Morbid - Episode 301: Haunted Lighthouses Volume 1
Episode Date: February 25, 2022We decided to start a new installment on the show: Haunted Lighthouses! We’re going to try to hit one in every state and in this installment we were able to get to Oregan, Michigan, Marylan...d, Texas and Georgia. If you have a haunted lighthouse you’d like us to cover send it in to Morbidpodcast@gmail.com with the subject line “Haunted Lighthouse.” Some great and fascinating sources used for today's episode: NPR article mentioned about The Great Galveston Storm Haunted Lighthouses by Ray Jones Spookiest Lighthouses by Terrance Zepke Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses by Dianna Higgs Stampfler As always, thank you to our sponsors: HelloFresh: Get sixteen free meals, plus three gifts, with code morbid16 at HELLOFRESH.com/morbid16 BetterHelp: This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Morbid listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com/morbid Firstleaf: Join today and you’ll get 6 bottles of wine for $29.95 and free shipping! Just go to TRYFirstleaf.com/MORBID. Native: Get 20% off your first order by going to NativeDeo.com/morbid, or use promo code morbid at checkout. ModernFertility: Right now, Modern Fertility is offering our listeners $20 off the test when you go to ModernFertility.com/MORBID See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hey, Weirdos, I'm Alina, I'm Ash.
And this is morbid lighthouse edition. sedition.
That's right. I know it sounds weird, but it's awesome.
Yeah, haunted light has edition, I should have said.
Yeah, we decided that, you know, we were looking through some, you know, books and I always
save, if I see, while I'm looking for a case, if I see a book that I'm like, oh, that's
interesting.
Yeah.
I immediately save it to my candle and I'm like, I'll go back to that.
You know, like, I immediately save it to my window and I'm like, I'll go back to that. You're like, I'll do that.
And I have an unbelievable and absurd amount
of haunted lighthouses and spooky lighthouse books.
Because there's a lot of books on the star.
Every single state with a lighthouse
and it has spooky haunted lighthouses.
Yeah, and some of them have multiple lighthouses
in the state.
So we decided, you know what,
the next case that I'm doing is gonna be a doozy?
Yes.
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.
It also is so like there's definitely true crime
and spookiness, but it's like
not gonna be with the next cases, which I don't want to tell you what it is. But it's one most
thing I know about. It's gonna be a lot. It's yeah. It's one of my least favorite cases. Yeah.
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. So 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 going to go back and forth here because we each took a couple of lighthouses and went hard into them. So I think ash is gonna stat. Ash is gonna stat. Okay, so my first lighthouse is for Michigan.
You know. Did you get that?
It's for Michigan.
I'm for Michigan.
This is...
Mean Girls' Rough.
I wanted to see if they got it.
You guys got it.
You got it, of course.
I am.
So, oh, before we started this too,
I wanted to say that in my research,
I found out that 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 about 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.
Yeah.
And of course, it's like it always happens that like if somebody says that differently,
that's the only way to say it.
Yeah.
When it comes to pronunciations of words, there is something called regional dialect.
Yeah.
Bostonians do say certain things differently.
Like everybody that I have ever met in my whole life in this fucking city, in this fucking
city guy city cat, in this motherfucking place in town, baby, we say, what's the she is
us? Because we have a city called Worcester. And you're like Worcester. I'm like Worcester
kid. And it looks just like Worst a Sheer.
If so, that's how you share.
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 it, you or email you.
You can say it.
You can say it whenever you want.
You can say it, Wor, just a Sheer.
I don't, some people say Worst a Sheer.
Worst a Sheer, you can say it however you want. But for me, Worst a Sheer I don't some people say woes to shear. Moes to shear. You can say it however you want.
But for me, woes to shear sauce doesn't give me any woes.
It does.
So why would I call it woes to shear?
It's a woes.
It gives me woes.
It gives me a woes.
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 woes to share sauce differently, no one's getting offended by it.
No.
It's fine.
It's not pertinent to any of the stories we tell.
Oh, 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.
No, it's okay.
It's okay.
It is. It's okay. You can say things however. 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, I'm about like focusing
on a victim and when it's unsolved and somebody's like, you said was to sheer wrong. I'm like,
that's what you got out of my app. It's like, it's a theory. 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. It's so cute. It's so cute. It's so cute. It's so cute. It's so cute. It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute.
