#haunted lighthouses

[halloween-sweets]

[myhauntedsalem]

Absecon Lighthouse

Absecon Lighthouse, located in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is the 3rd tallest masonry lighthouse in the United States. A structure which extends 171 feet in to the sky and 228 steps to reach the top. In April 1854, the Powhatan wrecked off the coast. Three hundred and eleven passengers and crew were lost. This tragedy was only one of many earning the Absecon Inlet the nick name of “Graveyard Inlet”.

In an effort to prevent further wrecks, the U.S. Lighthouse Service commissioned funding from Congress to build a lighthouse on Absecon Island. Designed by Lt. George Meade, the construction began in 1854. Lt. Meade replaced Major Hartman Bache to oversee the building. He would later go on to command the Union Army at Gettysburg. The first lighting took place on January 15, 1857 with a kerosene flame focused through a huge 36-plate, First-Order Fresnel lens (which it still retains). The final cost was $52,436.62. The white light shone brightly towards the sea. One could spot it 19.6 nautical miles from shore. The Absecon Lighthouse served its purpose for many years until being decommissioned in 1933. Since then, the tower has been restored and the lost Keeper’s house rebuilt.

Reports of paranormal activity date back to 1905 when one such keeper claimed to have spotted the Jersey Devil at the top of the tower. Since then, visitors and employees have experienced activity such as smells of pipe and cigar smoke, sounds of footsteps in the tower and the sound of the tower door opening/closing. Dimes have been said to appear in strange locations and partial apparitions have been seen. Not to mention the reports of eerie laughter. Seven deaths have occurred on the property. Thus, is the Absecon Lighthouse haunted by former lighthouse keepers and their families?

Absecon Lighthouse, located in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is the 3rd tallest masonry lighthouse in the United States. A structure which extends 171 feet in to the sky and 228 steps to reach the top. In April 1854, the Powhatan wrecked off the coast. Three hundred and eleven passengers and crew were lost. This tragedy was only one of many earning the Absecon Inlet the nick name of “Graveyard Inlet”.

[popculturelib]

Whether they're casualties from shipwrecks or dutiful keepers, where there are lighthouses, there are often ghosts. Among our books on ghosts, hauntings, and the occult are Lighthouse Legends & Hauntings (1998) by William O. Thomson and Lighthouse Ghosts: 13 Bona Fide Apparitions Standing Watch Over America's Shores (1999) by Norma Elizabeth and Bruce Roberts. Have you ever seen a lighthouse ghost?

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

[andillwriteyouatragedy]

what an incredibly exciting and surprising thing to wake up to?! you guys are my absolute heroes 🥺

DECOMMISSIONED is in the top 10 of newly released queer horror fiction right now on amazon, as well as 25th in BEST SELLING queer horror fiction overall!! 👻

self-published, and queer, and raw!! we really can do anything 😌

if you haven't gotten your copy of decommissioned yet, here's your sign to be part of the zeitgeist!! 💥

[an-established-butt-dent]

Soooooo after the new details that have been revealed about Veilguard, how do we all imagine a Solavellan reunion is going down? Trapped in the fade together? Lighthouse makeout sessions? A very sad mural dedicated to his Vhenan? My brain is infested with new headcanons.

[gluesenkampart]

Lighthouse illustration for a ttrpg book I'm working on.

[words-and-pages]

We as a society need to start building lighthouses, castles, and remote stone cottages again

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[fanofspooky]

Horror movies of 2019

[coastaldaze]

I just want to live in a haunted cottage in a sleepy town by the sea

[gerbits]

If you believe the stories, newlywed Ruth has been waiting for her husband to return from the sea for a few centuries after succumbing to her own death by freezing. A bit of an enigma even to the locals of Grimcoast Harbor, you'll be lucky if you catch a glimpse of her, let alone hear her tale. Though not an official resident of the coastal town, Ruth has her place here and the residents seem quite fond of her...even if some of them don't believe she actually exists.

[myhauntedsalem]

Bird Island Light

Sippican Harbor, Massachusetts

The Haunting: William “Billy” Moore was the light’s first keeper when lit in 1890. Some say he was a convicted pirate who served his sentence at the lighthouse, while others claim he was being punished for stealing money from the U.S. Army during the War of 1812. By all accounts, however, Billy had a vicious temper. He lived there with his wife, Sarah, a small, frail woman who many friends suspected was beaten and abused by Billy. One day in 1832, Billy raised the distress flag on the island, bringing the mainlanders to see the trouble. They found Sarah dead in the house. Billy claimed that she died of tuberculosis but others suspected she had somehow been murdered by Billy.

After Billy disappeared from the island, his replacement claimed to have seen the apparition of a frail-looking woman who came to the door with an outstretched hand. When the door was opened, she would fade away. This ghost, who might be Sarah Moore, was last seen in 1982 by two local fishermen, who say the weeping spirit still looked quite distressed.

