Episode 301: Haunted Lighthouses Volume 1 | Morbid

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The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna.

I'm Ash. And this is Morbid Lighthouse Edition.

That's right. I know it sounds weird, but it's awesome.

Yeah, Haunted Lighthouse Edition, I should have said.

Yeah, we decided that, you know, we were looking through some books and I always save.

While I'm looking for a case, if I see a book that I'm like, ooh, that's interesting.

Yeah. I immediately save it to my Kindle and I'm like, I'll go back to that.

You're like, I'll do that. And I haven't. un like unbelievable and absurd amount of like haunted lighthouses and like spooky lighthouse books because there's a lot of books on there are every single state with a lighthouse in it has spooky haunted lighthouses yeah and some of them have like multiple lighthouses in the state.

So we decided, you know what? The next case that I'm doing is gonna be a doozy yeah so we figured you know what let's give you some spooky haunted places Because these still have true crime in them.

Mine has murders. Oh, good. So, like, there's definitely true crime and spookiness.

But it's like... Not going to be with the next cases, which I don't want to tell you what it is, but it's one most you know about. is gonna be a lot and yeah it's one of my least favorite cases yeah it's It's a tough one.

So we figured we'd do this one before because personally, I needed a little break from looking at that other case.

Yeah, this works. But this is also really intense.

So get ready. So buckle up. bitches yeah this is wild so i think we're gonna go back and forth here because we each took a couple of lighthouses and went hard into them so i think ash is gonna start ash is gonna start Okay, so my first lighthouse is from Michigan.

You know. Did you get that? It's from Michigan.

I'm from Michigan. So this is... Mean Girls Ref. i wanted to see if they got it you guys got it you got it of course So, oh, before we started this too, I wanted to say that in my research, I found out. but the first lighthouse built in America was actually built in Boston.

Oh! On little Brewster Island in 1716. Look at us.

Just a little fun fact of us. Look at us.

Also, a quick little Bostonian thing that I just wanted to mention.

Oh, yeah, you have to say this. In our last... episode, we said something about Worcestershire sauce and Of course, it's like it always happens that if somebody says that differently, that's the only way to say it.

Yep. When it comes to pronunciations of words, there is something called regional dialect.

Yeah, Bostonians do say certain things differently.

Like everybody though, I have ever met in my whole life in this fucking city in this fucking In this fucking city, guys.

In this fucking city, Ken. In this motherfucking place in town, baby.

We say Worcestershire sauce. Because we have a city called Worcester.

And you're like Worcester. I'm like Worcester kid.

And it. Looks just like Worcestershire.

That's just how we say the word. I'm not changing how I say the word.

No. You can say the word however you want, and I promise not to tweet at you or email you.

You can say it. Say whatever you want. Worcestershire.

You can say it Worchestershire. I don't... Some people say Worcestershire.

Worcestershire. You can say it however you want.

But for me... Worcestershire sauce doesn't give me any woes.

It doesn't. So why would I call it woes to sheer?

It's it's a. Well, it gives me it gives me a wolf wolf.

But yeah, I just like I just, every time it's like that kind of pronunciation, like first of all, No, it's okay.

If we say Worcestershire sauce differently, no one's getting offended by it.

No. It's fine. It's not pertinent to any of the We tell it is cool.

So there's just literally no reason to say it.

But I just want to point out that people in this country, the United States, say things differently.

Everywhere. And it's okay. It's okay. It is.

It's okay. You can say things however you want.

And sometimes when you work like really hard on a case about like focusing on a victim and when it's unsolved and somebody is like...

You said Worcestershire, Rog. I'm like, that's what you got out of my episode.

It's infuriating. So just come on. Just so you know. we're happy to correct ourselves when we see, you know, we might say like town names wrong every now and then we're like, okay, we don't live there.

So I don't have a right to be like yeah Worcestershire forever I'm gonna say Worcestershire like that until the day I die so Fucking etch it on my tombstone.

I had to clear that up. If you Google it, Bostonians say it that way.

It's not just us. It's not just us. I just needed to clear that up because I was like, man, I'm going to say Worcestershire sauce like that forever.

I feel like it's lost all meaning. Worcestershire sauce.

Worcestershire. Worcestershire, kid. Okay, so back to Michigan.

Love you so much. pronunciations though oh man all right so we're in michigan and we're going to the point iroquois lighthouse Now we're there.

Here we are. I'm here. Just took our tow boat up there.

Yeah. I got a lot of the information that I'm going to spit forth From Spookiest Lighthouses by Taryn Sepke and Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses by Diana Stampler.

Oh, my God. I got some of those, too. Oh, honey, look at you.

I love it. All right. So before this lighthouse was built, there was this huge battle between two native American tribes. the Iroquois tribe and the Ojibwe tribe who are also referred to as the Chippewa tribe.

So this happened in 1662. The Ojibwe tribe was familiar with the land nearby and it was their space.

They lived off of this land. They fished there, they hunted, that was their spot.

Then the Iroquois came from New York and invaded the space and there was a massive battle. that actually ended up leaving most of the Iroquois tribe dead on the nearby beaches.

And the way that this person wrote it in their book, I believe it was the book by Diana Stampler.

She said like their blood soaked into the beaches.

Oh, that's so ominous and horrific. Just totally setting it up for a massive haunting.

I was just going to say that is a recipe for hunting.

And everybody agrees. The Native Americans today referred to this area as now do Wee E. Junning, which loosely translates into Iroquois Boneyard.

Oh, I just gotta chill. Super, super spooky.

So So in 1864, the St. Mary's Falls Canal, also referred to as Soo Locks, was opened because copper and iron ore were found aplenty in the Upper Peninsula. and ships needed to go to the upper peninsula to gather copper and iron. and then bring those metals back down to the steel plants in the lower Great Lakes.

They were like, we need a canal for this.

So where there's a canal, there has to be a lighthouse.

I thought you were going to say where there's a canal, there's a way.

Where there's a canal, there is a way accurate and a lighthouse.

There you go. Where there's a canal, there's lots of things.

There is. And the US Lighthouse Service gave $5,000, which back then was a whole bunch of coin. for a lighthouse to be constructed in the area.

And the lighthouse ended up being constructed about eight years before the canal even got opened.

So the main tragedy after the Iroquois Boneyard that we have there on this site happened in November of 1919 when a steamship called the Mark Hopkins capsized. and killed all 17 crew members on board.

Now, there was a blizzard that rolled in this night when they were all sailing, And it brought 60 mile per hour winds with it.

Damn. So this boat started taking on water almost immediately. and waves are crashing they had to get rid of everything they had on the boat to like make it way less stuff like that craziness.

And the captain on the boat, Walter R. Neal, was the only one who stayed on the ship while it was going down.

He was like, This is my boat. Yeah, that's a captain thing, man.

That's a fucking captain thing. So all the crew members go onto these lifeboats, but it's so cold that they froze to death.

All of them. That's like Titanic style. And the saddest thing is, is that they all could have been rescued. because a couple of boats in the area were trying to rescue these people.

But their attempts failed because the people and the crew members in the lifeboats, their hands were so numb with the cold that they couldn't catch the Ooh.

And then it started becoming too dangerous for these other ships to try to help them.

Like they were getting caught. Yeah. And this terribleness and like they were going to go down.

So they had to go away. So now there stands a museum where the original lighthouse was.

And inside there's tons of different artifacts and different reports about the history of the area.

And one of the reports is written by Norm Mills and says that one of the crew members gave the captain some chewing tobacco. right before the boat started taking on water.

And the captain was able to be saved because he kept chewing that tobacco. which kept his jaw from freezing, which saved his life.

Oh my gosh. So they found him just floating on like what was left of the roof of the boat.