It's so cute. It's so cute. It's Boston you can say it that way. It's not just us.
Well, it's not just us. I just needed to clear that up because I was like, man,
I'm going to say Worcestershire Slice like that forever. I feel like it's lost all
meeting. Worcestershire. Worcestershire.
Worcestershire Ken. Okay. So back to Michigan.
Not be so much.
Pronunciation, so though. Oh, man. Alright, so we're in Michigan and we're going to the
point Eroquoid Lighthouse. Now we're there. Oh, man. All right, so we're in Michigan and we're going to the point Iroquois Lighthouse.
Now we're there. Oh, here we are. I'm here. Just took our toeboat up there. Yeah, I got a lot of
the information. I'm gonna spit forth from the spookiest Lighthouses by Taran Zepke 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 Urquay tribe, and the Ojibwe tribe,
who are also referred to as the Chippewa tribe.
Okay, 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.
And then the Urquay came from New York and invaded the space. And there was a massive battle
that and actually ended up leaving most of the Urquay tribe dead on the nearby beaches.
Oh. 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 massive haunting.
I was just gonna say that is a recipe for haunting.
And everybody agrees, the Native Americans today
referred to this area as,
now do we e-junning, which loosely translates into Iroquois Boniard.
Oh, oh, I just got a chill. Super, super spooky.
So in 1864, the St. Mary's Falls Canal also referred to as two 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.
So they were like, we need a canal for this.
Yeah.
So where there's a canal, there has to be a lighthouse.
I thought you were gonna 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 bon yard 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 Arneal, 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.
Wow.
So all the crew members go into these lifeboats,
but it's so cold that they froze to death.
Oh!
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 crew members
in the lifeboats, their hands were so numb with the cold that they couldn't catch the
lines.
And then it started becoming too dangerous for these other ships to try to help them.
Like they were going to caught in 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.
Oh, it was saved his life.
Oh, my God.
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 of his chewing tobacco.
Because of his chewing tobacco. Because of his chewing tobacco.
Which is such a bad habit.
But look at that.
I'm saved.
But you know, it might save your life in a shipwreck.
So the crew members who white 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.
Damn.
So those who were not encased in ice started washing up on the shore
and would literally just brought to the local undertaker for $25 per person
because you got a reward for finding these missing crew members.
Wow.
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.
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. 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.
What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine times, or fell in love with a vampire,
or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later, paralyzed?
What would you do?
I'm Whit Missildine, the creator of this is actually happening, a podcast from Wondry that
brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them.
From a young man that dooms his entire future with one choice, to a woman who survived a notorious serial killer.
You'll hear their first-person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances.
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Follow this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. 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 white fish 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, I love that.
I love it.
Because can you, man, I'm sure some people try to break off
a piece or something.
Oh, yeah, people like love taking things.
Which is that would be some things.
Like, no, thank you.
No, I don't need that.
I don't need some bad vibes.
I don't need those bad vibes of 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 Palmer in key.
She was killed on July 7th, 1948.
So Carol was living with her parents
and her older brother, brother Alan in a cabin inside
the Marquette National Forest. Her father Arthur 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. A little Carol Anne 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 immediately because the bear's teeth
punctured her brain.
So that hopefully that happened like right away.
And she wasn't super terrified.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
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 a livery dead.
No.
So all of the rangers in 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.
The bear 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, but it was like a very like free gax that had. Yeah, that's weird.
And after Carol was killed, Arthur quit his job as the keeper of the observation tower,
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 Eroquoilite House.
A psychic who went to the lighthouse in the 90s
told a volunteer that was working there named Janet Russell
that she saw the operation of a little girl
and said she was probably about three years old.
Oh.
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.
And that's why she would have gone back there.
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 like back of their clothing.
I would just want to scoop that little ghost girl up.
I would be like, come into the white house.
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 like all the people who died
and washed up on the shore. Wow. And people say that when you walk into the light, there's
just this feeling. Like a head just like super heavy feeling. But there's all these
artifacts that they have in different reports of like these incidents that relate to the
light. That must be fascinating.
So I feel like it would be a really cool place to visit.
