Ever since watching Ghost Hunters "Haunted Lighthouse" episode in 2006 we knew we wanted to visit the St. Augustine Lighthouse. Jay Hawes and Grant Wilson pioneered paranormal investigations on TV and brought it to the attention of a much broader audience. Many today would not be where they are if not for this show.
In January we got to visit the St. Augustine and the Lighthouse for a quick trip. We knew we could not stay long and we wanted to use this chance to explore the eventful history of the city and Lighthouse that inspired many to join the paranormal field.
The History of the Town:
In 1565 the Spanish crown sent Pedro Menendez de Aviles to destroy the French held Fort Caroline on the St. Johns River in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. On the feast day of St. Augustine of Hippo (August 28th) his crew spotted land and on September 8th he claimed the land in the name of Philip II and named the city St. Augustine in honor of the Saint.
In 1586 Sir Francis Drake, an English privateer and explorer, brought the Anglo-Saxon War to St. Augustine. At the sight of his fleet approaching Governor Pedro Menendez Marquez ordered the residents to evacuate. Drake's forces seized some artillery, robbed the garrison, and razed the town to the ground.
In 1686 pirate Robert Searle sailed his ship, the Cagway, to St. Augustine. In the fight 60 citizens were killed and Searle and his men raided storehouses, churches, and the homes of the residents. After this and looking at the history of attacks on the small settlement Spain began building the Castillo de San Marcos on the western shore of Mantanzas Bay to defend the city.
It was completed in 1695 and is the oldest masonry fort in the continental US. In 1702 James Moore, Governor of the Carolina Colony, moved to attack St. Augustine. After a 58 day siege and still no progress taking the fort Moore's forces set the city on fire and retreated.
In 1740 James Oglethorpe governor of Georgia again tried to take the city and fort but again they held on and the fort did not change hands.
At the end of the Seven Years' War Great Britain, France, and Spain signed the 1763 Treaty of Paris and in that Treaty Britain finally took control of Florida including St. Augustine. Control was short lived though and through the 1783 Treaty of Paris Spain regained control of Florida. Spain maintained control for 40 years before signing it over to the United States.
As more settlers came to the area skirmishes increased between them and the Native Seminole, Creek, and Miccosukee people. There were three Seminole Wars with the longest being the Second War between 1835 to 1842 during that time American settlers forced the Natives first to a four million acre reservation in Florida and then to Oklahoma. During the wars Seminole prisoners were held in the Castillo de San Marcos.
In 1861 the American Civil War began and Florida ceded to the Confederacy. In 1862 Union troops took control of the city and held it for the duration of the war.
Today it is also known as the Ancient City....
It has been raised, sacked, sieged, burned, and fought over by the Spanish, French, English, Pirates, and both the Confederate and Union armies. Its place as the oldest European city in the United States is evident in the architecture of its oldest buildings.
Pictured above is the original gate of the city built in 1739. Those gates withstood 150 years of raids, regime changes, siege, and a Civil War.
In 1883 St. Augustine would be changed forever when Henry Flagler came to visit the Ancient City. Henry Flagler, co-founder of the Standard Oil Company, came to the city in 1883 and spent the winter in the more temperate Florida sun. He liked the town and saw room for growth. In 1885 he formed the Florida East Coast Railway which he would continue to build upon for years: at first buying existing railroads and then beginning to lay his own track. He saw the east coast of Florida as an area ready for growth and a great escape for wealthy northerners looking for some place to visit and relax.
By 1887 he also completed work on two large luxury hotels the Hotel Ponce de Leon and the Hotel Alcazar. He used Spanish Renaissance Revival and Moorish revival architecture to keep the old world feel of the city. Soon tourism would become the primary industry of St. Augustine. Wealthy northerners would come for the winter and many others would stop in St. Augustine before continuing to other luxury resorts further south. The invention of the car and increased popularity of family road trips and brought families to St. Augustine for fun vacations.
Today St. Augustine is still a popular tourist destination. Walking through the original gate you enter into a series of buildings that have been reconstructed to their original look. They are filled with small boutique stores, restaurants, and a lot of ice cream shops!
The History of the Lighthouse:
When the Spanish had first settled at St. Augustine they built a watch tower or beacon at the end of Anastasia island that was documented by Baptista Boazio in 1589 when he drew a map of the area showing the raid of Sir Francis Drake.
In 1737 they upgraded the wooden structure to one made of coquina, a rock composed of fragments of shells from various shellfish. In 1780 the tower was noted in a Jacques-Nicolas Bellin engraving "A Plan of the harbour of St. Augustin."
In 1824 a new tower was built on Anastasia Island and in the early 1850s it was upgraded to a Fresnel Lens which improved the range of the light. However tragedy struck in 1858 when the Lighthouse keeper Joseph Andreu was on scaffolding to white wash the Lighthouse. The scaffolding gave way and the keeper fell to his death. He was buried in the Tolomato Cemtery, Catholic Cemetery, in St. Augustine.