And they were able to rescue him. Wow. Insane.

Because. Because of his chewing tobacco.

Because of his chewing tobacco. Which is such a bad habit.

But look at that. It saved him. But, you know, it might save your life in a shipwreck.

So the crew members who quite literally froze to death were found in various states.

So, one lifeboat was found a few days after the accident and only some of the crew members were found on this boat.

And all of them were encased in ice. Ooh.

Quote unquote, encased in ice. So those who were not encased in ice started washing up on the shore. and were literally just brought to the local undertaker for $25 per person because you got a reward for finding these missing crew members.

But then there were eight men that just didn't wash up on shore that November, like that winter.

And they weren't found until the springtime.

Thank you. They literally froze into a section of the water between Point Iroquois and Whitefish Point, and they had to be cut from the ice oh isn't that the most horrific thing you've ever heard of like chipped out of the ice chipped out of the ice and they were all buried at the Mission Hill Cemetery.

So there's a memorial marker where they're all buried, and a sign on the white fence that surrounds the area that says Sailors of the Steamer Myron. oh it's just like that's so sad so spooky Babbel Language Learning App helps crack the case of confusing foreign conversations.

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Now in 1972, they actually found the shipwreck and it was below water about 50 feet, and now it's part of an underwater museum run by Whitefish Point Underwater Reserve. and scuba divers can go down and see the shipwreck.

That must be so spooky. It says they can, quote, take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but bubbles.

That's like what the association says. I love it.

Because can you imagine? I'm sure some people try to like break off a piece or something. yeah people like love which is that would be some things like no thank you No, I don't need that.

Talk about some bad vibes. I don't need those bad vibes in my life.

No. So that was like one of the second things that happened there.

Now, the last thing I just want to give everybody a trigger warning.

There is like an animal that dies in this part so damn just so you know but there's also a very young child that dies so My God.

You know, just wanted to put that out there.

Really just going to kick us all in the stomach.

Yeah, just really starting off here with a bang.

So this last thing took place in the area of the lighthouse.

And it's basically surrounding the death of a three-year-old little girl named Carol Ann Pomeranke.

She was killed on July 7th, 1948. So Carol was living with her parents and her older brother, Alan, in a cabin inside the Marquette National Forest.

Her father, Arthur, or was the keeper of the fire observation tower in the National Forest.

So her mom and her brother were inside when a black bear started coming up on their property.

But little Carol Ann was on the porch, like playing on the porch.

So her mom sees this bear approaching the house But she doesn't have enough time to get outside before the bear literally scooped up Carol and started taking her away. carrying her away oh my god that's horrific now the coroner said that most likely carol was killed like immediately because the bear's teeth punctured her brain.

So that hopefully that happened like soon and she wasn't super terrified.

So Carol's mother called the forest rangers who Arthur was actually working with that day, the father. and through sob she explained a black bear is just taking carol away and at this point she doesn't know if carol's alive or dead no So all of the rangers and a bunch of volunteers start heading out to try to find Carol or what's left of Carol, to be quite frank.

Now, they found her body lying next to a stream in the forest. and they waited for the bear to return to the area because obviously it's going to come back.

Yeah. Now, when it did come back, they shot and killed it. was only a year and a half old, but it was like extremely underweight, which was super strange for them.

Because there was plenty of the bear's usual food in the area.

Yeah. But it was like a very like freak accident.

Yeah, that's weird. And after Carol was killed, Arthur quit his job as the keeper of the observation tower and...

And he and his family just moved out of the house days after Carol was killed.

They could not be there. Yeah. So back to this lighthouse, Point Iroquois lighthouse.

A psychic who went to the lighthouse in the 90s told a volunteer that was working there named Janet Russell that she saw the apparition of a little girl and said she was probably about three years old.

And the woman explained that sometimes spirits go to places that make an impression on them.

And Janet said, quote, for a three-year-old, seeing that massive tower with her family would have been very impressive.

Oh, that's why she would have gone back.

Oh, my God. So people will see like her spirit walking around near the lighthouse. and people have felt taps on their hands or tugs at the back of their clothing.

I would just want to scoop that little ghost girl up.

I would be like, Like, I'm so sorry. Yeah.

And then other people who have visited the lighthouse over the years claim to have not only seen Carol walking around, but they say that you will be walking through the lighthouse and all of a sudden you'll just hit a freezing cold point.

Oh, damn. And there's no explanation to it whatsoever.

Except that it's Carol. Except that it's Carol. or the Native Americans who died there, or all the people who died and washed up on the shore.

And people say that when you walk into the light, there's just this feeling.

Like I have just like super heavy feeling, but there's all these artifacts that they have. and different reports of these incidents that relate to the lighthouse.

That must be fascinating. So I feel like it'd be a really cool place to visit.

And it would probably be really heavy like the Lizzie Borden house.

Definitely. Because that was the only time that I've like tried. truly it's like there and in salem are the only two places that i've really felt that like physical heaviness that people talk about.

And I feel like that would be another place where you would just get like, Oh yeah.

With it. Just because of all the tragedy that happened there.

There's so much. Damn. That's a crazy one.

That was a crazy one. I just couldn't believe all of that stuff happened. literally what i was gonna say was i just can't believe that much stuff happened like what the fuck seriously a little girl gets eaten by a bear Like, where do you hear that?

That's horrible. And it just makes me think of... you know, chonky bear like Hank the Tank there in California.

That's what I thought of. How's he doing, guys?

Like, how's it going in California? Lock your doors.

Like, lock your doors, but like... Get a garage.

But hang the tank, man. Hank the Tank. Can you please tell the story of Hank the Tank?

Oh my god. So... First of all, let me start this really quick.

This is just a quick side story, I promise.

But I was putting the girls to sleep the other night and one of them had like a little tummy ache.

And so I was just trying to make her laugh.

And I was saying like, oh, like, what if I gave you my tummy?

Like, my tummy doesn't hurt. I'll give you my tummy and I'll take yours.

And the other twin was like, your tummy's way too big.

And I was like... Oh, fun. Like out of the mouths of babes.

You're like, cool, cool, cool. I'm going to go get on my exercise bike.

Yeah, I was like, cool. All right. Crunch as it is.

But then the other morning we were watching a little news story about Hank the Tank there.

And the girls were like, whoa, that's a huge bear.

And one of the twins goes, yeah, Dada, you're bigger than that bear.

And Hank the Tank is like massive. And it was, of course, this like picture of just like Chonky Bear.

And they're like talking. about how chunky he is.

Yeah. And of course, they're saying it like, oh, daddy, you're taller than that bear.

Of course. Like, that's what they meant. the way they said it john was like real nice guys thank you he literally goes thank you Out of the mouths of babes.

They're just so funny. But I'm like, man, they will check you real fast.

Oh, yeah. If you are ever feeling yourself, they will bring you back down to earth. and then on the flip side of that when you're ever feeling down they will make you feel like a goddess or a god Yeah, it's so true.

It's so funny. I know. Because they're just like, yeah, I'm just going to tell you how it's real.

So cute. But on to my lighthouse. And my first lighthouse is from Georgia.

And it's the St. Simon's Lighthouse. Okay.

Now, this lighthouse was built in 1810 originally.

And it was built by James Gould. It was 70 Gould.

Like ghoul. Like ghouls. It was 75 feet high and it helped to guide ships into St.

Simon's Sound on St. Simon's Island. in Georgia.

Lots of St. Simon, St. Simon, St. Simon.

Lots of saints when it comes to lighthouse.

Lighthouses. Lighthouse Eye. Lighthouse Eye.

Unfortunately, 51 years after it was made, it was destroyed by Confederate soldiers.

Which seems to be a running theme in all of these lighthouses.