Yeah, and it would probably be really heavy
like the Lillizzi boarden house.
Definitely.
Because that was the only time that I've 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.
He's just because of all of 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.
That's one area.
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.
Oh, well, like where do you hear that?
That's horrible.
And it just makes me think of, you know,
chunky bear, like Hank the Tank there in California.
What I thought of.
How's he doing, guys?
Like, how's it going in California?
I don't know.
Like, lock your doors, but like, get a garage.
But Hank the Tank, man.
Hank the Tank.
I don't want him to go.
I can't use tell the story of Hank the Tank.
Oh my God.
So first of all, let me start this really quick.
And 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. And then the other one, I was like, cool, all right, crunches
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, dad, up.
You're bigger than that bear.
And Hank the tank is like, and it was mass.
Of course, this picture of just like chunky bear.
And they're like talking about how chill it is.
They're talking about, yeah.
And of course, they're saying it like,
oh, dad, you're taller than that bear.
Of course. That's what they meant. Of course. But the way they said it job was like real nice. Thank you. It literally goes. Thank you
Out of the mouth of the
Sarah just so funny, but I'm like man. They will check you real fast. Oh, yeah
You ever you are if you are ever feeling yourself. They will don't they'll bring you back down to her
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. It's so cute. But onto my lighthouse. And my first lighthouse is from Georgia. Oh,
and it's the St. Simon's lighthouse. Okay. Now this lighthouse was built in 1810 originally. Ooh. And it's the St. Simon's Lighthouse. Okay. Now this lighthouse was built in 1810 originally.
Oh, okay.
And it was built by James Gould.
It was 70 Goulds.
Like Goulds.
Like Goulds.
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 lighthouses.
Lighthouses.
Lighthouses.
He'll lighthouse I.
I don't know.
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.
And like, Confederate 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.
You think it's so sad.
That's so sad.
Now, next to the lighthouse tower is a home where the lighthouse keeper would live.
So is generally how that worked.
This home had two stories and would allow the lighthouse keeper in their spouse on one level
and an assistant lighthouse keeper in their family on the other.
So they would work together and live together.
Oh, 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's 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 5, 1873.
When he took the job as keeper of the St. Simon's lighthouse, he had another son, Frederick, Paige Osborne on October 9, 1875,
but that son passed away when he was only two years old.
Oh.
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 and his wife had a daughter also named Elizabeth Frederick Osborne on February
14th, 1880.
February 14th.
Yeah, Belly V.
Dave.
Now, always well.
And Osborne 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.
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 would be tough.
And when things were not done to his satisfaction, big control freak. I kind of relate to him in this way. Capricorn question. 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 show you
how this should be done?
He would like berate, Steven.
So he was very like, are you stupid?
But he just, that's who he was.
Shitty working back.
Yeah, he would, he would make Steven's feel like shit.
It's like, you can really just tell someone they did around. Right.
But also Stevens was somebody who didn't like being told that he did something wrong.
He couldn't handle criticism. So even if he had taken him over and was like,
can you just do this in a different way? It would have annoyed him.
Like, so they just didn't work together. I was going to say not a good pair.
No. Now, this obviously started to bother Steven's 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 spouses and the Osborne children.
Basically, be up each other's ass 24-7
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.
Oh, you don't mess with his wife? No. She had tried to take on some of Stevens' duties to,
while he 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.
And 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 sasset Stevens' wife, but it seems like it was really a culmination
of all the shit that Osborne had made him feel. And Osborne 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 Steven's, 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 just went down apparently.
Now that's when Stevens took this fight to a fatal place.
Okay.
Because remember, Osborne has the gun.
He's telling him 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-barrelled shotgun, which had been previously loaded with
buckshot for deer hunting.
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 Syke
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, it is a fact worthy of much praise that as soon
as he shot Osborne, Steven sent at once for medical assistant for the wounded man,
repaired immediately to Brunswick
and gave him self-up to the proper authorities.
In 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 Osborne'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.
So 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,
oh yeah, let's pat him on the back.
Look what?
That's like what?
And then he took on more work, you guys.
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.
When he just came back to work, was it like,
they lived there?
What the fuck?
Maybe they went to stay with family.