[andillwriteyouatragedy]

my author proofs for the paperbacks!! look SO GOOD!!! my hands are sweating so much i am SO EXCITED!!!!!

less than two weeks until DECOMMISSIONED is released!!!!!!

[ipomoea-batatas]

I absolutely want to hear about the extremely cursed lighthouse 👀

YEAH BABEYYYYY CURSED LIGHTHOUSE HERE WE GOOO

Ok so this lighthouse is called Minot's Ledge Light. Here it is today.

You may notice that unlike most other lighthouses, it's in the MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN.

It's about a mile or so out from the shore, southeast of Boston Harbor (off the coast of what’s called the South Shore) and it's built into a rock ledge that's just under the water (Minot’s Ledge, after which it’s named. “Minot” was a merchant who lost a very valuable shipment there. Seems kinda fuckin rude to name the ledge after him but whatever).

This ledge, and other rocky ledges nearby, made the area SUPER dangerous before the lighthouse was built. FORTY ships were lost there in less than a decade in the 19th century.

Oh, and folks of an ~age~ might recognize this lighthouse from this famous photo from the blizzard of '78:

Just to give you an idea of what the weather conditions can be like in the area. (Is this foreshadowing? PROBABLY)

Anyway, building a lighthouse here was obviously high priority. There was a bit of an exposé on the negligence of the Lighthouse Establishment (the gov. dept that was in charge of lighthouses at the time), and the construction of Minot’s Ledge was part of a push to show that the department was taking things more seriously.

As the lighthouse needed to be built ON the ledge, some cutting-edge, never-before-seen lighthouse design was in order. (More foreshadowing?? MAYBE???)

Isn’t it cute??

(If you notice that it looks nothing like the modern-day lighthouse above...no you don’t. Don’t ruin the story for the rest of the class)

The problem is, Minot’s Ledge itself is only exposed for a few hours at low tide, which obviously presented some problems. No one died building it, but all the equipment was washed away once, and people ALMOST died when they were swept away by currents.

It took years to finish because of the tricky conditions. It was finally finished and lighted on New Year’s in 1850.

It was obvious right away that this design was...not it. The lighthouse would sway violently in rough conditions. (One of the keepers told Henry David Thoreau that bad winds would literally rock their plates off the table.)

The first keeper wrote to the government reporting unsafe conditions, but was ignored. He resigned in October of that year.

The new keeper and his two assistants also reported dangerous conditions. Storms kept weakening the braces, and the structure had to be repaired often. However, every time the authorities came out to inspect the lighthouse it was ALWAYS a calm day, and they were like “idk seems fine?” And continued to ignore safety concerns.

In April of 1851, a storm had kicked up. The keeper had gone to the mainland to restock, but he didn’t make it back before the storm started in earnest. The two assistant lighthouse keepers were left at the light.

This was a BAD storm—nearly a hurricane—that went on for a week. By the fifth day, it looked bleak enough that the assistant keepers released a message in a bottle with their last words.

On day six, the legs of the structure began to fail one at a time. When there were only three legs left, the keepers began to ring the alarm bell continuously for as long as the lighthouse still stood.

By morning, it was completely lost to the ocean.

The two lighthouse keepers’ bodies were later recovered—one had washed ashore nearby, and the other was found on a nearby island a few hundred feet from the mainland. The latter keeper HADN’T died of drowning—he survived and managed to swim to the island, thinking he’d made it to the mainland, only to die of exhaustion and exposure.

Their message in a bottle was found two days later on the North Shore of Boston Harbor. It read: “The beacon cannot last any longer. She is shaking a good three feet each way as I write. God bless you all.”

Here are the ghosty bits:

1) People still say you can hear the bell ringing during bad storms. Once the lighthouse was rebuilt (properly, out of stone this time, which took YEARS—they had to start over at least once when a ship crashed into the structure and took the whole thing out), apparently they had a hard time getting keepers to stay on. They reported hearing the fog bell ringing at odd times, and ghostly figures in the lantern room. Most didn’t make it a year.

2) The lighthouse was automated pretty much as soon as the technology was available, removing the need for lighthouse keepers to live there. But passing ships still reported seeing a man hanging off the side, calling out.

Most people reported that the figure couldn’t be understood, but one Portuguese sailor said that the man was yelling for help in Portuguese. Sure enough, one of the two assistant keepers who perished in the tragedy was Portuguese.