His distraught wife, Maria Mestre de los Dolores Andreu took up the role of lighthouse keeper and became the first Hispanic-American woman to serve in the Coast Guard. In 1861 at the start of the American Civil War the prized lens was removed by Confederate sympathizers and hidden to avoid Union forces from taking control of it. The lens was not restored until 1867. Around this time Dr. Allan Ballard, who owned the property and the Lighthouse sold the property to the government partly out of fear that it was going to fall into the ocean and because the state told him if he did not agree to the price they would take the property.
As erosion continued to threaten the Lighthouse a new structure was started in 1871 and completed in 1874. During the building of the Lighthouse tragedy struck. Hezekiah H. Pittee was the superintendent of Lighthouse Construction and moved with his family to St. Augustine. In 1873 three of his children and a local friend were playing in a rail car that was used to bring supplies to the worksite. As the rail car approached the end of the track the brakes failed and the children were thrown in to the sea and pinned under the cart. Mary age 15 and Eliza age 13 as well as their friend were drowned before they could be rescued. Only four year old Carrie was rescued from the accident.
On October 5th 1874 William Russel, who served as light keeper at the old and new Lighthouse lit the new first order Fresnel lens. It could be seen between 19 and 24 nautical miles depending on the weather. The new tower was well timed as the old one fell in to the ocean in 1880. The ruins still exist underwater and is currently an archeological site.
In October 1875 William Harn after a career in the military where he lead troops in several major battles including Gettysburg became the light keeper until his death from tuberculosis in 1889.
In 1901 Peter Rasmusson took over as light house keeper and has the longest tenure of any keeper at 23 years. He and his wife Mary frequently had visitors to the Lighthouse from Flagler's hotels who would stop by to see the 165 foot structure. In a memo sent to the Light-house inspector in Charleston SC Rasmussen listed the increase in visitors over several years.
The tourists came from Flagler's hotels using the wooden bridge that was built across Matanzas Bay connecting St. Augustine to Anastasia Island and the Lighthouse. In 1904 it was renovated to allow for a trolley to run over the bridge further facilitating tourism. The Lighthouse did close to visitors from February 6, 1917 till after the end of WWI when Peter received orders in the name of national security. A few years later in 1924 Peter Rasmussen retired from his role of keeper and John Lundquist, who had served as an assistant keeper previously in 1893-1901, became the head keeper.
In 1936 Cardell D. Daniels was the keeper at the Lighthouse when on March 1st it was electrified. The Lighthouse keeper would no longer have to make the long trip up 219 steps to the top carrying buckets of oil or kerosene.
In 1981 the Lighthouse and Keepers' House were included on the National Historic Register and became protected buildings. In 1994 thanks to the hard work of the Junior Service League of St. Augustine, the Keepers' House and Lighthouse were opened to the public as a museum and for the first time ever visitors could climb to the top of the Lighthouse.
And finally as mentioned above, and what started this journey for us, in 2006 the tv show Ghost Hunters, about a team of paranormal investigators, filmed their highest rated episode at the Lighthouse. During the episode they captured on camera a shadowed figure peering over the rail in the Lighthouse.
The Paranormal History:
The whole area of St. Augustine has a deep history filled with turmoil and strife. Th'e historic city gate, Castillo de San Marcos, old Huguenot Cemetery, and the old Catholic Cemetery stand today as reminders of that past. Specifically there are several stories on the Lighthouse property. The first is the possible ghosts of Maria and Joseph Andreu. When Maria heard about her husbands death she ran to the top of the Lighthouse and cried. Then as the story goes she heard a voice tell her to 'take up the light' and she recognized that voice as her husband. Maria is rumored to have been seen on the grounds by visitors to the Lighthouse and numerous pictures have been taken of a woman in white with long dark hair at the top of the Lighthouse. Joseph is often thought to be one of the possible inhabitants seen as a shadow figure in the Lighthouse.
Another possible spirit is Dr. Allan Ballard, the previous owner before the state took control. It is said upon hearing the low price offered he replied: "I will never leave this property."
There are numerous stories of playful spirits and children's voices as well as wet footprints in the Keepers' House. These could be the spirits of the two young girls who drowned in the accident.
The smell of cigar smoke in the Keepers House is sometimes attributed to William Harn and other times Peter Rasmussen. Both men could also be the figure captured on film by the Ghost Hunters or it could be William Russel, the first keeper who is seen standing to the right in this photo.
Our Findings:
While we did not do a full investigation we did take lots of photos and I looked around with my Seek Thermal but did not see anything strange. We did take this awesome photo which shows the shadow of the Lighthouse cast on the overcast night sky, not paranormal but very cool looking.
And while we were at the top about to come down we both heard a male voice despite the fact that at the time there was only us and one employee who was female in the Lighthouse.
The Huguenot, Protestant Cemetery, and Tolomato, Catholic Cemetery contain graves of some of the earliest residents of St. Augustine including several of the Lighthouse Keepers. Both are only open one Saturday a month so we know we will be making at least two more trips to St. Augustine to see those locations. Each time we plan to explore the Lighthouse and the city more.