I sure hope so, because I'm like,
I, what is going on?
So when he's...
So when he's...
Yeah, right.
So when he started back at work, you know,
after murdering the original keeper,
yeah, Steven's walked into that lighthouse
and was shocked to see something standing at the very top of the original keeper. Yeah. Steven's 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.
Oh, where's the top?
Now this was not Frederick Ossborn's ghost.
It was a dog.
Huh.
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 a round
and they just like kind of everybody do him.
He was standing at the top of the lighthouse,
just staring at the light.
And he wouldn't bulge.
I 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 out.
And I guess he did that for a few nights and then stopped.
But like, as soon as he returned back into that lighthouse,
that dog had climbed 125 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 gun hitter, he walked away.
That's cool.
Like as he was advancing the fence,
walking away from the fight,
he'd drug his gun in self-defense
and shot him in the stomach.
Now they obviously weren't going to put Stevens in
as the, like, head, as the actual keeper,
because he was...
Yeah, you don't get promoted for murder.
Yeah, like, he was a legit murderer.
So, like, I think they were like,
yeah, that takes you out of that run.
Yeah, kids at 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
So well, I guess a guy named George Aspel became the new keeper. Okay. No, man
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 the wheel.
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 am.
That's what I always do.
No, you could also apparently,
and you still can, visitors to this day, say,
you can sometimes smell a waft of tobacco smoke
and Osborne always smoked a tobacco pipe.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
["Soul of the World"]
When you're on the hunt for a new wine,
you have two options.
You can wander around your local grocery store,
or Wine Mart picking bottles at random,
and having no idea what you're about to bring home,
or you can get personalized wines
that you love delivered right to your door
and for a fraction of the cost.
For bed.
For bed.
For bed.
Now, the next keeper's wife,
like the next, so George's wife,
said that Frederick Osborne invented and constructed something
that would aid in repairing the light,
should it have a break or dim? Oh, wow Oh, he had made something that made sure that there was
like a backup. Yeah. 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, again, control. Okay. So someone had made a joke to him. And she was there, because
remember these lightkeepers, these new light keepers weren't
just strangers.
They had been part of this whole like thing for a while.
So they knew him.
And I think 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 it.
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 hallbath.
Now, in the San 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.
She 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, all right, you said, call it 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.
Overcome by the reaction she fainted.
And when she regained 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 return.
What?
So they said literally,
and every time it would break,
it would mysteriously fix on its own.
Dude, isn't that wild?
What if I can great guy to have around?
Like, he's still doing his job.
Yeah, I know he was at control for you
and like, he was at tough not.
He was at tough not.
He was at tough not to cry. He y'all done a lady so like not nice.
No, he was a tough not 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.
This other story of this like boy who killed his parents,
like strangled his parents, and now they all
haunt the lighthouse, there's 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 that's, I hate
when that happens. I know. So many times with like haunted things like this, you'll find a story
and you're like, oh wow, like, how interesting. Let me learn more.
And then it's like that never happened.
That never happened.
So, awesome.
I found actual newspapers that like had this in it.
So I was like, okay, yeah.
But you might hear that story and I'm not saying it didn't happen.
I'm just saying I couldn't find any information about it.
So, 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 seen the dog bull like, who has 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 no, full is gone.
But he's still around.
But he's not still doing his thing.
All right, bull.
You know, so that is the St. Simon's Lighthouse.
How is a fun?
Fun?
How is a good one?
That was fun.
No fun.
And I got this, a lot of the information
for this particular lighthouse story
from haunted lighthouses by Ray Jones.
And I also found this really good website,
historysealtheast.com.
And you can search for the St. Simon's lighthouse
and they had a really cool, like,
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 St. Simon's.
I love St. Simon's. Alright, 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 Look Out Lighthouse in Scotland, Maryland.
Yeah, we are not Scotland lighthouse in Scotland, Maryland. Yeah, we are not Scotland Scotland
Scotland, Maryland Scotland, Maryland and this information I mostly got
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.
In the fall, in the autumn.
In the autumn.
It's an autumnal issue.
Ooh, that was fun, autumnal, you know.
So Point Look Out Lighthouses often referred to
as the King of Lighthouses.
Look at you, lighthouse.
King of Lighthouses.
