the mother of a baby saved in a shipwreck?

     In 1871, a vessel went aground off shore during a March gale. The light keeper, having no means of rescue, watched helplessly as the ship sank. The next day the keeper and his wife gathering debris found feather mattresses bound with rope, a wooden box wedged inside. Opening it, they discovered an infant girl. Someone, more than likely the mother, had done their best to save the baby, and succeeded. The keeper and his wife rushed her to the house where they cared for and kept her as their own.

     Who do you think the ghost who walks the beach is? The drowned woman or the infant girl’s mother?

     Owl’s Head Light, near Rockland, Maine, has two ghosts, one a former keeper who polishes the brass. The other known as the “Little Lady” resides in the kitchen. She is credited with doors slamming shut unexpectedly and silverware rattling. Those who have the pleasure of bumping into Little Lady say she imparts a peaceful feeling.   

     Light keepers are the ones who usually encountered the unknown, brass polishing keeper, seeing him out of the corner of the eye. His brass polishing skills make him a welcomed ghost. Brass work was the bane of lightkeepers.  Footprints in the snow have been attributed to him. The 3 year old daughter of a keeper woke her parents telling them to ring the fog bell because it would soon get foggy. Which it did indeed do. When questioned how she knew, she revealed her friend told her. The friend who looked like a sea captain in a picture in the house. The lighthouse keeper’s house is currently used as quarters for the local Coast Guard and the thermostat is frequently lowered presumably by the ghost. Frugality passes on into the afterlife.

     The Boon Island lighthouse stands on a  300 X 700’ barren shoal in the Gulf of Maine.  In 1710  the Nottingham Galley crashed into the island. The crew that survived had no way to reach the shore six miles away and survived a winter by resorting to cannibalism.  Eh…. what about fishing, maybe catching birds? Sounds crazy to me.

     Many report seeing an ethereal young woman shrouded in white on the Boon rocks at dusk. She  may be Katherine Bright, who came to Boon as a newlywed with her lightkeeper husband. Four months after arriving, a surge tide swept the island. Attempting to secure the island’s boat, Keeper Bright slipped on the rocks and drowned. Katherine pulled his body ashore, dragged it to the lighthouse and left it at the foot of the stairs.  She took over lighthouse duties for five days and nights, without eating or sleeping. On the sixth day, the light was out. Fishermen investigated and found Mrs. Bright sitting on the stairs holding the frozen corpse of her husband. She’d completely lost her mind and died a few weeks later. Those who see her apparition also say they hear her screams.

Do you have any haunted Lighthouse experiences?

                                                                     Rita

 

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The Seguin Lighthouse – Haunted Lighthouse Series

Sep 15 2021, 7:00 am in

 

The Seguin Lighthouse is in the Gulf of Maine on Seguin Island, south of the Kennebec River. Established in 1795, it is the second-oldest of Maine’s coastal lighthouses. The light station stands on the island’s highest point, and includes the lighthouse itself, the keeper’s house, fog signal building, a small oil house, and a 1006 foot tramway for bringing supplies from the shore to the site. The light, built from granite blocks, is 53 feet tall and 180 feet above sea level making it the highest in the state. The first tower was wood frame completed in 1797 and replaced by the present tower in 1857.

This light has quite the history and of course, it is haunted…..

 

Starting with the history part, on September 5, 1813 the epic sea battle between the HMS Boxer and USS Enterprise took place near Seguin. Yes. The name USS Enterprise has a long, glorious history.

 

More than a hundred light keepers have served at Seguin. There has been several women assistant keepers. Not a common thing in those days. Going through the list of keepers names I found it odd that some were removed from their position. For what reason? I can understand why many resigned. That island is pretty small and is said to be foggy fifteen percent of the time. The fog horn is so loud it can be heard fourteen miles away and keepers swear it has blasted birds from the sky.  BTW I don’t particularly care for fog.

Those who lived there had to be pretty self-sufficient. Electricity didn’t arrive until 1953 and from what I can tell it was kinda iffy at that. Did those that resigned get bored? Couldn’t take the isolation or get tired of being so self-sufficient?

Now here is where the weird stuff begins.     

Near the island, in July of 1875, a sea captain and ship’s crew reported seeing a monster that came to their boat and put its head over the rail. They struck it with a pike sending it back into the water. A few days later another boat reported seeing the serpent floating along occasionally raising it head to look around. WTH?

Many believe that the pirate, Captain Kidd, buried his gold and silver treasure on the island. In 1936, for a year, a man dug up the place looking for it but found nothing.

Sometime in the mid-1800s a murder suicide took place. A light keeper bought his wife a piano. Ah. Nice guy. She played the same tune over and over for hours upon hours until it apparently drove the keeper insane because he took an axe to the piano, his wife and himself. Eww. Doing yourself in with an axe? The mind boggles. The spooky thing is on quiet nights, the crews of ships going by the island say they can hear the tune playing over and over and over.

A young girl died and was buried on the island and many report still seeing her running up and down the stairs. Some have even heard her laughing.

There are other reports of items being moved or going missing, jackets being taken from hooks and thrown to the floor, and furniture rearranged.  

When the Coast Guard was packing up to leave the island in 1985 an apparition in oil skins begged a warrant officer to leave his furniture and home alone. The next day as the furniture was being loaded on a boat, chains broke and all the furniture fell into the ocean. Coincidence? Don’t know but my new rule is if a ghost asks me to leave his furniture and home alone, I’m not arguing.   

                                                   What do you think? 

                                                                                Rita 

                                                                                                This was previously posted 

 

   

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