The Dead Keepers of the St. Augustine Lighthouse
Situated on the coast of Florida, where the rivers of Tolomato and Matanzas lose themselves into the waters of the Atlantic, there stands a beacon of hope for the sea wanderers and one of the most haunted structures in America– the St. Augustine Lighthouse.
St. Augustine is considered America’s oldest, continually uninhabited city and has witnessed a fair share of its history. Be it the epic battles, bloodshed, or horrifying deaths, the St. Augustine Lighthouse has stood watch, year after year, still echoing the eerie sounds of the dead.
There is no shortage of mysterious and paranormal instances running bizarrely at the St. Augustine Lighthouse. From people hearing creepy gigglings and footsteps to finding doors being mysteriously unlocked on their own, there is a lot about the St. Augustine Lighthouse left unexplained and untouched.
St. Augustine Lighthouse’s Long History
The St. Augustine Lighthouse has existed in one form or another since 1589, as we find mentions of a wooden watchtower on Anastasia Island in the very old maps detailing Sir Francis Drake’s raid of the coast. Surviving numerous changes, it finally succumbed to coastline erosion and eventually fell into the seas in 1880.
Luckily, funding was raised to build a new lighthouse near the original site in 1874. Its construction began, but what was hoped to be an advantage to public transportation and safety, soon turned into a landmark for tragedies. The new tower saw its part of woes and has been left with a creepy past.
The Notorious Keepers of St. Augustine Lighthouse
The tower has seen a chain of deaths, leaving it with a mark of ill omen and a ton of stories ascribed to the horrors of this place.
The Man in Blue
One of the most infamous in the line of the haunting occurrences of the St. Augustine Lighthouse is about the lighthouse keeper Peter Rasmussen. The keeper’s house basement has been the famous source of most of the suspicious activities.
According to the many accounts, one lighthouse keeper or assistant ended his life by hanging himself in this very basement. He died just a few years after the completion of the new watchtower. Since then, the lighthouse staff including tourists has claimed to encounter a figure in the blue suit roaming in the shadows. The lighthouse authority seems to believe that this man is Peter Rasmussen who served as the lighthouse’s keeper from 1901 to 1924.
Known for his dutiful watch over the tower, Peter was a luxurious man. He loved smoking, hated intruding tourists, and was in general a cranky personality. People usually seemed to feel a bit uneasy at this corner of the watchtower and some have reported detecting a scent of cigarette even though nobody lived there for years.
Workers are terrified of this Man in Blue. Workers have encountered full-bodied apparition and have claimed to be harassed by the spirit of Peter. Even once a lighthouse keeper refused to go back to work, as the man in blue had reportedly heckled him for the one whole night, continually hounding him up and down the 219 stairs of the lighthouse.
The Miserable Watcher
Another area of the lighthouse that is quite active in paranormal activities is the parlor. Often people get to hear a coughing sound from this particular chamber, which the staff of the lighthouse assigns to the wraith of William Harn. He was one of the first keepers of the newly built watchtower and unfortunately was the first keepers to die in the lighthouse.
William Harn died while fighting his battle against malaria and tuberculosis contracted during the civil war and it seems he never left the lighthouse since then. A few minutes inside this silent cabinet is enough to make you feel cold running deep into your bones and searching for air to catch a breath.
The Painful Death of Joseph Andreu
The eeriest of the St. Augustine Lighthouse spirits is the one who can be glimpsed walking the observation deck, taking 219 stairs up to the height of 165 feet.
In December of the mid 19th century, 6o-years-old keeper of the original lighthouse, Joseph Andreu fell to his death from the top of the tower, when he was whitewashing the outside of the lighthouse tower.
How Joseph’s obituary in St. Augustine Examiner described his death as, “He first struck the ground of the oil room about thirty feet below, whence he glazed off and struck the stone wall which encloses the lighthouse, and thence to the ground– a stone pavement.”
Those who had witnessed such a horrifying incident can certainly attest to the chilling nature of the place.
The Notorious Young Girls
The most famous ghosts of St. Augustine Lighthouse, however, are of the trio of young girls who met their tragic death while playing. During the construction of the new lighthouse, Hezekiah Pittee took the charge of the superintendent.
It is reported that Pittee’s daughters along with children of the site workers used to play on the construction site. The tragedy struck when they decided to play with a supply cart, seeing that as a toy. While they were immersed in their playing, the cart unscrewed, stumbled down the hill, and flipped the children into the water.
Until a worker came to their rescue, it was too late. Two of Pittee’s daughters, Eliza and Marry along with one unnamed little girl who is believed to be the daughter of a worker drowned before they could be saved.
Locals believe that those little girls can be still heard playing games and hide and seek throughout the premises. There have been strange occurrences in the lighthouse that are reportedly attributed to the spirits of these girls. The girls still love to play around with people and spook them out.
One woman reported seeing a young girl, wearing a red dress and standing on the window of the keeper’s house. According to her account, she remembered the girl having long hair, which she flipped over her shoulder and vanished suddenly. Additionally, there are incidences of finding a child’s footprint in the keeper’s house even when there were no children present on those particular trips.
One story involves a scary incident that happened to a staff member who, when one night was all alone and was closing up for the day. He reported hearing giggling at the top of the tower. Thinking that he might have left someone on the top, returned to find no one there. Again when he started heading back, he heard the same giggles down the tower. Reaching the bottom, he once again found it empty.
The Most Haunted Spot in St. Augustine
The incidents of St. Augustine Lighthouse are unexplainable, supernatural, and mysterious, making it one of the most haunted of not only St. Augustine but of the USA. Moreover, there’s a reason why so many ghost hunters keep visiting the tower. Their experiences, along with their linked past prove that something surely is offbeat when it comes to the famous St. Augustine Lighthouse. Something which is out of our control and we have no other choice than to accept the supremacy of this mysterious tower that stands tall on the coasts of Florida and is protected by energies beyond this world.
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