And it sits inside Point Look Out State Park or what used to be Point Lookout State Park.
Now originally inside of this 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 war for 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.
I feel that. I feel that. Do you want to hear a funny thing about me?
No, because I already know what you're going to 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
a weekend at Bernice, but worse.
Yeah, worse.
I'm, yeah, a classic.
I don't know, man.
I know some of the quotes from it.
I know the general premise.
No, it was me in a corner.
Yeah, I love, you know, Patrick's Wazey for life,
but you don't love him if you haven't seen it.
No, I have not seen it, it just was not one
that ever came across my life.
That's unreal.
It has come across to your life, though.
I feel like it's been on and we've changed it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm gonna make you watch it.
Your face, your like, sh-sh-sh-sh.
All right, so yeah, little cottages, super cute.
Yada yada.
And then the lighthouse was built in 1830.
But when the Civil War broke out,
the Civil War, the Civil War,
the Civil War, that actually auto corrected it my note,
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 this summer getaway,
just like oiling up and tanning on the beach anymore. Now, 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 Ham and 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,
just, like they thought that they went against them
in some way.
Gave off a vibe of a Confederate soldier.
Gave off a Confederate vibe, which you never ever wanted to do.
Yeah, you don't want to give off 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 on a minute.
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
look out 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 it.
Yeah, it's a sad story.
It's really sad.
That's really... Ooh. It's really sad, 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 8,000 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 it like weirdly sounds like the most familiar name ever.
It really does.
Right?
So he was said to have rode 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 Holzer?
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 the EVPs,
freak me the fuck out.
Oh yeah.
Some people on these EVPs were singing songs, like super old songs.
Like C-shanties?
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 what they're doing.
Oh, I like that. like a bunch of like ghosts
is plotting against you.
You have to avoid that.
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.
And.
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 so, I love that she's so comfortable
and flowy in the afterlife.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
She's growing into blouse, isn't 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 ceased to exist
What he goes public with his findings and the smell just stops. So it's like they all get embarrassed
I don't know if they were like waiting to be recognized.
Wow. You know?
Wow, yeah. Crazy.
Oh, just like,
What do you think is going to be 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 the 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 soldiers 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,
which soldiers boo, correct.
And then she,
I'm looking at the photo right now and I'm like,
ah!
I was finishing this out to this specific lighthouse
around 11.30 at night.
I'm sitting in bed,
for your mostly typing mess.
And I was like,
I have to look at that picture.
Yeah.
So I went and I looked at it
and then I had this really fucked up weird nightmare.
Oh, 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.
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 whaling her name.
Oh, nope.
Nope. I'm out. No. I'm Oh, nope. Nope. I'm out.
No. I'm ahead out.
No.
I'm out. No.
It's just like,
Oh, man.
Precisely. No.
No.
No.
Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and hearing,
Oh, no.
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 whaling,
but I used to hear people whisper my name at Mom Puppas House.
Ah, so spooky.
So spooky.
But Laura said that she never,
and this is how I felt, living at Mom Puppas 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 realize that there was a space heater
that actually caught fire.
Oh shit.
And it was like a pretty big fire.
It had spread from the electrical outlet
in the wall to the actual space heater.
Holy shit.
And if she hadn't woken up, she could have died in the fire
and the notorious 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
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 chilly willy's 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 did.
I knew you weren't gonna just fly over that. You can't Housewives of Potomac. I knew that was coming. I knew you did. I knew you weren't 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 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 grave stone,
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 her back.
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, Gary, or excuse me, 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 the name Elizabeth Taylor, yeah, obviously. And it was later found at a local hotel.
Yeah, obviously and it was later found at a local hotel
But the graveyard to this day has never been found stop like there's public record that this graveyard existence But they can't I'm shit. So he donny actually went back with his mom with like metal metal detectors trying to find
Any like sense of some kind of anything and they couldn't find anything. Oh, I trying to find any sense of some kind of anything, and they couldn't find anything.
Oh, I wanna find it.
I wanna 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 a little bit
of a tailor looking for her grave marker.
Oh.
Oh.
And maybe that's why she was irritant.
She's like, where the fuck is my grave?
