Ghosts of St. Augustine

by Tom Lapham

  In 1944 an old man moved into the same house and complained of a woman who washed dishes at his sink and sang loudly. She sang mostly hymns, and she had a good voice, but the man got tired of it and finally moved. Of course, no woman was ever there.

  In the 1960s a couple moved into the house and soon after told a neighbor who had lived close by for a long time that they often heard footsteps in one room or another. Also, every night around eleven o'clock they heard two loud thumps in a back bedroom. The neighbor explained that an elderly bachelor had lived there several years before and had died in the place. It had been his habit to retire around eleven, and he slept in the back bedroom. Perhaps, he was still there, and the thumps were his shoes hitting the floor when he took them off.

  In the southeast corner of the farm there once was an old barn and a house nearby. At the time, in 1954, it was a chicken farm, and the couple who owned it often worked late into the night, getting all their chores done. One night, around eleven thirty, just after they had finished their work, they were sitting at the kitchen table having a final cup of coffee and discussing the day's events and the next day's work, when they heard a horse outside. From the sound of the hoof beats it seemed to be running toward the house from the old barn, although there were no animals there; it was no longer in use. The man grabbed his flashlight and went out to catch the horse. There was nothing there. The next morning he and his wife went out to look for footprints and found nothing, not one track. This happened several times while the couple owned the farm, and no one ever found any tracks or saw a horse.

  Also, from time to time the same couple heard what sounded like opera singing coming from a trailer right next to the farm. The morning after the first time they heard it, at two o'clock in the morning, the farmer went to his neighbors to complain and ask that they keep their radio turned down that late at night. The neighbors denied playing the radio and swore they had been asleep. The music continued periodically for several years. In fact, visitors often came to spend the night, just to hear the phenomenon. No one was ever able to explain it.

  Willie Watkins is a psychic and an author. She also collects dolls. One of her dolls is haunted. When you look at it, the doll looks like any other. It's just a doll, a normal battery-operated plaything, but this doll is different. It talks. It talks when the battery is turned off and even when the battery is taken out. There is more. It's not only that the doll talks, but when it talks. On many occasions it has warned Willie and other family members of danger. Once when her brother needed help, the doll spoke and warned Willie. Another time, when a prowler was in the yard, the doll started talking and told Willie of the intruder. Willie called the police who caught the man. Willie thinks her mother's spirit resides in the doll.

  One summer Gay Rawley and Margie Godby were doing genealogical work in the Wildwood Cemetery, recording names, dates of births and deaths, and any information that could be gleaned from the headstones. One night shortly after they had finished their work, Gay was startled out of her sleep by a voice, not in a dream or her thoughts, a voice in her darkened room. Startled? No, she was terrified!

  “You forgot the one in the middle. You forgot the one in the middle,” the voice said. It was a man's voice. Clutching her blankets to her, she screamed, “What do you want? Get out of here.”

  The voice called again, “You forgot the one in the middle of the Wildwood Cemetery. You forgot the one in the middle of the Wildwood Cemetery.”

  Finally Gay composed herself enough to sit up in bed and turn on the lights. There was no one else in the room. She had been sound asleep, but she knew she wasn't dreaming. She had heard a voice. Gay didn't sleep the rest of the night.

  The next day she called Margie and related what had happened. Together they went back to the cemetery. By the time they arrived it was late morning and getting hot, but they went through it again, inch by inch. They found nothing they hadn't before. Gay started back toward the car, but Margie remained on the far side clearing away weeds, still looking for any stones they might have missed.

  Part way back Gay stopped on the pathway to catch her breath. It was shaded and cool. She waited there for Margie, who finally trudged up the path toward her, wilted by the heat. Gay told her how cool it seemed on the path. “That's because you're standing on moss,” Margie said. Gay looked around. Sure enough, the area was covered with moss. Then, she realized something. She was in the middle of the cemetery, a fact that was hard to determine because the place wasn't at all symmetrical.