So that’s the story of the cute little “I Love You” lighthouse and the horrible shit that happened there. Sources: This article

This one too

And obviously, Wikipedia. What am I, the pope

[madcat-world]

Haunted Lighthouse - Zoe Badini

[flowercrowngods]

part 1 | ao3

shattered on the cliff’s edge, trapped by the tides

— a steddie ghost story —

part 2 / 7

Soaked through by the icy water and the howling winds, and weighted down by shock and fright, Steve’s legs may as well have been made of lead as he, slowly, with a racing heart, accepts his fate and enters the lighthouse. 

He flinches, hard, when the door falls shut behind him, as if pushed by an invisible force, and he flinches again when a wave crashes violently. It’s almost as if the lighthouse is shaking with the impact, but maybe that’s just him. 

“Okay,” he breathes, whispering because he doesn’t dare to speak any louder, lest the unending darkness might be disturbed — and something tells him that it wouldn’t take all that kindly to that. “Okay.” Once more, with feeling. 

Before he can move and find an oil lamp or even just a candle to bring some light into this place, something thumps from somewhere up the stairs he cannot see. 

He knows that, just like ancient manors, lighthouses have a life of their own, knows they’re prone to moving and moaning along with the tides, with the wind and the water — but that was not the settling of wood or metal. That was something else.

“Hello?” he calls with a trembling voice, closing his eyes at the echoes of his own voice travelling up and down the tower he is being made to call home for the foreseeable future. “Is— Is anyone there? I’m… Well, I’m Steve.” 

Images fill the space behind his eyes, horrible visions of the old keepers luring him here to murder him, out of sea madness or cannibalistic urges, or just to have a bit of entertainment out here, just for a while. Other images, then, of ghosts coming to haunt him, to drive him to the brink of madness, to the railing all the way up on the tower, and watch his descent into— 

Another thump. The sound of a door opening, the wood groaning, the hinges creaking, everything insists the lighthouse protesting its new inhabitant. 

And then, through the pitch black darkness, a whisper. Travelling down towards him, growing louder as it comes closer and closer and— 

Steve takes a step back, his breath coming in shallow rapidity as he reaches for the handle and finding it unmoving.

Run, the whisper says, sounding more like an inhale than anything else — and is the air getting thinner? Run. 

Another wave crashes into the lighthouse. 

Run. 

The whispering voice is in his head now, loud for all of its tonelessness. 

Run!

Steve stumbles backwards, his body too frozen with cold and fear to catch his fall. His body collides with the wall and he slides down, covering his ears with his hands to keep out the noise, to keep out the world as he tries in vain for the fear to subside. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, hiding behind his knees like a little boy, scared of his father’s raised hands and his brothers' gloating. “I’m sorry, I mean no harm, I’m just— I’m here to fix the light. I’m here to make sure it’s— everything’s, everything’s fine. I don’t mean to disturb, I’m sorry. I’m Steve. I’m sorry.” 

Everything stills then — or maybe it’s the cotton in his ears and the staccato of his heart that drown out everything else and remind him that he’s painfully, desperately alive. And mortal. 

But the whispering stops, and so does the groaning up ahead, and silence falls. An unnatural silence, not even broken by the ocean waves outside. 

It’s like the lighthouse has stilled to listen to him. 

It’s something Robin told him once (or rather, debated at him while he was letting her rant wash over him in a whiff of fondness for his best friend in the whole wide world): 

“Ghosts don’t know your intentions, right? So it’s only fair to communicate with them. It’s you breaking into their house, after all. Well, unless they’re haunting your house, but even then it’s fair to assume they have been there all along and you either deserve the haunting and had it coming, or you’re just the poor lad caught in the crossfires. Either way, worth a try, right? If even those still alive assume the worst, I would think an eternity spent in the aether is unlikely to be beneficial to your judgement of character.”

Steve had waved it off then — or, in his case, smile patiently and waited for her to answer his initial question from half an hour ago before she went on a tangent on aether and ghosts and the supernatural; she’d been spending too much time in the library. 

“You learn a thing or two about haunted houses, growing up in a family such as mine,” he’d said, and then, “Dinner?” 

A pang splits him down the middle, regret and uncertainty tearing at him concerning Robin’s wheareabouts and her safety. She must be safe. She must be! 

“They say you don’t like— you, uh, strangers. The locals said you don’t like when people come here, so I’m sorry, but… I’m sorry. I have to fix the light. I’m Steve.” 

It’s madness, it must be. Early onset, although his father would have a thing or two to say about that, would claim it had always lived in him, would claim the way he looks at men is proof of that and reason enough to have him hanging in the streets. 

It wasn’t madness back then, Steve knows, vehemently, desperately knows. But this? Talking to a lighthouse, speaking into the darkness like it’s sentient even just a minute after he first set foot into it? It must be. He’s never been superstitious, has never been prone to ghost stories or supernatural appearances like Robin. 

But something about this place, something about the way it has been haunting his dreams, something about Old John capsizing is enough to make even the calmest man lose his wits. 