Yeah, because she was like, what,
like, did you steal it? Where the fuck? Exactly. exactly holy shit. Oh great. I don't know why that's spooky the old woman ghost thing freaks
You know that was spooky okey right in every way that you can be spooky
You lost graveyard. Yeah, and the fact that's the thing when you when you can't find a graveyard
But you know it's there like what and that's horrible. Why did how do you lose a graveyard, but you know it's there. Like what? And that's horrible. Why did, how do you lose a graveyard?
Let's get some ground penetrating radar.
Let's go.
And let's do that shit.
We gotta.
I gotta know.
Everybody needs to know.
It's important.
Yeah, 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 what? It really is, easy to do. And just the king of lighthouses. A king of what?
It really is, to be honest.
Yeah.
Wow, okay.
Well, the one that I'm gonna follow up with
is the ball of our point lighthouse in Texas.
To house.
Hello, Texas.
Howdy.
So September 7th, this one begins with a hurricane.
Oh.
And a gnarly hurricane. So this was 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 US history by the way.
And I didn't even know that this would happen.
I've never heard of this.
It hits 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 ball of our point lighthouse, I hope I said that right.
Cause like I said,
pronunciations of towns, I understand.
You probably want me to say it right.
Towns are important.
Bollivar Point Lighthouse was built in 1852,
but only 10 years later,
the Confederates fucked it up again.
The Confederates are more right for this story.
They are so wily.
They're just ripping apart lighthouses.
Yeah, you can't be out here doing that. He can't.
So they ruined this lighthouse by pulling it apart to make weapons from the material. Oh, yeah.
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 it was built like a brick shit house. Like this thing was shit house.
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 ball of our point lighthouse.
I'm gonna Google it.
So in 1900, when the hurricane was about to hit, the keeper was Harry Clayborn.
And he was the keeper for 25 years. He began his post December 15th, 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 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 little on edge.
There'd been reports that a hurricane
had literally leveled Trinidad across the Caribbean.
And after it had left devastation and 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 winds, and sailors were coming in,
telling stories about these horrific waters they had just faced out there,
when they were sailing through the Gulf, and, no one was totally ready for the sting to hit dead on.
Right.
Because I think the likelihood of it hitting dead on was very low.
Okay.
So they just weren't really thinking about it.
So with all of these little hints that it was coming that way,
and with the barometric pressure starting to drop all of a sudden that
I know where it was like a lead balloon drop, the weather service
and the media did put out a notice that had nowhere. It was like a lead balloon drop. The weather service in 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.
They didn't 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 gonna 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.
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, which 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 like 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 rough.
So people started a panic.
And hurricanes, you know, they're not just like
tutin' in slowly.
Hurricanes move fucking fast when they come.
They just come.
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 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 devil 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 street car tracks becoming water-borne,
battering rams that tore apart houses.
Whoa.
Yeah.
A woman named Catherine Vetter 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 of the wind and water.
Well, enter Harry Claiborne, the lighthouse keeper.
Enter. He had made sure to keep that light burning for this exact occasion. He, from his
point in the lighthouse, could see that the 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 life
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 know.
He's like, I know the safe people.
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 and floods.
They're trying to find higher ground.
Meanwhile, it was like a war zone.
Like we said, the winds are blowing anything in every one sometimes.
Dozens of people were actually decapitated by flying debris in these winds.
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.
Clayborne 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 a lighthouses of towers
in building. Now, the horde of people pushed into this tower. Yeah. And remember, you saw the picture of a lighthouses of towers in 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 any 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 a small space.
And they're all standing on top of each other
and throughout the hours of being crammed
and they're 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 if the storm went berserk outside.
That was so mean.
And so terrifying.
Hell.
Everyone was in pain.
They were all barely able to breathe.
It was like a thousand degrees in there now
with all those packed in bodies.
And then the light burning.
People were throwing up on each other.
Like it was fainting, falling.
There were like muscles were all like breaking down
because they're trying to hold people above them.
I mean, through all of it, clayborn, Harry clayborn 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 wife.
Sure.
He gave everyone in that lighthouse food and ended up using all of his rations, all of it on everybody else.
One of the icing human.
And after the storm had ended.
Yeah.
And everybody who 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 like him eating.
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 a wild.
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 it failed once the door is closed
and the hurricane had taken hold.