  They began digging and soon discovered a stone, as the voice the night before had said. Henry O'Barnum, 1828-1880. Gay says to this day that his was the voice that gave her the message.

  THE LIGHTHOUSE

  Although the present St. Augustine lighthouse is hardly more than one hundred years old, the site on which it stands and the surrounding area have been in use by Europeans since the founding of St. Augustine and much longer by the indigenous inhabitants. The keeper's house is now the Lighthouse Museum, and Kathy Fleming is the curator. The lighthouse and keeper's quarters have a rich and colorful history, and there are numerous stories of ghosts.

  DAVID AND MARYLINDA WOOD, friends of ours, live just fifty yards away from the lighthouse, so on a chilly February weekend we went up for a visit. We arrived on a Friday evening and, after a pleasant dinner and stroll through the Ancient City, we returned to the Woods' home and retired. For some reason I couldn't sleep. I had had a long, hard week, but I just wasn't tired, so I quietly got up, dressed, and went outside for a walk. The moon was almost full and the night was clear and cold. It was long after midnight, and the city was silent.

  A thick stand of live oaks separated the Woods' home from the lighthouse, and as I walked down the unpaved street I passed a trail into the brush. That seemed to be the most direct route, so I turned onto the trail and headed toward the lighthouse. The cold, moonlit silence was eerie, and I grew a little apprehensive. Ten more yards and I was through the trees and near the base of the tower. I looked up to take in the full view of it. It was beautiful in the moonlight. All at once, in my peripheral vision I saw something move at the entrance to the lighthouse. I couldn't positively say it was a person, but it was far too large for a raccoon, cat, or dog. Slowly, I walked over to the entrance to look around. No one, nothing, was there, and the door was locked. Then, I walked around to the far side. Ten steps beyond the door on the south side of the lighthouse, I was jolted by a pocket of icy cold air which enveloped me, air much colder than the night, air as cold as a winter's night in the mountains of Montana. Frightened, I jumped back and got out of the pocket. I'd had enough and quickly retraced my steps back to the Woods'. When I climbed back into bed, I was sweating. The next morning I went to see Kathy.

  Kathy descended the stairs and walked quickly down the narrow hall between the old cistern and the video room to the storage area at the far end. She needed some old files and was in a hurry. Flicking on the light, she went to a filing cabinet and rummaged around until she found what she was looking for. Reversing herself, she turned off the light and headed back toward the stairs. Her thoughts were on the papers in her hand.

  Just before she reached the cistern, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and she froze. There, standing in the doorway of the video room, was a tall, gray shape. It was the shadowy image of a man. The hair rose on her arms, and her spine began to tingle. She was filled with—not quite horror—alarm. She looked straight at the figure, and it melted back into the darkness of the video room. Kathy, breathless, hurried upstairs.

  That was not her first experience with a ghost, but it was her first direct encounter. Jamie Buddock and Matthew Arnold, who work in the gift shop of the museum, have almost daily experiences. Items in the shop get moved around and sometimes disappear for a while, although they always show up eventually. And music boxes start by themselves. In the video room, too, chairs are moved around and overturned. Nothing malicious happens, but the “presence” makes himself or
herself known. Jamie and Matthew both have heard footsteps upstairs and down, but they've never seen the stepper. They have dubbed the ghost “Albert” because they heard a story about a man named Albert who died in the house. No one knows for sure who it is.

  As the curator of the museum Kathy has heard all the stories. Supposedly, a man, possibly a keeper or an assistant, hanged himself in the basement. Then there was the daughter of a keeper many years ago who allegedly drowned nearby and refuses to leave.

  There has been a tower of some sort on Anastasia Island since the very beginning of Spanish occupation. The first structure was a wooden tower, probably built not long after the Spanish occupied St. Augustine. It was burned to the ground in 1586 when Sir Francis Drake attacked the settlement. That first tower was soon replaced by another wooden one, which later was succeeded in the late 1600s or early 1700s by a coquina tower a short distance north of the present lighthouse. This tower served the Spanish well as a watchtower until 1763, when the British took possession of St. Augustine. The British continued to use the tower, raising its height and placing a cannon on top to alert the town of the approach of enemy ships.