I'm like, Confederates, stop. Stop ruining lighthouses.

Oh, girl, just wait. But don't worry, because a 104-foot replacement was built in its place. and was finished in 1872.

But the architect Charles Kluski actually died likely by malaria in 1871, the year it was actually like right before it was completed.

Oh, so like that's sad. That's so sad. Now, next to the lighthouse tower is a home where the lighthouse keeper would live. because that was generally how that worked.

This home had two stories and would allow the lighthouse keeper and their spouse on one level and an assistant light housekeeper and their family on the other so they would work together and live together yeah Now, Bradford B. Brunt was the original keeper.

Yeah, he was. In 1874, he left the job and was immediately replaced by Frederick Osborne.

Let's talk about Frederick for a second.

Let us. He was originally from England. He immigrated to New York in 1863 when he was 30 years old.

He served the Union in the Civil War and enlisted in the United States Army after the Civil War ended.

He married Julia Pauline Pagson sometime in the 1870s and had a son, William Thomas Osborne, November 5th, 1870.

1973. When he took the job as keeper of the St.

Simon's Lighthouse, he had another son, Frederick Page Osborne, on our October 9th, 1875, but that son passed away when he was only two years old.

Now, just a quick little flash forward. People will say that they do see like a toddler. wandering around sometimes.

Yeah, that's one of the ghost stories that I've seen floating around.

So you wonder if it was little Frederick Osborne.

Yeah. Now, he and his wife had a daughter also named Elizabeth Frederick Osborne on February 14th, 1880.

February 14th. Yeah, Valentine's Day. V-Day, babe.

Now all was well. And Osborn got himself an assistant light keeper named John Stevens.

John moved into the keeper cottage attached to the tower, and he and his wife lived on the second floor while the Osborne family lived on the first floor.

Now, Osborne and Stevens immediately did not really get along at work.

I had that feeling when you were like, work together and live together.

Work together and live together. It started because Osborne was kind of a picky dude.

He liked things a certain way and was known to be a big control freak.

I kind of relate to him in this way. Capricorn question mark?

It can be tough. And when things were not done to his satisfaction, he wasn't exactly someone who was going to be like, hey, can you just come over here and I'll like show you. how this should be done he would like berate Stevens like he was very like are you stupid like But he just, that's who he was.

Shitty work environment. Yeah, but he would make Stevens feel like shit.

It's like you can really just tell someone they did it wrong.

Right. But also Stevens was somebody who didn't like being told that he did something wrong.

He couldn't handle criticisms. So even if he had taken him over and was like, can you just do this a different way?

It would have annoyed him. They just didn't work together.

I was going to say, not a good pairing. Now, this obviously started to bother Stevens more because he was the one getting the brunt of this.

And they often got into little arguments about it, little fights about it.

Couple this with the fact that, like we said, they had to live in the same home together with their spouse. spouses and the Osborne children basically be up each other's ass 24 seven.

And this relationship was getting more and more tense. by the day.

Then in March 1880, things came to a head.

Apparently, Stevens was away for the day, and when he returned, his wife told him that Osborne had not been nice to her.

Uh-oh, you don't mess with his wife. No.

She had tried to take on some of Stephen's duties while John was away, And Frederick Osborne, ever the control freak, didn't like the way she had done it.

He basically berated her the same way he would do with Stevens.

And she's like, I don't even have to do this. she was like i'm just trying to help out man and stevens was raging angry about this come on guys So the two men go outside.

They're going back and forth. Stevens is defending his wife.

Osborne is defending himself. It was definitely a fight caused by the sass at Stephen's wife, but it seems like it was really a culmination. of all the shit that Osborn had made him feel.

And Osborn is pissed because he feels like Stevens isn't doing the job well enough, not to his standards, and it got so bad that Osborne drew a gun.

Oh, and told Stevens, because I think what was happening was by all reports, they were getting into each other's faces.

It was starting to get physical. osborne drew out his gun and told him like back the fuck off me or i'm gonna shoot oh shit and it was like the 1800s so like this is how it went down apparently Now that's when Stevens took this fight to a fatal place.

Okay. Because remember, Osborne has the gun.

He's selling them back off of me. Now, according to the Brunswick Advertiser and Appeal newspaper...

On Sunday morning at about 8.30, an unfortunate occurrence transpired at St.

Simon's Lighthouse. in which Mr. Fred Osborne was seriously shot by his assistant, Mr. John W. Stevens.

It seems that there had been a bad feeling between these gentlemen for several days, and on Sunday morning they went out into the bushes in front of the house to settle their difficulty.

During this interview, Stevens threatened to chastise Osborne when Osborne drew his pistol and ordered him not to advance further. whereupon Stevens went back into the house, took down his double-barreled shotgun, which had been previously loaded with buckshot for deer hunting.

Oh. And as Osborne advanced along the path near the fence leading to the gate, Stevens fired at a distance of 98 feet. hitting Osborne in four places.

Only one shot, however, taking serious effect.

Now, Frederick Osborne died from his wounds at the hospital.

He was shot in the stomach, which was the kill shot.

Yeah. Now, apparently this murder took a toll on Steven's psyche and he just couldn't forgive himself.

It was clear he immediately regretted what he had done.

Crime of passion. This was absolute insanity.

Yeah. He made a very fatal error and he immediately knew what he had done, but still, he's a murderer.

Yeah. He's a flat-out murderer. From those same newspapers, it says, quote, that as soon as he shot Osborne, Stevens sent at once for medical assistance for the wounded man. repaired immediately to Brunswick and gave himself up to the proper authorities.

And the very moment the bond for his appearance was signed, he returned to his post as Assistant Lightkeeper. and has been on double duty ever since, performing both his and Osbourne's duties incessantly day and night.

I love that they're like, let's give credit where credit is due.

That's what's so funny. It's like, okay.

So they're literally saying it is a fact worthy of much praise that as soon as he shot this man... Dead. four times with a double-barreled shotgun filled with buckshot for killing deer.

He called somebody and then he did his job and said, maybe we should help this guy.

And then he turned himself in, which is like, yeah, let's pat him on the back.

It's like, what? And then he took on more work, you guys.

Yeah. And obviously he was immediately arrested, but he was released on bond very quickly.

That's crazy. So he did return straight to the lighthouse as the assistant keeper, which is weird to me.

And I wonder what happened to Osborne's wife and children. yeah i know he just came back to work where they like they live there what the fuck maybe they went to stay with family I sure hope so, because I'm like, what is going on?

The toxicity is rife. Yeah. So when he started back at work, after murdering the original keeper, Stevens walked into that lighthouse and was shocked to see something standing at the very top of the 125 stairs.

Always at the top of the stairs. Always at the top.

Now, this was not Frederick Osborne's ghost.

It was a dog. who was at the top of 125 stairs.

And he was actually the yard dog on site.

His name was Bull. And he was like a captain's dog that was just like around and they just like kind of everybody knew him.

He was standing at the top of the lighthouse and just staring at the light and he wouldn't bulge.

Wouldn't bulge, wouldn't budge. I was like, he stayed there all night, just standing guard.

And he had never done that before. What?

Never done it before. And they were like, that was just weird.

I would be so freaked. And I guess he did that for a few nights and then stopped.

But as soon as he returned back into that lighthouse, that dog had climbed 125 steps. spiral stairs to get to the top of that.

Yeah. Like real weird. That's crazy. Now, Stevens was actually acquitted of murder because the jury said he was likely just acting in self-defense because Osborne had pulled again.

So, I mean, he shot a guy in the stomach with a shotgun, but like, okay.