So bodies just been horrific to see.
And they said the winds had stripped off all their clothes.
So it was just naked bodies lying everywhere
of people who had tried to climb the lighthouse
to get up to higher ground.
They said people were in trees.
They were on roofs.
This is horrific.
They were piled outside of other structures.
And Galveston itself was almost destroyed.
And apparently at last count between 6000
and 12,000 people were dead.
In one night.
In one night.
I just have like full.
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 people frightened out
of their wits, crazy men and women crying and weeping at the tops of their voices or 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 the 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 on to ships so they could dump them in the Gulf for they
didn't know what else to do.
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, then you add that to it.
Force to do it with bayonets at their back, like you have to gather all these.
Now Harry Clayborn, he went back to work the next night and he lit the lighthouse footlight
for ships immediately and he knew what to do.
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 Bollivar Point Lighthouse or the Galveston beaches,
you can hear whispers in your ear.
No. and 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 whaling like people saying like God help us and all this like go to these beaches a lot
Well, the lighthouse is no longer actually like in like a workable lighthouse really
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 Clayborn
tending the light and protecting people from a storm.
Oh, like you know, it's hard to know it is.
Ships also say they see the light during,
they always see the light during,
they always see this light during storms and fog.
Like 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.
Oh, that's so cool.
And yeah, and ships said they saw the light that night too.
It's so freaky and so beautiful. I know, it's like hairy. And yeah, and ships said they saw the light that night too. It's so freaky and so beautiful.
I know, it's like Harry.
That's Harry.
And just like continuing to be a hero forever.
Yeah.
To like for infinity.
And apparently in 2000, the Coast Guard actually
named a ship after Harry Clayborn.
It took that long.
Yeah.
I know.
I'm like, it should have happened.
Look, right?
I was like, the next day.
I get the, I guess the boat is stationed in Galveston
and you can actually see it if you take the ferry
that runs between Galveston and Port Boulevard.
Oh, cool.
And it's the Harry Clayborn.
There's also a memorial that's on the Galveston Sea wall
and it's to commemorate that 1900 storm.
Oh, yeah. And all the, what it says is the
six to 12,000 people that died in it. That is unreal. But it is a apparently a very heavy place,
which I can imagine. I would 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 heroic compassion. Yeah.
All it wants.
Yeah.
And then also it's just like that place is just right with.
I mean, the amount of deaths that happened there
in suffering is wild.
Wow.
Yeah.
And the picture of that lighthouse is so gnarly now
because it's like jet black.
It's really cool, though.
I love it.
It's a cool lighthouse.
But it looks like it used to be white and black. It was strong.
I think it was white and red, I think.
Oh, was it red?
I just thought it was white and straps.
Straps, straps.
But it rusted.
Yeah.
And it just kind of turned black.
It looks real cool.
But yeah, it's really cool.
How symbolic.
I know.
But Harry Claymore, man.
A true gem.
The best.
He was Josh Saftees muse for Angcajam.
Angcajam. Angcajamtees muse for Uncajams.
He was for Uncajams.
Uncajams.
You got it.
You got it.
You got it.
You got it.
Uncajams.
Uncajams.
I have to figure out how to say this place in Oregon if we could just pause for a second.
Like it's Yaka-tas.
Yaka-tas.
All right, I'm gonna play this for you
so that you can't tell me I'm wrong.
It's...
Yaha.
Yaha-ts.
Yaha, I hope that's how you say it.
So this lighthouse, the Hekka-de-Head Lighthouse,
is named after a Spanish explorer Bruno de Hekka.
Love it.
So it was built in 1892.
In 1892, during World War II, it was built in 1892. In 1892.
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 had a very interesting history.
I was going to 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 they like, yeah, where they hanged away.
And then it's just a mall.
Yeah, then this mall makes sense.
And now it serves as a bed and breakfast.
Yeah, absolutely.
It does.
A haunted one.
Yeah, it does.
So 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 story, so this one's kind of quick, but it's not very interesting.
Now the most famous ghost associated with this lighthouse is named Rue.
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, oh yeah, what
that means or is your name actually Rue.
But she seems to be a very nice ghost.
Okay.