  In 1821 the United States gained possession of Florida and began using the tower as a lighthouse. Three years later a new structure was built on top of the old, and Juan Antonio Andreu was named the first keeper of the lighthouse, which originally carried a lard-burning lantern and fourteen-inch reflectors on its top. A revolving light later replaced the old lamp, and the beacon continued in use until darkened during the War Between the States.

  The lighthouse was relit after the war, but by the late 1860s the tides had eaten so close to the lighthouse that it was in danger of falling (which it eventually did on June 20, 1880, during a high tide), and the Coast Guard began preparations to replace it. A Dr. Charles Ballard owned a large tract just to the south and agreed to sell. Incidentally, Dr. Ballard was from Albert Lea, Minnesota. Was this the “Albert” Jamie and Matt had heard about?

  Allegedly, the terms of the agreement between Dr. Ballard and the Coast Guard were mutually beneficial. However, in typical bureaucratic fashion the government was unable to bring the deal to a close. In the meantime, the Coast Guard officer with whom Dr. Ballard had dealt was transferred, and the details of the “mutually beneficial terms” were lost. In the end and after a bitter feud, Dr. Ballard sold the land under terms not particularly beneficial, having lost the opportunity to sell on the open market for a much higher price. If Dr. Ballard does haunt the lighthouse, he probably has good reason.

  The new lighthouse, the one still in operation today, was completed in 1874 and the keeper's house in 1876. Through the years many improvements were made. Kitchen wings were added to the keeper's house, landscaping was improved, coquina posts were placed on the boundaries, and in 1936 the light was electrified.

  From its beginnings until 1955, the lighthouse was in the charge of a keeper. In July of 1955 Chief James Pippin retired as the last keeper, and the lighthouse was switched to automatic control. Mr. David Swain was the first caretaker of the “new” beacon.

  The house continued to be occupied; Dan Holiday rented it from the Coast Guard from 1961 until 1967, when the building was vacated and shortly thereafter declared excess property. Mr. Holiday recalls that he paid thirty-six dollars per month rent for the place.

  Mr. Swain lived nearby and continued as caretaker. Dan recalled many nights sitting in the old house listening to David's strange tales about the keeper's house and the lighthouse. “As I remember,” Dan said, “David never moved around at night without a gun and a flashlight.”

  Once, the electric motor running the beacon had a series of failures. The first time it happened, David walked toward the lighthouse, intent on fixing the motor. It was the middle of the night and very dark. As he walked he heard other footsteps crunching the gravel behind him. He stopped and turned. The footsteps stopped. He could see no one. When he began walking again, the footsteps followed, very close behind. He hurried to the lighthouse and shut the door. As he ascended the stairs he heard a noise at the bottom. Still, he could see no one. Yet, when he climbed the stairs, he could hear footsteps clanking up behind him.

  He finally reached the top and went in to check the motor. There were no loose connections. The bearings all were fine. There seemed to be nothing wrong. He turned the switch off, then back on; the motor started running as smoothly as a clock.

  Now very edgy, he wasn't sure what to do. He had to go back down the stairs, but he was frightened. Well, he couldn't stay up in the lighthouse all night, so he took a deep breath and bounded down to the bottom. From then on he carried a flashlight and a gun. He knew the gun would be of little use against a ghost, but it gave him comfort.

  The next night the beacon stopped rotating again, and again David hurried over, this time with flashlight and weapon in hand. As on the night before, he heard footsteps on the gravel and on the stairs, but this time he had a little more confidence. For three nights in a row the beacon stopped, and each time David found nothing wrong with the motor. Then, as abruptly as they started, the failures ended.