Like after the guy had already walked away. they were like as he was advancing the fence walking away from the fight he drew out his gun in self-defense and shot him in the stomach Now, they obviously weren't going to put Stevens in as the actual keeper yeah you don't get promoted for murder yeah like he was a legit murderer so like i think they were like yeah that that takes you out of that run yeah can't set that as a precedent Yeah, and I think it would look bad if he murdered the keeper and then got the keeper's job.

I feel like that would set a really bad precedent for, like, just murder the keeper and you can have his job.

But then like who wants to be the keeper if the assistant murdered the last keeper?

Well, I guess a guy named George Aspel became the new keeper.

Okay. Now, he immediately started hearing footsteps in that tower when he was there at night and no one else would be there.

He said that doors would slam out of nowhere, like the door at the bottom of the tower would slam in the middle of the night. they would actually see figures in the lighthouse.

And a lot of them said that they saw what looked like Frederick Osborne's figure at I bet.

Or at the light and on the stairs, they would see him walking the perimeter fence where he last was.

He's making sure his duties are actually done the right way.

He was an anal guy and he's anal in the after.

You don't just lose it in the afterlife.

You're still the same way you were once a Capricorn, always a Capricorn.

You know what I'm saying? That's what I always say.

You could also apparently, and you still can, visitors to this today say you can sometimes smell a waft of tobacco smoke and Osborne always smoked a tobacco pipe.

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Now, the next keeper's wife, like the next George's wife, said that Frederick Osborne invented and constructed something that would aid in repairing the light should it ever break or dim.

Like he had made something that made sure that there was like a backup.

And he was insistent that if this apparatus or the light broke, that no one was to try to fix it themselves.

They were to call him immediately and he would come do it.

Okay, so... Control freak. Okay. So someone had made a joke to him.

And she was there, because remember, these light keepers, these new light keepers, weren't just strangers.

They had been part of this whole thing for a while.

Slick system. knew him. And I guess someone who she knew was there when this happened. and made a joke to him and said, well, what if you can't come and fix it?

Right. And they said, what if you're dead or something?

What am I supposed to do? Just let it fall into disrepair?

And he responded with quote, well, call me anyway, and I'll come back from hell and tend to it.

Oh my God. I love it. I love also that he was like, I am going to hell.

Yeah, he was like, I will come back from hell where I'm... definitely going.

I will ask Satan for a hall pass. Now, in the San Francisco Francisco call from 1908.

There's a story about what happened with that story.

So the Keeper's wife is referred to as Mrs. C, but I think it was because, like, Nobody really knew who the fuck was talking at this point.

Like there's so many different names and stuff.

It's 1908. And she would help her husband, the keeper at the time, with the light.

And one night there was a storm and the light was dimming and she was alone.

And she said, so this is what the newspaper says.

Mrs. C seized the largest wheel of the works and started to revolve the machinery by hand.

She was absolutely alone on that part of the island and had no means of communicating with anyone at the settlement four miles inland.

As she turned the frame, her mind ran back to the conversation her husband had had with the inventor. and his reply to the question of possible accident.

Almost unconsciously, she said out loud, well, come, come and fix it now. like saying like alright you said call you from hell there was a clink and a rattle and looking up Mrs. C saw the distinct figure of Frederick Osborne bending over the works and Overcome by the reaction, she fainted.

Wow. consciousness, the steady click-click of the works assured her that all was well with the light.

The man had disappeared and Mrs. C called down the tower steps thinking he had gone below for restoratives, but there was no answer and he did not respond. return.

What? So they said literally he, and every time it would break, it would mysteriously fix on its own.

Dude. Isn't that wild? What a fucking great guy to have around.

He's still doing his job. Yeah, I know he was a control freak and like...

He was a tough nut. And he yelled at a lady, so not nice.

No. It was a tough nut to crack. He just wanted things the way he wanted them.

And look, he cares so deeply about the lighthouse.

He even cares about it in the afterlife.

He does, and I love that. I love that so much.

And then people might have seen, if you look up this lighthouse, there's this story that like always goes along with it. other story of this like boy who killed his parents, like strangled his parents. and now they all haunt the lighthouse.

There is literally no historical record of anything like that happening.

So I didn't want to say it because I couldn't find any newspaper to even slightly back it up.

Oh, I hate when that happens. I know. So many times with haunted things like this, you'll find a story and you're like, oh, wow.

You're like, whoa, I've got to look into that.

Let me learn more. And then it's like that never happened.

That never happened. Awesome. I found actual newspapers that had this in it.

So I was like, OK, yeah. But you might hear that story.

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying I couldn't find any information about it.

I don't know. But people do say that they see like a ghostly figure of a boy.

They say that they see, you know, people walking around the perimeter and then they'll go to like call to them and they'll disappear.

They definitely see Frederick Osborne around.

People have said they've seen the dog Bull.

Like, who is clearly long since passed and they'll see him.

He did? Yeah. I know. It's crazy. You would think that like a hundred years later, he'd still be, you know, dogs.

You know what I mean? But now Bull is gone.

But he's still around. But he's not gone.

Still doing his thing. All right, Bull. You know?

So that is the St. Simon's Lighthouse. That was like fun.

Fun. That was a cool one. That was fun. Not fun.

And I got a lot of the information for this particular lighthouse story from Haunted Lighthouses by Ray Jones.

Ooh. And I also found this really good website, historiesoutheast.com. and you can search for the St.

Simons Lighthouse, and they had a really cool, in-depth discussion into it.

And then I also used newspapers.com to find all the cool old-timey newspapers.

Love that. So there it is. Love that so much.

Love that for you. I love that for you. And for Saint Simon's.

I love St. Simons. All right. Now let's get on a boat.

Let's get on a boat. Row on over to Maryland.

Let's do it. We are going to the Point Lookout Lighthouse in Scotland, Maryland.

Yeah, we are. Not Scotland, Scotland. Scotland, Maryland.

Scotland, Maryland. And this information I mostly got, um, I got from like a few different sources, but the main one that I used was Maryland.gov.

And they basically like repurposed an article written by Dorcas Coleman for the fall 2001 issue of the natural resource magazine. look at that I love that issue I do too because it was written in the fall and In the fall.

In the autumn. In the autumn. It's an autumnal issue.

Ooh, that was fun. Autumnal. You know? So point lookout lighthouse is often referred to as the king of lighthouses. oh look at you lighthouse king of lighthouses and it sits inside point lookout state park or what used to be point lookout state park Now, originally inside of the state park, there was like this summer beach resort owned by Leonard Calvert, who was the first governor of maryland get it and there was like all these little cottages for people to stay in there was a wharf where ships would come and go and of course a lighthouse that was built in 1830. for some reason describing this place in my head i'm just picturing like dirty dancing when they go to that summer like i feel that like getaway place i feel that do you want to hear a funny thing about me no because i already know what you're gonna say and it's a fact about you that infuriates me I have never seen Dirty Dancing.

Infuriating. Everybody shame her. This is like when I said I never saw Weekend at Bernie's, but worse.

Yeah. Worse. Yeah. A classic. I don't know, man.

I know some of the quotes from it. I know the general premise.

Nobody leaves baby in a corner. Yeah. I love, you know, Patrick Swayze for life, but you don't love him if you haven't seen all of his work.

I have not seen it. It just was not one that ever came across my life.

That's unreal. Which is weird. It has come across your life though.

I feel like it's been on and we've like changed it.

I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to make you watch it.

Your face, you're like, shut up. All right.

So yeah, little cottages, super cute, yada, yada.

And then the lighthouse was built in 1830.

But when the Civil War When the Civil War broke out.

It's not the Civil Where. No, the Civil War.

That actually autocorrected in my notes, so that's cute.

I'm like, why would it be a Civil War? Why?

Civil War broke out in 1861, about 30 years after this lighthouse was built. people were not frequenting the summer getaway just like oiling up and tanning on the beach anymore.