No one is exactly sure who she is where she came from,
but their best guess is that she was one of the keepers wives,
and she apparently had two children,
is what people say.
And one of them, a baby drowned and died.
Oh, that's terrible.
And there's an unmarked grave on this property
that lends itself to that theory 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 Rua and so do the workers.
One of the most famous stories that you'll see when if you look this up comes from a worker,
Jim Anderson. So he was working in the attic one day cleaning 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.
And what you could see the hand motions that Ash was just making to be like foggy, foggy, inter-pansions.
So I'm back and forth like fog.
Kind of like I was like swimming a little bit, I guess.
So he, he did himself out of there.
He was like, I will never go in that attic again.
Oh, 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 except sentence.
That's amazing. You could catch these hands before you catch me in that.
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.
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.
Like, I think they were just like,
nobody wanted to go in the attic.
Yeah.
So that night, worker sleeping in the house
heard scraping noises coming from the attic
when one of them, in 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 meat pile.
Oh!
And they think it was rude.
She did it.
She was like, I'm sorry, I freaked you guys out.
I mean, to scare you, let me clean this up.
This could be dangerous.
So wait until like 3 a.m. 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
clever, but she's also a trickster
because people staying at the B&B
will like loose 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 I'll be like, no, but it's going to turn up later.
Don't worry.
I know.
And they're like, you're already,
what are you talking about?
So it 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 hair go through.
Yeah.
She flickers lights, she makes dishes
in the kitchen, rattle all about it 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 screaming.
That's the rest of these things.
And people think that this must be her
like reliving the night when she found out
that her baby had dropped.
Oh, that just, every part of me. Yeah, so sad. Oh, that just, it hurt every part of me.
Yeah, so sad.
Oh, and she's just screaming.
She's screaming, wailing, like,
and people will wake up and hear that.
Oh my God, I want a comfort room.
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 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,
because he said, I gotta go to sleep.
And even with the batteries off, the fire alarms kept going off.
Oh, you should.
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.
Ooh.
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 presence 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.
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 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 harmed. She's like, I feel conflicting thoughts. I feel some type of
way is really what it's what it's trying to say. 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 a rou. And sometimes she just appears in a gray mist.
Yeah, maybe she's just like, I don't have a moment.
Yeah, she's just living, yeah.
But not.
Not.
She's not, she's unliving.
And she seems to be pretty much the main haunted.
Wow, I like rou.
I love rou, but I feel really bad for rou.
Yeah, I was like, I wanna end it on rou,
because like she seems so great,
but it's also like really sad. Yeah, but she seems friendly I wanna end it on room because she seems so great, but it's also 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, she's like just living in it.
I know, yeah.
Wow.
She knows what she's doing.
That was a good one.
These are fun.
These are fun.
Guys, let us know if we want to start doing these just
every once in a while, just throw one in.
Yeah.
When we all need just like a crazy different thing.
It's like spooky roads, but different.
Yeah, exactly.
Which is also we want to come back to that.
Yeah, we got to come back to spooky roads.
For sure.
But this could be another one of those
that we just like randomly sometimes are like,
you know what, how about haunted lighthouses today?
How about that?
So we kind of want to like hit every place that has a lighthouse.
So we tried it and everybody's.
Oregon, Maryland, and Michigan for me.
And I did Georgia and Texas.
Okay.
So we got like tons more.
Yeah.
And if you guys wanna send them in, you can,
you can email us.
Oh, definitely.
And just say haunted lighthouses.
And if you have any experience,
there's a few of your own.
We can pair that with it, and almost like listen to our tale Lighthouse vibe.
Yeah, because it's like the spooky road's 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 send it to morbidpodcast.com.
Yeah, 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, but you know how you guys are like
listener tails 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 gonna be like I like I said before. You're gonna be getting more content this year.
See you in the next coming months. So we want to be able to stretch out and stretch our legs into
many different things. So this is just another thing that we'll be able to add onto the list.
Yeah, and this was fun.
Because remember, you get more content.
Content content content content content content content.
We hope you that keep listening.
So that was what to say.
All right, so we hope that you keep listening.
Especially after that.
Yeah, for real.
And we hope you keep it.
We're not so weird that you are hunting the lighthouse, but like maybe keep it that weird so we can keep the story going Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music.
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