  Dan tells of an incident that happened to him in 1965 when he was renting the keeper's house. One night a friend of his, the stage manager of the play Cross and Sword, came for dinner. When they finished it was quite late, so Dan offered a spare room upstairs. His friend accepted. During the night, he awoke and was horrified to see a young girl in a long, lacy dress standing in the doorway. She stood there for several minutes, her face expressionless. Then, with out seeming to move, she just faded away. Next morning he told Dan about the girl. A chill ran down Dan's spine; David Swain had told him about a keeper's daughter who had drowned. Dan had been skeptical.

  Several weeks later another friend from out of town came to spend a few days with Dan and slept in the same room upstairs. He did not know about the young girl who had appeared in the doorway, but the next morning he related the same story to Dan. Dan was convinced and later mentioned the episode to David. David just smiled.

  In 1970 while the house was empty, a mysterious fire, perhaps an act of vandalism, destroyed much of the house. For ten years the house sat vacant, its ghostly skeleton a stark reminder of its history. Then in 1981 the Junior Service League of St. Augustine began restoration. During the work several mysterious events occurred. Beams fell for no reason; a scaffold collapsed; and one workman was seriously injured by a falling spike. Or was it thrown? After spending only short periods on the job, several workers quit and refused to go near the place. But finally the work was completed in 1988.

  Perhaps the restoration was an exorcism, because the only incidents that have happened since has been nonthreatening. Perhaps Dr. Ballard or “Albert” was trying to make one last point. In any case, the ghosts who haunt the present lighthouse and the museum are all friendly, and Kathy, Jamie, and Matt would like to keep it that way.

  BITS AND PIECES

  STORIES OF THE CASTILLO DE SAN Marcos abound. Construction began with ground-breaking on October 2, 1672, and with so long a history it is perhaps natural that legends would develop. Whether they are true or not cannot be determined, but, whether true or false, many of them are fascinating. One of the most interesting tales involves Colonel Garcia Marti, who was assigned as the garrison commander in 1784 at the beginning of the Second Spanish Period when Vizente Manuel de Zéspedes became governor.

  Colonel Marti had a lovely wife, beautiful and much younger than the colonel. Mari Marti had but one fault; she had roving eyes. Also stationed in St. Augustine as a member of the colonel's detachment was a dashing young captain, Manuel Abela, perhaps the most handsome bachelor in Florida. He also had a serious flaw; because of his startling good looks and his silken tongue, he was remarkably successful in his intrigues with women. Thus, he was more arrogant than cautious.

  And so, when the beautiful Señora Marti and the jaunty Captain Abela saw each other, sparks flew, and they threw caution to the winds. At first their affair was
easy to hide. The British and Spanish governments existed side by side, and the colonel, as well as most of the more important men in town, was busily involved in the transition from the British to the Spanish government. Besides, Captain Abela was a master at seizing every opportunity. However, there were fewer than two thousand people in St. Augustine, and soon the rumors began to surface.

  Eventually, even the busy Colonel Marti heard the stories and was alarmed. He couldn't believe his beautiful young Mari was seeing Captain Abela, but he had to know for sure. One evening he told his wife he had to meet with the governor. He told her that it would probably be a long meeting, so she shouldn't wait for him, and he left. Mari quickly sent word to her lover, Manuel, who hurried to her side.

  However, the colonel, who had impatiently waited for the adulterers to meet, came back and burst in upon them. He was enraged, and, in fact, would have killed them both on the spot had it not been for his trusted sergeant, who was with him. He had them both chained in the dungeons of the castillo until he could decide what to do. For days he brooded over being cuckolded and having his masculine pride damaged. Finally, unable to stand the half-hidden smirks and whisperings, he strode over to the castillo and stood in stony silence as workmen walled up the dungeon with thick coquina stone blocks, to the terrified screams of his unfaithful wife and his traitorous subordinate. No one knows if the governor or anyone questioned the colonel about the disappearance of his wife and the desertion of his young captain. Certainly the workmen who built the wall must have said something to someone. At any rate, history does not record the event.