No. They were kind of like really sad and busy fighting a war.

Yeah. So they decided, the government, to lease the land and they built Hammond General Hospital on this land.

And eventually the hospital would be expanded and some of the grounds were used to confine Confederate prisoners captured by the Union.

Now, these people weren't always Confederate soldiers.

They could be people who were believed to be spying for Confederate soldiers, people who, you know...

And they thought that they went against them in some way.

Gave off a vibe of a Confederate soldier.

Yeah, gave off a Confederate vibe. which you never ever want to do.

Yeah, you don't want to give up that vibe.

Ever, ever, ever. So the area where they started to be held was known as Camp Hoffman.

Now Camp Hoffman was only supposed to hold 10,000 prisoners.

But over the years, the number of prisoners at this camp doubled.

And there was... 20,000 people being held in an area designed for 10,000 people.

That sounds smelly. It was. That's actually really funny that you should say that because we're going to get to a smelly place.

Oh, okay. But before we get there, I do have to tell you that some of these prisoners froze to death.

Some died due to absolutely filthy conditions.

A man named Edwin Warfield Bitzel wrote, Point Lookout, Prison Camp for Confederates.

And in the book, he says, quote, It is a story of cruel decisions and high places. a story of diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, and typhus, of burning sands and freezing cold in rotten tents.

It is a story of senseless shootings by guards.

It is a story of despair and the death of almost 4,000 prisoners. many of whom could have been saved.

Wow. Yeah. The fact that that whole thing started with a story of diarrhea is... was enough for me as soon as it's a story of diarrhea you gotta do yeah it's a it's a sad story it's really sad starts with that that's really Woo, it's horrific.

That sounds not great. Now, the war ended in 1865.

And the number of prisoners who were kept at Camp Hoffman at that time totaled around 52,000. over the years.

Oh my god. And anywhere from three to eight thousand of those prisoners had died on the grounds.

Of course. Wow. Leading to a ton of hauntings.

A recipe for a lot of ghosts. and then in 1878 in october there was a shipwreck where a steamboat the express ended up sinking Now, one of the crew on board was a man named Joseph Haney, which like weirdly sounds like the most familiar name ever.

It really does. Right? So he was said to have rowed to the shore to get help, but unfortunately he died in the attempt.

And when they found his body, he was buried after that.

He washed up on shore. But one night, somebody staying inside of the lighthouse woke up late at night to a knock on the door.

And when the person opened the door, he saw that there were puddles leading up to the door, like a bunch of puddles.

And he thought he saw a man walking back toward the bay.

But the man just literally disappeared right before his eyes.

And many people think that that was the ghost of Joseph Haney.

I also believe that. Me as well. So then a famous parapsychologist, Hans Holzer. or Hans Holzer, Hans, he decided to head out to the lighthouse with a team of fellow paranormal investigators.

They recorded 24 different voices. While they were there.

Whenever voices come out of like EVPs freak me the fuck out.

Oh, yes. Some people on these EVPs were singing songs, like super old songs.

Like sea shanties? Probably. Probably. I love it.

Absolutely. Others were just like talking to each other.

One of the recordings was a voice saying, let us not take objection to what they are doing.

Oh my god. Isn't that so creepy? Oh, I just got full chills.

Let us not take objection to it. Like a bunch of like ghosts is plotting against you and one of them's like, no. it's okay it's all good like it's cool and another voice and it was a woman's voice said this is my home Ooh.

And that voice was believed to be the voice of Ann Davis. who was the wife of the first caretaker of this lighthouse.

Now, visitors at the lighthouse, they see in all the time.

Well, like the ghost of her. She usually is standing at the top of the staircase wearing a long blue skirt and a white blouse. get it people will see her all the time she's she's so i love that she's so like comfortable and flowy in the afterlife Oh, yeah, absolutely.

She's great. I mean, a blouse isn't like super comfy, but maybe it's flowy.

She's chic. I'll give her that. There you go.

Now Hans and his team noted what other visitors of the lighthouse did too when they stumbled across one room that had a incredibly foul smell.

I knew it was smelly. It was smelly. So, Hans goes public with his findings at the lighthouse and he has this theory about the smell.

He believed that this smell came from all the quote-unquote tormented spirits that were kept there. now apparently right after he made his findings public the smell in that particular area of the house or of the lighthouse just see to exist.

What? He goes public with his findings and the smell just stops.

Did they all get embarrassed? I don't know if they were like waiting to be recognized.

Wow. Yeah. wow yeah crazy oh just like one of those things the next day it's not oh we're not done So in the 70s, they had a seance there.

And during this seance, one of the most famous photographs associated with the haunting was taken and I will definitely post it.

It shows Laura Berg, who served as Secretary of State in Maryland while she was living in the lighthouse, standing in the middle of the room, she's in this picture, standing in the middle of the room holding a candle, and to her left, you see a man leaning up against the wall.

He's wearing soldier's clothing and he just has a gun slung over his shoulder. but he's like kind of faded so he like you can tell he's not there but he's there Stop.

Now, Laura said that she experienced a ton of shit while she lived at the lighthouse.

She'd hear loud footsteps outside of her room, like walking around.

And the footsteps were so distinct, she felt like they were coming from somebody wearing boots.

Like soldier's boots. Correct. i'm looking at the photo right now and i'm like i was finishing this up this like specific lighthouse around like 11 30 at night i'm like sitting in bed like furiously typing this.

And I was like, I have to look at that picture.

So I went and I looked at it and then I had like this really fucked up weird nightmare.

Oh, I hate it. That was horrible. But so while Laura was living there, she would also hear like loud snoring, but she would look next to her at her husband and it wasn't him.

Oh, and she'd be like, What the fuck? No.

And then on one occasion she had a woman named Helen visiting her. and Helen woke up in the middle of the night hearing somebody wailing her name.

Oh, nope. Nope. I'm out. No. I'm a head out.

No. Someone's just like, Ellen. Precisely.

No. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and hearing, Ellen.

No. No. So scary. No, I won't. So scary.

I will not. And you know what? I know what that feels like, like minus the wailing, but I used to hear people whisper my name at mom and papa's house.

So spooky. So spooky. But Laura said that she never, and this is how I felt living up at Ma and Peppa's house, and you've said it too, never felt threatened by any of these paranormal happenings.

And she even thinks that a ghost may have saved her life while she was living there.

Whoa. So she was home alone one night in the lighthouse and she wakes up in the middle of the night and there's all these weird lights like quote unquote, dancing over her bed.

Love that. So she thought it might have been a reflection somehow of like a boat coming in.

But then she looked out onto the water and there were no boats coming in in the area.

So she's like, where is this light coming from?

She's trying to figure it out, trying to figure it out.

And then as she's standing there trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, she gets this smell of smoke.

So she follows the smell downstairs and realized that there was a space heater that actually hot fire oh shit and it was like a pretty big fire it had spread from the electrical like outlet in the wall to the actual space heater And if she hadn't woken up, she could have died in the fire and the notarious landmark would have burned to the ground.

Oh my God. And some people think that it was Ann Davis.

Being like, wake the fuck up. Because I don't want my house to burn to the ground.

Yeah, this is my house. Imagine. Oh, like I even I like already knew this and I just got chills.

Oh, I'm getting chili willies everywhere.

For some reason, this last one that I'm about to tell you. freaks me the fuck out.

Oh, I'm excited. So the last haunting in the area isn't in the lighthouse itself, but it takes place nearby and I definitely thought it was worth mentioning.

So a park ranger named Donnie Hammett was working on the Potomac River side of Point Lookout one day.

Shout out to the Real Housewives of Potomac.

I knew that was coming. I knew you were going to just fly over that.