Something tells Steve that talking with the darkness is the right thing to do, if only for his own comfort. 

He looks up, his head thumping against the brick wall behind him, as steps approach. They still, right in front of him, and he’s staring into nothingness, almost expecting to make out a shape. Expecting for the next breath to be his last. 

Expecting… something. 

But nothing happens, and the sound of the ocean returns. The darkness seems less impenetrable as a sliver of light falls in through a side light up above. 

“Thank you,” he says, as stupidly as it is soundless, his voice buried beneath fear and dread. 

Miraculously, the darkness seems to fade a little more. 

Enough, eventually, for Steve to get up and dust off his trousers in an attempt to look presentable, or to shake off the residue of his fright — if only it was merely residue. 

Now that the darkness has lightened, he keeps his eyes fixed to the spot where he feels like he can make out a shape in the dust. Maybe it’s just his mind playing tricks on him, though, maybe it’s just the expectation of finding a spectre that makes one appear. 

Madness, he reiterates. But something about it doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t feel mad. And the steps never receded. If they were not an illusion, something created to steal the grounds from beneath his feet, playing with his senses to warp his perception of reality and the truth, then something — someone, quite possibly — is still standing right in front of him. 

He looks on even long past the point of impolite staring, searching the dust for a shape that only appears in his periphery when he moves his eyes. 

It feels rather undeniable, though, that someone is watching him. 

“Hello,” he says at last, having regained some of his voice and footing. His hands clench by his sides, though, his body revolting against speaking with an apparent ghost. 

The darkness doesn’t answer, and neither does the dust. But with the memory of urgent whispers still on the forefront of his mind, Steve is almost grateful for it as he carefully reaches for his bags and stars to move so slowly that it might almost be a mockery of the situation if his legs weren’t so shaky. 

The weight of an invisible gaze rests on his shoulders and settles in the bones of his neck. It takes everything in him not to rub at it — he has no idea what the darkness would take offence to, and he already feels incredibly lucky to have made it this far with his life still intact and only his sanity and his pride having taken a crack along the way. 

He thinks of Old John again, thinks of Good luck, kid. He almost asks the darkness about him, but he bites his tongue just in time. The stairs are steep and if he fell, given an invisible push, chances are he wouldn’t remain as alive as he is right now. 

So he swallows and feels his way along the wall up the stairs. When he finds an oil lamp, he reaches for the matches in his bags — blessedly dry — and lights it.

It’s almost blinding, the shine of the flame that sets to illuminate the way, but Steve feels his gaze drawn to the foot of the stairs where the spectre is still framed by the door. Still appearing to look at Steve. 

Stalemate is one thing to call it, maybe, this tension in the air, the weight of their gazes accompanied by the stumbling of Steve’s heart and the trembling of his hands. 

Steve swallows and continues with his ascent of the winding stairs, never once losing the feeling in his neck. He finds more lamps along the wall and lights them until they lead him to a set of chambers that in any other lighthouse would have been down at the bottom or even in another building altogether, leaving room in a large house or a tiny hut for the keepers to reside in. But none of that is possible out here, in the middle of the sea, towering on top of cliffs that already make it nary impossible to get here. 

The lighthouse is prone to flooding if the wind shifts or the ocean remains ruthless in a storm, so everything needs to be located above the threat of sea level. 

He finds two bedchambers, the beds unmade, a richly stocked pantry that will last him several months if he keeps it locked away from wet air, and an almost inviting kitchen. A burnt smell wafts from the oven, grown stale over time but a certain bite has never quite managed to air out, and when he takes a look, he finds what was supposed to be bread still in there. A coat hangs on a rack, another is hung over the back of the chair, and another stool has been thrown over. 

It looks for all intents and purposes like someone was just here. Like someone is still here. 

What happened to the old keepers? — That does not concern you. 

A shiver runs through him and he tries not to succumb to the terror that seems to lurk inside these walls as he starts a fire in the hearth. He is exhausted, adrenaline rushing from his body and leaving behind only apathetic tiredness and a longing for rest. He doesn’t even remember the light, his head filled with fog and exhaustion.

Once the fire is going and he is sure there is enough coal for it to last all night and keep him from freezing to an early death, Steve falls into bed without dinner. He only has enough strength not to retreat into a dead man’s unmade bed, instead finding new bedding and linen to make it his own. 

He doesn’t sleep on that first night, but he falls into a haze thick enough to be unable to move as the whispers return, knocking and hammering along the walls almost rhythmically, as if waiting for a signal. 

There is no time, they say, though he cannot be sure the next morning if he dreamed that or if he really heard it echoing along the walls. 

Run. Leave. There is no time. 

Tick. 

Tick. 

Tick.

And the night remains dark.

tagging: @klausinamarink @steviesummer @auroraplume @dragonmama76