You can't say the word Potomac without recognizing those beautiful ladies and all their drums.

So he's working on the Potomac side of the river, and it was March of 1977.

And he said while he was working, he was noticed he noticed an older woman just like wandering in the area.

And he said she was looking down and kind of shuffling along.

And it looked like she was looking for something.

So his first thought was like, oh, did she lose her keys or something like that?

Yeah. So he goes over to see if he can help her find what she's looking for.

And he said immediately he felt like he shouldn't have gone over to her, like she was irritated that he did.

And she said she was looking for a gravestone, but she didn't need his help.

Oh. And he was like, okay. So he walks away from her.

He's like, she does not need my help. I will take that as the answer. and he finishes up his work and he leaves pretty soon after he ran into her.

Now when he looked around, she was gone.

And then he went out to the parking lot to actually leave. and there was no cars in the area.

But he was like, she's gone. her car isn't still parked here.

And from where he was standing at that whole point in time, he would have seen a car coming or going.

So she hadn't left by car and then she's nowhere in the area.

So he's like, What the fuck? So later on, he's talking to the park manager, Jerry Sword.

And he finds out that there used to be an old family cemetery right around the area where he met the woman.

So the cemetery belonged to the Taylor family, and a woman named Elizabeth Taylor had been buried there.

But somebody had stolen her grave marker because of the name Elizabeth Taylor. yeah obviously and it was later found at a local hotel but the graveyard to this day has never been found.

Like there's public record that this graveyard exists, but they can't find it.

So he, Donnie, actually went back with his mom with metal detectors trying to find any sense of some kind of anything. and they couldn't find anything.

Oh, I want to find it. I want to find it so bad, but to this day it's never been found.

What? Crazy. Oh, that freaks me out. So people think that that woman was Elizabeth Taylor looking for her grave marker.

Oh. And maybe that's why she was irritated.

She's like, where the fuck is my grave? Yeah, because she was like, what?

Like, did you steal it? Right. What the fuck?

Exactly. Holy shit. I don't know why. That's spooky.

The old woman ghost thing freaks me out a lot.

No, that was spooky-ooky in every way that you can be spooky. a lost graveyard yeah in the fact that's the thing when when you can't find a graveyard, but you know it's there, like what?

And that's horrible. Horrible. How do you lose a graveyard?

Let's get some ground penetrating radar in there and let's do that shit.

We gotta. I gotta know. Everybody needs to know.

It's important. I need to know now. This is really important.

Wow, that's a crazy one. That one was nuts.

That one gave me several cases of the chills, which is not easy to do.

And just the king of lighthouses. The king of lighthouses.

It really is, to be honest. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

Well, that I'm going to follow up with. is the Bolivar Point Lighthouse in Texas.

Tejas. Hello, Texas. Howdy. So September 7th, this one begins with a hurricane.

Oh. And A gnarly hurricane. So this was September 7th, 1900, a hurricane referred to as the Great Galveston Storm. which is still considered the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, by the way.

And I didn't even know that this had happened.

I've never heard of this. It hit south of Houston and thousands of people died.

Oh, wow. Thousands. And I found a really good NPR article about this that I will link in the show notes.

I also used the Haunted Lighthouses by Ray Jones.

And it is insane. So here we go. The Bolivar Point Lighthouse.

I hope I said that right. Because like I said, pronunciations of towns, I understand.

You probably want me to say it right. Towns are important.

Bolivar Point Lighthouse was built in 1852, but only 10 years later, the Confederates fucked it up again.

Confederates are rife in this story. They are so wily.

They're just ripping apart lighthouses. Yeah you can't be out here doing that.

You can't. So they ruined this lighthouse by pulling it apart to make weapons from the material.

Oh, OK. Now, luckily in 1872, it was rebuilt by a construction crew that was brought in from New Orleans.

And it was 117 feet tall. Whoa. And was built like a brick shithouse.

Like this thing was, it was made to withstand a lot of wind, a lot of waves.

It wasn't going anywhere. I wonder why. And it still stands today.

And actually today it looks really gnarly because it has rusted into a jet black color.

Yeah, it did. So it's so ominous. Sorry, remind me the name again.

It is the Bolivar Point Lighthouse. I'm going to Google it.

So in 1900 when the hurricane was about to hit, the keeper was Harry Claiborne.

And he was the keeper for 25 years. He began his post December 15, 1894.

And he was known as literally the best lighthouse keeper in the multiple places he had served. yeah he was he would like he literally earned that title like he was that good i believe it Now throughout the week before this, everyone around Galveston was a little worried.

They were a little on edge. There'd been reports that a hurricane had literally leveled Trinidad across the Caribbean.

And after it had left devastation in its wake there, it was traveling across the Caribbean.

And in those days... no one knew where it was going next.

But there was a path to them. It could happen.

So the entire community was kind of getting ready to at least face some of the wins and Sailors were coming in telling stories about these horrific waters they had just faced out there. um when they were sailing through the gulf and still no one was totally ready for this thing to hit dead on right because i think the like um the likelihood of it hitting dead on was very low.

So they just weren't really thinking about it.

With all of these little hints that it was coming that way and with the barometric process pressure starting to drop all of a sudden out of nowhere.

It was like a lead balloon drop. The weather service and the media did put out a notice that said hurricane coming.

They didn't know how bad it would be because, again, at this time, they didn't have radar.

Meteorologists existed, but they were very different than what they are now.

Of course. Now unfortunately, when this hurricane message came out, everyone ignored it.

They figured, like I said before, it was very unlikely that this hurricane was going to hit head on.

Even worse, people were gathering on the beaches and actually coming to the island from other places to see these giant waves that were coming from the storm off in the water now apparently a meteorologist from the weather bureau who was named isaac klein saw this like he noticed all these people gathering he was seeing people coming he's like don't do this he knew that like something bad was happening here So he came to the beaches and was riding up and down the beaches in a horse-drawn carriage.

Icon. Just picture that. Icon. yelling for people to get inside and get to higher ground.

And still he was ignored for the most part.

Oh, no. And just the fact that he even put himself in danger to do that.

Yeah, and he was just like... trying to get everybody to listen.

Now waves began raging. I mean, they were huge anyways.

That's what people were looking at. But now they were becoming just walls of water.

And soon it got so bad that they completely shattered the border walk.

Like they were hitting it so hard. So people started to panic.

And hurricanes, you know, they're not just like tooting in slowly.

Hurricanes move fucking fast when they come.

Yes, they do. Sometimes it's too late. If you're not already on your way out of there, it's too late.

It's coming. It's here. So most people had not cleared out in time.

And now they're looking for somewhere to save their own lives at this point because they know now they were not fucking around.

Right. Now, according to the NPR article about the storm that I mentioned before, It said, quote, survivors wrote of wind that sounded, quote, like a thousand little devils shrieking and whistling.

Oh, God. of six-foot waves coming down Broadway Avenue, of a grand piano riding the crest of one. of slate shingles turned into whirling saw blades. and of streetcar tracks becoming waterborne battering rams that tore apart houses.

Whoa. Yeah. A woman named Catherine Vedder Pauls, who was six at the time, in that article said, quote, the animals tried to swim to safety and the frightened squawking chickens were roosting everywhere they could to get above water.

People from homes already demolished were beginning to drift into our house, which still stood starkly against the increasing fury fury of the wind and water.

Well, enter Harry Claiborne, the lighthouse keeper.

He had made sure to keep that light burning for this exact occasion. he, from his point in the lighthouse, could see that the wind and waves out there in the sea were getting gnarly.

So he was like, I got to be like a point of safety for people and for ships.

So he had actually got extra oil for his light so that it would remain shining brightly so that ships would be able to stop in Galveston Bay for safety.

Now he was doing his job. He's like, I gotta save people.

Yes. Now the wind, and honestly, his job is to save ships, but he ends up becoming like an absolute hero.

Now the wind and the waves kicked into high gear and hundreds of people were drowning at this point.

Residents were fleeing their homes in floods.

They're trying to find higher ground. Meanwhile, it was like a war zone, like we said.

The winds are blowing anything and everyone sometimes.

Dozens of people were actually decapitated by flying debris.

Oh, my God. Now, suddenly, these people running outside trying to find safety. they begin to pound on the lighthouse door, like the ball of our lighthouse door.

Let us in, please. immediately, without a thought, opened the door and allowed anyone who needed to come into that tower to come into that tower.

Yeah. And remember, you saw the picture of lighthouses of tall, thin building now.

The horde of people pushed into this tower.

And... they have like a spiral staircase going all the way to the top.

Well, people were literally clinging to anything, like clinging to the staircase They were standing on top of each other's shoulders.

Over 120 people crammed in there that night.

Wow. And that's a lot of people for... And they're all standing on top of each other and throughout the hours of being crammed in there on top of each other and holding on for dear life.

Sometimes they were all crying, screaming.

There was children, women, men. I mean, they were wailing as the storm went berserk outside.

That must have been so terrible. Hell, everyone was in pain.

They were all barely able to breathe. It was like a thousand degrees in there. with all those Pactan bodies.

And then the light burning. People were throwing up on each other.

Like, it was... fainting, falling, their muscles were all breaking down because they're trying to hold people above them.

I mean through all of it, Claiborne, Harry Claiborne fed them and tried to comfort them all.

He had gone into town earlier that day, and like he usually did as a keeper, he would buy a month's worth of groceries to live off of for him and his Sure.

He gave everyone in that lighthouse food and ended up using all of his rations, all of it. on everybody else.

And after the storm had ended and everybody finally left, which we'll get to in a second, He continued to feed survivors with whatever he had left, and he just told people, I'll figure it out when it came to him eating.

This man. Yeah. Wow. Now the winds reached up to 150 miles an hour that evening.

Dude. trees actually fell into the lighthouse, like onto the lighthouse.

The entire thing was shaking and rattling, but it stayed upright.

It never fell apart. It never buckled. It never busted a hole in it.

That's wild. Stayed up. The next morning, the storm had finally gone out to sea after the entire night of them being stuck in there.

They were all finally able to leave the lighthouse, and when they opened the door, they were met with piles of bodies. all of whom had desperately tried to enter the lighthouse for safety, but had failed once the doors closed and the hurricane had taken hold.

That must have been horrific to see. the winds had stripped off all their clothes.

So it's just naked bodies lying everywhere.

People like. who had tried to climb the lighthouse to get up to higher ground.

They said people were in trees. They were on roofs.

Oh, this is horrible. Yeah, they were piled outside of other structures and Galveston itself was almost was like destroyed.

Yeah. And apparently at last count, between 6,000 and 12,000 people were dead.

In one night. in one night I just have like full like and now you know why it's the deadliest natural disaster of course yeah Now, according to that same NPR article, they said, quote, knots of frightened... of people frightened out of their wits, crazy men and women crying and weeping at the tops of their voices were what they heard.

And they said somebody named Louise Bristol Hopkins, who was seven at the time, said it was a terrible time.

It really was. I heard the stories of women with long hair who had been caught in the trees with their hair and cut to pieces with slates that had been flying.

Oh, yeah. Now, martial law was declared and law for our authorities were forcing men to gather all the corpses. and pile them onto ships so they could dump them in the Gulf.

They didn't know what else to do. Yeah. But these bodies kept washing back on shore.

And then they had to be lit in massive funeral pyre fires.

Stop. Yep. And also, just to put it out there, most of these men that had to, you know, get these bodies.

They were mostly black men and they were forced to do this awful job with bayonets at their back.

Are you kidding me? Yeah. Just as a little side note.

Of all the traumatic things that have gone down in this story, and then you add that to it. forced to do it with bayonets at their back like you have to gather all these now Harry Claiborne He went back to work the next night and he lit the lighthouse light for ships immediately and he stood guard.

And everything I read was like, he must have been so exhausted, so traumatized.

And he just stayed up all night feeding these people.

He was trying to keep them and he just climbed those stairs all the way to the top and he went right back to work.

What a bad bitch now according to most if you are near bolivar point uh point lighthouse or the galveston beaches you can hear whispers in your ear.

No. And also you can hear people crying and you can hear people screaming for help.

And sometimes they said like, it's almost like putting like a shell to your ear and hearing the ocean, it feels like it like, engulfs you i hate that and they said it can you'll hear it like as soon as you get close to that lighthouse or near the beaches you can hear like cries for help, but they're everywhere.

Like people say, it feels like they're swirling around you.

You can hear crying, screaming, wailing, like people saying, like, God help us and all this.

People go to these beaches a lot? Well, the lighthouse is no longer actually like in like a workable lighthouse, really.

Um, it's well, and it's like private property.

Now it was bought, it was sold, but People say, especially during foggy or stormy nights, they see someone standing guard in the light tower.

And many people believe it is Harry Claiborne tending the light and protecting people from a storm.

Oh, I know it is. ships also say they see the light during they always see this light during storms and fog like they When they need help, that light goes on and they can see the light.

Now, during Hurricane Ike in 2008, people said they saw the light in the lighthouse even though there was no power.

That's so funny. And ships said they saw the light that night too.

Freaky and so beautiful. I know. It's like Harry.

That's Harry. And just like continuing to be a hero forever.

Yeah. like for infinity and apparently in 2000 the coast guard actually named a ship after Harry Claiborne it took that long yeah i know i'm like it should have happened like right i was like the next day I guess the boat is stationed in Galveston and you can You can actually see it if you take the ferry that runs between Galveston and Port Bolivar.

Oh, cool. And it's the Harry Claiborne. There's also a memorial that's on the Galveston seawall, and it's to commemorate that 1900s. oh yeah and all the what it what it says is the six to twelve thousand people that died in it that is unreal but it is apparently a very heavy place, which I can imagine. think so yeah because it's not even just the lighthouse the lighthouse was such a scene of like carnage but also a scene of like heroic carnage compassion yeah all at once yeah and then also it's just like that place is just rife with I mean the amount of deaths that happen there and suffering is wild wow yeah and the picture of that lighthouse is so gnarly now because it's like jet black it's really so tall I love it.

It's a cool lighthouse. And it looks like it used to be like white and black stripes.

I think it was white and red, I think. Oh, was it red?

I just saw a black and white photo. Straps.

Stripes. But it rusted and then it just kind of turned black over time.

It looks really cool. But yeah, it's really cool.

How symbolic. I know. But Harry Claiborne, man.

A true gem. The best. He was Josh Safdie's muse for Uncut Gems.

You got it. You got it. You got to. A good job.

A good job. I have to figure out how to say this place in Oregon.

If we could just pause for a second. I think it's Yakitas.

Yakitas. All right, I'm gonna play this for you so that you can't tell me I'm wrong.

It's... Yahats. Yahats. Yahats. I hope that's how you say it.

So this lighthouse, the Heceta Head Lighthouse, is named after a Spanish explorer, Bruno de Hecate.

Love it. Yeah. So it was built in 1892. Yeah.

During World War II, it was actually used as a military barracks.

And from 1970 to 1995, it was used as a satellite campus for Lane Community College.

Hell yeah, it was. It's had a very interesting history.

I was gonna say, wow, a very varied history.

It reminds me of the mall in Fear Street.

Yes. It was like a summer camp, but also like a village where horrible things happened.

Also a place where... Where they like, yeah.

Where they hang to it. And then it's just a mall.

Yeah, then just a mall. Makes sense. And now it serves as a bed and breakfast.

Yeah, absolutely it does. A haunted one.

Yeah, it does. There's really one main ghost associated with this story.

So this one's kind of quick, but it's very interesting.

Now, the most famous ghost associated with this lighthouse is named Roo.

She apparently told a group of students that her name was Rue while they used a Ouija board to ask questions.

What freaks me out though is that you could also, like, rue a day.

So I'm like, ooh, is that what that means?

Or is your name actually Rue? But she seems to be a very nice ghost.

No one is exactly sure like who she is, where she came from, but their best guess is that she was one of the Keeper's wives.

And she apparently had two children, is what people say.

And one of them, a baby, drowned and died.

That's terrible. And there's an unmarked grave on this property that lends itself to that theory.

And they say a baby girl is buried there.

Oh, stop. So tons of people who have stayed at the B&B have stories about Roo, and so do the workers.

One of the most famous stories that you'll see if you look this up comes from a worker, Jim Anderson.

So he was working in the attic one day cleaning the windows and he caught the reflection of a woman.

And when he turned around, he saw what he thought he did, but the elderly woman was not from this time period.

She was wearing a Victorian gown and she was like foggy like an apparition versus an actual person.

I wish you could see the hand motions that Ash was just making to be like foggy.

Her hands just went back and forth like fog.

Kind of like I was swimming a little bit, I guess.

So he yeeted himself out of there. He was like, I will never go in that attic again.

You will never catch me up in that attic again.

You will catch these hands before you catch me up there.

Were you about to say that? I was about to say that exact sentence.

You could catch these hands before you catch me in the back.

I didn't write it down, but I was about to say that.

So he was like, goodbye. But unfortunately for him, like a couple of days later, he broke an attic window from the outside and was like, oh, shit.

Yeah. I'd be like, well, there's that. Well, that's basically what he said.

He repaired the window from the outside but he was like someone else is gonna have to go take care of that glass that's on the inside So nobody really took care of the glass.

Yeah, of course not. and nobody wanted to go in the attic.

So that night, workers sleeping in the house, heard scraping noises coming from the attic when one of them...

And one of them finally went up there. And they were like, what the fuck could this be?

All of the glass was swept into one neat pile.

Rude. And they think it was Rue. She did it.

She was like, I'm sorry I freaked you guys out.

I didn't mean to scare you. Let me clean this up.

This could be dangerous. Let me wait until like 3am and clean this up.

She had kids. She's like, I don't want anybody having to go to the ER.

Exactly. But apparently she's, she's cleanly, but she's also a trickster because people staying at the B and B will like lose things in their room.

And they'll go to the front desk and be like, oh, I had such and such.

Like, have you seen that? And they'll be like, no, but it's going to turn up later.

Don't worry. And they're like, what are you talking about?

So, like, literally people will lose things and they'll know that, like, say... they have like a hairbrush on the dresser they'll find it the next day in the bathroom That's awesome.

Like she just moves things around. She's also said to open locked doors and just leave them wide open.

She's like, no, let the air go through. Yeah.

She flickers lights. She makes dishes in the kitchen rattle all about at night.

I'd do that. And sometimes in the middle of the night, people will wake up and hear her screaming.

Oh, that's not as whimsical as the rest of these things.

And people think that this must be her reliving the night when she found out that her baby had drowned.

Oh, that just hurt every part of me. Yeah, so sad. oh and she's just screaming screaming wailing oh and people will wake up and hear that Oh my god, I want to comfort Rue.

I do too. I would love to hug her. Damn.

She's also not a fan of change at the B&B.

On one occasion, they were having it repainted And at night, the fire alarms kept going off that night, like the first night that they started painting.

So one of the workers was like, what the what the fuck is going on with these?

Like there's no fire. And after making sure there was no fire or smoke or anything, he just took the batteries out.

Cause he was like, I gotta go to sleep. And even with the batteries off, the fire alarms kept going off.

She was like, stop fucking painting. Yeah, she was like, wake up everybody.

They thought it was her. Wow. One guest actually had the chance to have a slumber party with Rue.

She said that she woke up around 4.30 in the morning and felt a presence climb into bed with her.

Hey, girl. She said the present stayed for a few hours and when she recalled what happened because...

The B&B has this notebook of like for people to write their experiences, like their ghost experiences.

Oh, I love it. And she, this woman wrote quote, need I say, I feel strange about this experience. but in a way, honored.

She wrote that she was concerned, but not harmed.

Oh my god, I love it. I love that she's like, I'm weirded out, but I'm also honored.

I am concerned, but I remain unharmed. She's like...

I feel conflicting thoughts. I feel some type of way is really what it comes down to.

And then some people say that there's like a ghost of a gray lady.

And some people are like, it's a totally different ghost.

But other people say that it's Rue and sometimes she just appears in a gray mist.

Yeah, maybe she's just having a moment. Yeah, she's just living.

Yeah. not she's not she's unliving and she seems to be pretty much the main the main haunt wow i like I like Rue.

I love Rue. But I feel really bad for Rue.

Yeah, I was like, I want to end it on Rue because like she seems so great, but it's also like really sad.

Yeah, but she seems friendly and she seems like she just like full she makes, you know, she sweeps up the glass when you fuck around.

Yeah. But she's not into the change thing, which I get.

It's her house. Yeah. You're just living in it.

Yeah. She knows what she's doing. That was a good one.

These are fun. Guys, let us know if we want to start doing these just every once in a while.

Just throw one in when we all need just like a... a crazy like different thing it's like spooky roads but different yeah which is also we want to come back yeah we got to come back to spooky roads for sure um but this could be another one of those that we just like randomly sometimes are like you know what we're How about haunted lighthouses today?

How about that? So we kind of want to like hit every place that has a lighthouse.

So we'll try to hit everybody. Oregon, Maryland, and Michigan for me.

And I did Georgia and Texas. So we got like tons more.

Yeah. And if you guys want to send them in, you can.

You can email us. Oh, definitely. And just say haunted lighthouses.

And if you have any experiences at these lighthouses, we can pair that with it.

An almost like listener tale lighthouse vibe.

Yeah, because it's like the spooky roads thing where we like to include your personal experiences with these roads.

Yeah. So if you want to do that, just send it to morbidpodcast.com and just put in the... Like you do with...

I can't do these things. I don't know why I suck.

I cannot promote our email ever. No, I don't even know.

Sometimes I'm like, find us on Twitter. At a place.

Yeah, morbidpodcast.gmail.com. I am ancient.

You know how you guys are like listener tales in the subject or spooky roads.

Just say haunted lighthouses. Easy. And we'll know that that's what it is.

Yeah. But these are fun. And I think it's like a...

We're going to be, like I said before, you're going to be getting more content.

This year in the next coming months. So we want to be able to stretch out, stretch our legs into many different.

So this is just another thing that we'll be able to add onto the list.

Yeah. And this was fun. Because remember.

Content, content, get ready for it. Content, content, content, content. we hope you that keep listening that's what I was about to say All right.

So we hope that you keep listening, especially after that.

Yeah, for real. And we hope you keep it. but not so weird that you are haunting a lighthouse but like maybe keep it that weird so we can keep the story going yeah bye bye Yeah.

Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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[Morbid Podcast: The Haunted Lighthouse Edition]-[Episode 301: Haunted Lighthouses Volume 1]

📋 Summary

The Haunted Lighthouse Edition: A Journey Through Maritime Tragedy

Point Iroquois Lighthouse, Michigan

St. Simon’s Lighthouse, Georgia

Point Lookout Lighthouse, Maryland

Bolivar Point Lighthouse, Texas

Heceta Head Lighthouse, Oregon

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript