August 3, 2022 • 38 mins
Famously haunted, full of history dark and otherwise, the Saint Augustine Lighthouse is one of many ghostly locations in the oldest city in America. It's also the most visible, her famous black spiral viewable from almost anywhere in town. Reportedly haunted by former keepers, wayward sailors and a few children, we dig deep into the history and paranormal reports. Special Guest: Chip Coffey
Visit strange-escapes.com to join us at the Lighthouse in September 2022 and visit www.amy-bruni.net for details of Amy's Fall tour.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, the production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky listener. Discretion is advised. Hey, gang,
this is just a quick reminder that I have a
massive fall tour coming up starting in September, and so
if you want to head to my website Amy dash
(00:21):
Brunei dot net and click on the appearances page, you
can see if I will be anywhere near you. A
lot of these do have meet and great options too,
So if you want to get a photo of me
or ask me a question personally, this is your chance.
I can see just looking at my schedule, I'm going
to be in California, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas,
(00:43):
Louisiana and more. So please check it out and hopefully
we will get to meet in person and talk about
spooky things my favorite. Recently, I was fortunate enough to
visit the city of law Corunia, Spain. High on my
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list of spots to see in town was the Tower
of Hercules, the oldest lighthouse in operation today. Historians believe
it was built over two thousand years ago by the Romans.
As I stared at the ancient tower. I couldn't help
but think of all the lore and fascination around lighthouses.
After all, one cannot undermine their importance in the maritime world,
(01:27):
and before the age of electric lights, pressure and importance
placed on the keepers who tended to them. This particular
lighthouse has a major legend associated with it, involving Hercules,
hence the name. Legend has it that the legendary Greek
hero came in search of the giant Garion, who ruled
over the lands between the Doro and the Tagas, to
free the people from his unbridled power. Their struggle lasted
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three days and nights, after which time Hercules defeated the giant,
beheaded him, and buried his head by the sea. To
celebrate his victory, he built over a burial mound a
tower lighthouse, and in the vicinity of it he founded
a city he named Kruna or law Coruna, after the
first woman who inhabited this place and with whom the
hero fell in love. Certainly a legend, but definitely a
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reflection of lighthouses and the mystique they seem to hold
over us. We don't have any two thousand year old
lighthouses with heads of giants buried beneath them here in
the States. But we do have a lot of haunted ones,
and I've investigated a ton of them, But one holds
true to its very well known reputation as being the
most haunted lighthouse in America in my opinion anyway, And that,
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my friends, is the St. Augustine Lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida.
Let's head there shall we. I'm Amy Brunei, and welcome
to haunted road. High above the Florida coastline, a light
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shines across the darkened seas, guiding ships into port. In
some ways, the lighthouse in St. Augustine is a beacon
of safety. But the centuries old structure in America's oldest
city is full of history, some of it unspeakably tragic,
and today it's one of the most haunted locations in
the country. It's certainly one of the most haunted locations
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I've ever visited, which is why I go back again
and again to discover St. Augustine lighthouses secrets. But it
wasn't always full of ghosts. In fact, for a long
time it was full of families living their lives as
keepers of the Light and protectors of the coastline. First
founded in fifteen sixty five by Spanish explorer Pedro Melendez, St. Augustine, Florida,
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is the first place in North America to be colonized
by Europeans, beating the British settlement of Roanoke by two years.
Melenda's named the city after St. Augustine because the sailors
on his expedition first spotted the land on that Saint's
feast day August. At the time Melenda's colonized St. August
seen about forty miles south of present day Jacksonville. The
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land had long been occupied by the Temuqua tribe, whose
land stretched from what's now southern Georgia to central Florida.
Historians estimate that there were as many as two hundred
thousand members of the Temuqua tribe in Florida at the time. However,
disease introduced by the Europeans decimated them so much that
within two hundred years, fewer than one hundred Temuko were
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left alive. There were also French forces present in the area,
whom Melenda's and his explorers defeated to claim the land
for Spain. Today, St. Augustine is a city of about
fifteen thousand people and is a popular tourist town in Florida,
not just for its forty two miles of pristine Atlantic beaches,
but for its history, haunted and otherwise. If you've watched
(04:45):
Kindred Spirits, you might remember seeing an episode about the
old St. Augustine Jail, where Adam and I made contact
with spirits of the former warden and prisoners who had
been executed there. In fact, St. Augustine is home to
what some claim is the real Fountain of Youth, rumored
to have been discovered by Ponts. Dally On in fifteen
thirteen in his Explorations of Florida's coast. You can visit
(05:07):
it today at the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, though
no promises about whether you'll actually feel younger afterwards. But
I can promise you, though, is that the water coming
from the fountain tastes heavily of sulfur, So shoot it
like a shot of bad tequila and hope for the best. Though.
The lighthouse that shines over St. Augustine's water is on
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the site of what's described by local tourism organizations as
the oldest permanent navigation aid in North America. Today's lighthouse
isn't the original structure. Spanish settlers first built a wooden
watch tower at the northern end of Anastasia Island in
fifteen eighty nine. According to the St. Augustine Lighthouse a
Maritime Museum, the watch towers were erected by the Spanish
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crown during the building of the Castillo da San Marcos
to keep enemy ships from taking Anastasia Island. While the
height of that original watch tower is unknown, the second
watch tower, built in the early seventeen hundreds, was thirty
feet tall. That structure built of kakuina, which is a
shell rock, and would lasted for almost one hundred forty years,
according to the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum. After
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the French and Indian War made Florida a part of
the British Empire, the Brits added thirty feet of wooden
construction to the existing structure in seventeen sixty three. It's
at that time that the structure first became a lighthouse,
with the intention of protecting incoming ships from the dangerous
sandbars in the inlet at the northern end of the island.
Sometimes called the Crazy Banks. When Spain regained control of
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Florida in seventeen eighty three, the Spaniards tore down the
British additions to the tower, making it just a watch
tower and not a lighthouse again. Then in eighteen twenty one,
the United States gained possession of Florida and the tower
was once again converted into a lighthouse in eighteen twenty four.
According to these St. Augustine Lighthouses records, Juan Andreu, a minorcan,
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was paid three hundred fifty dollars a year to care
for the lighthouse and ten the ten oil lamps set
in silver bowl shaped reflectors. One Andrea who served as
the lighthousekeeper until his death in eighteen forty nine, and
members of the Andrea family would keep the light until
the Civil War. In eighteen fifty four, the lighthouse saw
a major upgrade the installation of a fourth order revolving
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fresnel lens that measured nine feet high inside the more
than fifty foot tall tower, which the lighthouse keeper would
have had to climb inside to light the whale oil lamps.
As the Lighthouse Museum describes, the jewel like lens was
handmade just for St. Augustine in Paris, France, by the
company of Solder and Lemonaire. It represented the height of
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Victorian engineering and technology and cast its being much farther
out to sea than its predecessor. The new light now
demonstrated three fixed flashes from three bulls eye panels that
could be seen from up to nineteen to twenty four
nautical miles, depending on atmospheric conditions. In eighteen fifty nine,
lighthouse keeper Joe's of Andrea, Juan's cousin, fell sixty feet
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to his death at the lighthouse. As Eleanor Dwyer describes
it in her Guide to Florida Lighthouses, Andrea fell when
a faulty support on the scaffolding had given way as
he was whitewashing the tower, which was one of his
job duties. In an issue of Spyglass, Kelsey Lloyd quotes
Andrea's obituary, which paints a horrifying picture of his fall.
He first struck the roof of the oil room about
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thirty feet below. Once he glanced off and struck the
stone wall which encloses the lighthouse, and thence to the
ground a stone parapet. After Joseph's death, his widow, Maria Andrew,
became the lighthouse keeper. She was the first female lighthousekeeper
in Florida and the first Hispanic American in the United
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States Lighthouse Service. In an article for the Lighthouse Museum
about Maria, Kimberly King writes, tradition has it that Maria
went to the top of the lighthouse to call out,
what shall I do? Reportedly, she heard her husband's voice
on the wind tell her to tend to the light.
During the Civil War, Confederate sympathizers removed the lens from
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the lighthouse, hiding it away for the duration of the
war with the intention of blocking shipping to the North
and supplies to the Union troops. During the Civil War,
Confederate sympathizers removed the lens from the lighthouse, hiding it
away for the duration of the war with the intention
of blocking shipping to the North and supplies to Union troops.
Maria was on duty at the time. Some sources claim
(09:27):
that she shot and injured a Confederate soldier named Joseph
Pasetti as he tried to smash the lens. Others, however,
believe that Maria must have known of the plan and
provided access to the lens room. When the U. S.
Navy recaptured St. Augustine, the lens was found and reinstalled,
but not without some difficulty. In a museum article, Paul's
Lensky writes that Northern troops arrested Paul are now the
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mayor of St. Augustine, and sequestered him on the Union
gun boat Isaac Smith until he revealed the location of
the lighting mechanisms for the St. Augustine Light and other
lighthouses in the area, including Cape Canaveral. The lighthouse was
re lit in eighteen sixty seven, but at that time
was showing serious signs of erosion. According to lighthouse friends.
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On July one, eighteen seventy the distance from the keeper's
dwelling to the high water mark was seventy feet, but
by November the distance had shrunk to just forty feet.
The lighthouse board determined that a new lighthouse was needed,
and a five acre tract located a half mile inland
was acquired. After old Spanish land grants and claims of
settlers were straightened out. Construction began on the new lighthouse
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in eighteen seventy one, but tragedy soon struck Hezekiah Pitty,
the superintendent of lighthouse construction, lived on site with his
wife Mary and their children, Mary, Adelaide, Eliza, Edward and Carrie.
During the construction, workers used a railway cart to move
supplies from supply ships to the building site, which the
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children used to play and when it wasn't in use.
In a Lighthouse Museum article Kelsey Lloyd right, they used
the cart as a Victorian era roller coaster, riding the
cart to the water and bringing it back up to
the site to write again. Only a wooden board at
the end of the rails stopped the cart from tipping
over into the water. On July tenth, eighteen seventy three, Mary, Eliza,
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and carry Pitty, along with a ten year old African
American girl whose name isn't known. We're playing with the cart,
not realizing that the board wasn't in place to stop
the cart. When it reached the end of the track,
the cart flipped over, landing in the water and trapping
the four girls underneath. While a worker named Dance Sessions
saw the event take place and race to dive into
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the water to rescue the girls, he was too late.
Three of the four girls drowned. Only four year old
carry Pitty survived. According to reports, the whole town shut
down to observe the funeral. More than a year later,
in October eighteen seventy four, the new lighthouse became operational.
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Three keepers kept the light going in eight hour watches,
which required carrying a thirty pound can of lard oil
up the two hundred fourteen stairs of the tower and
winding the two hundred seventy five pound weight that made
the lens move. The lightkeepers would also sometimes be called
upon to rescue sailors whose ships had founded on the
nearby sandbar. In eighteen seventy five, a new keeper's house
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was built on the site to accommodate the number of
men needed to keep the lighthouse operational. Five years later,
the old tower fell into the ocean. In eighteen ninety four,
keeper Joseph Frantia's wife Mary, died on the property. Things
got much easier for the lightkeepers in nineteen thirty six
when the tower was wired for electricity. In nineteen fifty five,
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the keepers were replaced by a lamplighter who turned the
light on and off in between. The lighthouse served an
important role in World War two, when the US Coast
Guard was stationed at the lighthouse around the clock on
the lookout for German boats. With lightkeepers no longer needed
on the property of the keeper's house was boarded up.
In nineteen seven, it burned down under mysterious circumstances and
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was restored from four to nine eight. Today the lighthouse
operates as a nonprofit and has restored the structure to
how it appeared in eight with a spiraling black and
white pattern and a red roof. At one sixty five
feet tall, it is St. Augustine's oldest surviving brick structure.
While it's still an operating lighthouse, it's also open for tours.
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People come to see the gorgeous, serene landscape and the
pristine shores of St. Augustine. They also come looking for ghosts,
and there are a lot of ghosts to be found nowadays.
The St. Augustine Lighthouse is famous around the world for
the remarkable paranormal activity that staff and visitors witnessed there
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in the keeper's house. A relief lighthouse keeper in the
nineteen fifties reported hearing footsteps on the second floor, but
couldn't find anyone when he went looking for the source
of the sound. James Pippen, the last keeper to live
on site, Sir from nineteen fifty three to nineteen fifty five.
He first lived in the keeper's house, but eventually moved
to a much smaller building on the property, saying that
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the big house was haunted and he would not stay
another night in it. During renovations to the house when
it was being restored in the nineteen eighties, many people
reported unexplained incidents on the site, especially in the basement,
which had not burned in the fire. In that basement,
people have reported seeing the shadow figure of a man
and feeling a column of chilly air as you might expect.
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The lighthouse itself has many reports of paranormal activity. Staff
report that they will bolt a door before leaving for
the night, only to find it wide open in the morning.
Even doors that are supposed to trigger an alarm. Music
boxes in the gift shop are said to start playing
on their own. Disembodied children's laughter has been reported throughout
the lighthouse, and some people say they've heard a woman's
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voice calling for help. Guides claim that they have been
touched by spectral presences in the middle of tours. One
guide Matt Laddick told a reporter rather recently, I had
my ankle grabbed. That was pretty amusing since it was
in the middle of my tour, so it looked like
I just randomly tripped over air. A ghost has also
been blamed for a visitor who found her shoeley suddenly
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tied to the lighthouse stairs. People have reported seeing a
shadowy figure peering down over the railing of the staircase.
One guest has claimed to take a photograph of a
woman standing on the gallery deck near the top of
the lighthouse when no one was there. Some have speculated
that this is the ghost of Maria Andrea, who sometimes
seen on the gallery deck in a white dress, her
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long dark hair blowing in the ocean breeze. Some think
it's one of the girls who died in the railway
car accident. The girls, it's believed, appear more frequently in
bad weather. Ghosts of the girls, commonly believed to be
playful spirits, have been reported over the years in and
around the lighthouse. They have been blamed for the gigglings
sometimes heard in the tower, as well as mysterious child
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sized footprints that have shown up when no children were
present in the area. An employees stated that one such
footprint resisted his attempts to clean it for several weeks,
only to vanish from the floor as suddenly as it
had appeared. A group of paranormal investigators using an E
MF meter in the basement of the keeper's house asked
if the girls wanted to play hide and seek, only
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to see a spike in the meters. A woman in
the group wandered the basement with the meter. When she'd
see a spike. She'd asked the girls if they wanted
to play again, only to search the basement for their
next hiding spot. The girls have been seen as full
bodied apparitions in and around the lighthouse over the years,
often said to be wearing blue velvet dresses. Once, a
young girl in a Victorian outfit was seen sitting on
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a bench reading a book. According to paranormal tour group
Old City Ghosts, visitors to the lighthouse described catching flashes
of a young girl dressed in old air of clothing,
gazing out from the lighthouse door or standing by the
upstairs window. The ghost of this young lady is rather
pleasant and rarely interacts with visitors, as Kelsey Lloyd writes
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a woman on a ghost tour approached another woman to
compliment her daughter's behavior on the tour. Confused, the woman
said she had no daughter. The other woman then told
her that a little girl had been standing by her
side most of the evening. There were no children on
the tour that evening. Another common apparition is a menacing man,
sometimes believed to be Joseph Andrew, the lighthouse keeper who
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died from the sixty footfall, known as the man in Blue,
he wears overalls or a suit in his namesake color,
and is said to terrorize workers, chasing them up and
down the stairs of the lighthouse. One worker was so
frightened that he quit his job over the activity. People
claim to hear the disembodied screaming of a man whose
somebelieve is a lighthousekeeper who hanged himself in the basement,
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though there is no historical record of a hanging suicide
on the property. A construction worker on the keeper's house
restoration project in the nineteen eighties claimed to have seen
a spectral hanging man Enjoyce Elson Moore's book Haunted Hunter's
Guide to Florida, She writes of the construction workers experiences.
According to Moore's book, he said he was told by
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a local who had talked with David Swain, the assistant
keeper from nineteen thirty three to nineteen forty four and
lamplighter from nineteen fifty five to nineteen sixty eight, that
Swain said a visitor from the sea had hanged himself
in the building in the nineteen thirties, and that Swain
claimed a man's footsteps would follow him from the house
to the tower. The workers had so many accidents occurred
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on the job there that he and some fellow tradesmen
quit after six months. The mysterious smell of cigar smoke
and the sound of heavy boots on the lighthouse stairs
have been blamed on the man in blue. Some also
associate the cigar smoke with the ghost of Peter Rasmussen,
the lighthouse keeper from nineteen o one to nineteen twenty four.
Rasmussen was the longest serving keeper of the lighthouse, who
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was a smoker and who also deeply disliked tourists visiting
the lighthouse. Some claimed to hear the ghost of keeper
William Harn, who served from eighteen seventy five to eighteen
eighty nine, Harn died of tibur ulosis contracted during his
Union Army service. In some say you can still hear
him coughing in the parlor of the keeper's house. So,
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since we've started digging into the spooky side of the lighthouse,
I wanted to bring someone on who has investigated with
me there numerous times and has had lots of crazy
experiences there as well. Up next in his Haunted Road debut. Finally,
we will be chatting with none other than psychic medium
Chip Coffee. That is coming up after the break. All right,
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I am sitting here with my dear friend, Chip Coffee.
I really wanted to talk to you about the lighthouse
because one, I've been wanting to get you on Haunted
Road for a long time, and to you and I
have investigated it together on a number of occasions, and
so we've had a lot of really wild experiences there,
and I think you also have kind of the interesting
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perspective of coming at it from a psychic medium standpoint,
which I find very interesting too. And so the reason
why the lighthouse, I believe, is so popular as far
as being haunted, I mean, I think that locals knew
it was haunted for a very long time. But what
happened was Ghost Hunters was filming there in season two.
So the show ghost Hunters was insane Augustine, and they
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had filmed at the Old City Jail and or the
Old Jail, I should say, and they were supposed to
film somewhere else, but it fell through, and a number
of people told them they needed to investigate at the lighthouse,
and somehow it came to be, and so they end
up investigating there and they got what I think is
probably one of the most compelling pieces of evidence ever
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captured and shown on paranormal television. Basically, what happened is
they got a really great e VP of someone saying
help me in the lighthouse, and then they got to
video captures of a shadow figure when you look up
that kind of spiral staircase. One was kind of a
brief look down and then darted away really fast, and
then the second one was you literally see that head
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kind of look over down at them and then back up,
and it has become kind of this iconic photo from
the lighthouse. People take that still all the time and
we've seen that shadow. You've experienced that shadow, right, Chip,
I have, I have one of the times that was
there with Strange Escapes, I was actually with a group
and we were looking up into the up into the
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top of the lighthouse and we saw something leaned over
the banister and look down at us. It was very creepy. Yeah,
and it's he's seen a lot. I'm assuming it's a heat.
I don't know, but you know, he has seen quite
a bit. And it's interesting because lighthouses they do have
this really strong residual energy, and I feel like that's
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kind of what's fueling the shadow gear. And you have
to be very careful when you're investigating the lighthouse because
it is very echoy It is almost pitch black, and
they're like, you know, obviously it's very tall. As we know,
we've both walked up it a couple of times, almost
to our deaths going up there. Because by the time
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you get up there, I don't care how fit you are,
you are huffing and puffing and you just think, oh
my god, now I've got to go back down. And
then I feel like a jerk, because you know, like
these lighthouse keepers, it was literally their job to go
up there multiple times a day. Better them than us, right,
I guess that's one way to stay healthy. You're like,
I just climb a lighthouse four or five times a day. No,
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thank you. I think it's the original StairMaster or something.
You know, you keep keep on going. I wish they had,
like I think we talked about this before, like some
sort of like pulley system where you could just slowly
lower yourself back down. I said, like a fireman's pole
or like a slide and a kid's I had to
go up there again. They have to rig a voice
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to get me up to the top of this lighthouse.
So well, that being said, there was so much space
between the bottom and the top, and I feel like
there are maybe a couple of little windows, but it's
very dark. Other than that light kind of coming from
the very top. Even at night, there is that kind
of ambient light which you can see if there's something
up there. You do have kind of a background you
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can see. But it's easy for that to kind of
play tricks on you as well, like that different lighting
in the shadows and everything. And then, like I was saying,
the sounds bounce around a lot, but if you're very
still and you sit at the bottom with that lighthouse
and you have a you know a few people in
there looking up very quietly. You will hear footsteps, you
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will hear voices, and if you're lucky, you will see
that shadow. And we heard whistling, whistling. You know, we
whistled a couple of times and we got whistled back at.
And that's a common thing with you know, all what
that are goes hunting or investigating, they will often whistle.
And you've mentioned that, you get it, and we've gotten
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results with that. One of us knows why. I don't
think the whistling thing is always interesting to me because
I have done a few cases where you know, we
would whistle and get a response. I remember one time
we were whistling Yankee Doodle and I remember that, yeah,
and something finished it for us. And so it's kind
of that, you know how we always do that shave
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and a haircut knock, And there are just certain things
from certain time periods that everyone relates to and they
can't help but finish it, Like you can't leave Yankee
Doodle Dandy hanging. You've got to finish that. And so
maybe I mean, I'm completely guessing here, but if I
were a lighthousekeeper, and you're trudging up those steps day
after day, probably by yourself a lot of the time,
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even though their families were there. You're probably whistling, you're
probably humming, you know, probably doing anything to kind of
keep yourself busy, because that is such a job that
involves routine, mean and times, like you're doing things at
the exact same time every day. You're doing the exact
same thing every day. And while those activities might seem mundane,
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they are literally life or death in the maritime industry.
Like you had to do that, And so I feel
like those lighthouse keepers probably took their jobs very, very serious,
and it's probably why they're haunted. Do you think that
maybe they just kind of feel this sense of having
to return or having to kind of keep up at
the job and make sure it's being taken care of.
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I think it's duty and responsibility, and beyond that, you
have to be very committed to do a lighthousekeeper job.
You have to make that commitment just say that I'm
going to do this every day. I'm going to take
this responsibility very seriously and honestly saying that. You really
almost have to love that job. It has to be
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something that you really really love doing because many times
you've got your family there with you and a relatively
small amount of space, So you gotta love what you do.
And so from a psychic medium standpoint, because you have
that ability, I do not have that ability. I think
you've got some intuitive abilities, Bruny, I really do. I
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think that you can sense things when you go into things.
But beyond that, and we'll talk about what it's like
to have a psychic medium friend in a moment. Like
you've been into many lighthouses, I take it right, Is
there like a different energy in them? Do you sense
something different in a lighthouse than you do in other locations?
I think I sense just what we've talked about. I
sense that the people that are there have this affection
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for where they're at. They've grown to love that location.
And I'm not surprised that in death, if you go
back looking for them, that you're going to find them.
They're gonna stay there. I mean, think of Rose Island
Lighthouse and the history there also, not only at St. Augustine,
but at Rose Island, the keeper was still there and
other people re encountered other people at the lighthouse. A
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little boy if I remember correctly. At Rose Island, you know,
it's not uncommon for families to really imprint on those locations.
So that's what I think I feel is that not
only that interactive energy that's there with us that often
pops up and gives us what we want as far
as interaction with us, but also that residual energy that
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they left behind because of all the time that they
spent and shared there. I do think it's that kind
of that imprint of their routine and their duty. But
then there's also sometimes more intelligent hauntings. I found both
there where you have someone who will actually interact and
then you also have someone who just is kind of
going about their day, you know. And that's like even
(27:43):
at Rose Island, which I'm sure we'll cover on Haunted
Road eventually, but we triggered that ghost by making the
sound of the cannon fire, because the cannon fire was
his queue to go up and light the light, and
so we played cannon fire and next thing you know,
you hear these footsteps going the tower. And I think
it's kind of similar at St. Augustine. But there is
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so much other history there as well, and a lot
of it involved families like there were the deaths of
some little girls nearby, and people hear those girls all
the time, not just in the lighthouse, but in the
keeper's quarters and on the grounds itself. Did you sense
them at all or have any experiences with them? I did,
and it was in the exterior part of the of
(28:27):
the property that I kind of felt them. I didn't
even know the history of the lighthouse where I went there.
Sometimes if you're going to a famous place and you
know you're going to go there, you might know the
history of the location. But I didn't. I had not
researched it. And when I first went there with you
and the Strange Escapes Company, I you nothing, and I
(28:48):
sensed these kids, and that was a little confusing to me.
I figured maybe there were kids there at some point
in time, but I picked up that there were little girls.
And later I was informed that there had been a
tragic accident where some girls were playing in a cart
of some sort and the cart went over the side
of a cliff or something and they plunged into the water,
(29:09):
and several of them I think were killed in that accent. Yeah,
there were four of them, and three of them passed away.
And I mean it was a huge deal in the town.
There was a big funeral and they all mourned, and
you know, it was just it was a major tragedy
and something you wouldn't expect at a lighthouse per se.
So it's interesting that you picked that up. The other
(29:30):
thing I've encountered there is now this is something I
didn't know actually until I went through the history for
this episode. What's interesting is that the basement is the
one original part of the house, so they have redone
everything else, and so the basement is the only like
original original part of the Keeper's quarters. So it's so
strange that we see the shadow down there all the time.
(29:52):
But going back to that, I did have a group
down there that I was investigating with one night and
I just got a feeling like something felt off and
kind of unnatural. And I'd been looking at this group
and the dark as we did an e VP session
for a number of minutes at this point, but something changed,
and I'm just looking at them and it's pitch dark,
but i can see their outlines because there's a little
(30:14):
ambient light from a window up in the corner, and
it dawned. I mean, I'm like, I don't think I
remember that man sitting there, And there's these two women
sitting and there's this man in between them, and all
I can see is their shadow and their outlines, and
so I'm like, let me count my group, because I
knew how many people were in the group, So I
started at the end and I'm like, let me count here, one, two, three,
(30:35):
And I get back to where this man was and
he is not there anymore. And I look at the
two women in the dark, and I'm just like, um,
excuse me, and like I put my flash shight on
and like I shine at the floor. I never like
to shine in people's eyes because one makes them feel
like they're being arrested, and two, it's like there they
lose their night vision instantly, So I always put down
(30:55):
at the floor just to get a little light. And
I look at them and I'm like, was there just
just a man sitting in between you? And these two
women just went like wide eyed, like what are you
talking about. I'm like, oh, well, there was a man
sitting there a moment ago. I'm lucky those two didn't
go running out of there. I probably would have would
have been a little freaked out. By that. But you know,
(31:15):
even in that location when we were there, I was
there with you and Adam at one point in time
in that that area, and you know, it was we
got a few EPs of remember correctly, and you know,
maybe some of the other equipment went off, but we
were definitely getting interactive energy when we were in that
basement here. Oh yeah, And I even saw a shadow
in the other room at one point. And I think
(31:38):
this was maybe like the next year that we went.
So if you don't know, I own a company called
Strange Escapes and we go to say in Augustine Lighthouse
almost every year, and so we're going again this September,
so next month, and it was I was sitting and
I remember just seeing a shadow figure just walk right
past the doorway and the other room in the basement.
So I don't know who this shadow is. And yes,
(31:59):
we have gotten of wild E vps there as well.
Adam and I actually recently just filmed at a lighthouse
for another TV show. We did a crossover and that
one was even taller than Saying Augustine And when you
get up to the top, your legs are like shaking,
and I'm like, am I terrified? Or am I exhausted?
What is happening here? I remember that Greta, my travelers
(32:21):
sistant in BFF, and I went to an event once
when we were in Enzicola, Florida, at the naval station,
and there's a lighthouse there and when you walk up
the steps, the stairs are not solid, they're like webbed
and you can see down through it. And I'm afraid
of heights anyway, and I'm like, oh no, this is
not good. And it was rainy and windy, and we
got to the top and I'm standing up there and
(32:44):
I'm like, why did I do this? I'm like having
vertigo and I'm going to pass out or something. And
Greta and a couple of other people that had gone
up with us, they were out on the on the
on the outside of the lighthouse, walking around and the
wind is ripping in the rain is ripping. They're like,
come on out, and I'm like, no, thanks, I'm not
gonna do this. Not happening. And then I realized, oh crap,
(33:05):
I've got to go back down those stairs that I
can look down again at and I'm like, why did
I ever do this? But I fear you, you know,
you're dead by the time practically did you get to
the top. But it's worth it. Let me get back
to that. It's worth doing just once. Yeah, And actually
that is the lighthouse that Adam and I were at filming,
so I can't say who we were with yet. And
(33:26):
it was slippery. Adam was like trying to hold onto
the wall. I've actually not ever seen him so afraid
in the lighthouse. I also one time was in the
Absecon Lighthouse, which is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and
I was in that in the middle of a storm
filming ghost hunters. That lighthouse was swaying in the wind
and I was like, what, this doesn't seem normal, and
(33:49):
you know, you're up there filming and it's literally moving,
and they said it was designed to do that, and
I was like, well, I am designed not to be
in this lighthouse right now, so us like goodbye. No,
I would have that would have been yet for me.
I would have lost all control of my body functions
and died on the spot. Thankfully, saying Augustine does not sway.
(34:11):
But I do think St. Augustine is probably the most
active lighthouse I have been to. It is very reliable
in the sense that like, if you walk in there,
especially at night, and you're quiet and you take the time,
you are going to have an experience, and not just
in there, but in the keeper's quarters or on the
grounds itself, Like something will happen for you as long
(34:34):
as you are patient and quiet, Like I don't think
I've ever not had something happened there, and the times
that I've been there, you're absolutely right there, totally willing
to come out and interact. Yeah, well, we're having a
Strange Escapes there in September. If you're listening to this
before September two, you should come join us. We are
going to be investigating there and the old jail and
(34:56):
saying Augustine. Saying Agustine is one of my favorite towns.
It is just so much fun to visit. There's that
really cool old fort there. There is the Fountain of Youth,
like it is the definition of tourist town, but it
doesn't feel like it. It's a great place to visit.
So if you want to come with us, please do.
You can visit the website at Strange dash Escapes dot com.
That is my haunted travel company. I have not yet
(35:16):
convinced Chip Coffee to join us, but you never know.
And now that you've brought up Strange Escapes, let me
put my two cents worth it about Strange Escapes. There
are a lot of companies that do this kind of event,
or a number of companies, let's put it that way,
And there's some very large events, but Amy's events are
more intimate. You can really spend time with the people
that are the speakers and the talent that are there.
(35:40):
You can interact with them, and you get a lot
of that personal time to share with us when we're there.
You put your all into making it a really positive
experience for the people that attend. I congratulate you for that.
You've you've done a great job. Well, thank you. I
appreciate that very much. And I always tell people when
they come out, I'm like, you going to be sick
of us by the end of this weekend. Yes you are.
(36:03):
We're pretty we're pretty available to the people that Yeah,
it's a lot of fun. So but regardless, even if
you're not coming to Strange Escapes, I hope everybody enjoyed
hearing about the lighthouse and chatting with Chip and I
really appreciate you taking the time to join me. It's
been a long time coming. I really have wanted you
to talk to come onto the podcast, so finally I'm like, yes,
(36:24):
this is the perfect place. So I really appreciate you
taking the time. Thank you. You know, there's just about
nothing you could ask me to do that I wouldn't
do for you. Well, thank you all. I love you
very much. I love you. I will hopefully see you
very soon. I'm going to predict that you will see
me very soon. We can't say anything more than that,
but I will see you in a few days. All right, Well,
(36:49):
thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you, Darling. When I
was growing up, my grand father had an intense love
for lighthouses. It was probably to his detriment because then
everyone just kept giving him lighthouse themed gifts for the
rest of his life, which he always graciously accepted, of course,
(37:11):
But I do remember losing count of them when we
were cleaning his office after he passed. I don't think
I fully understood the infatuation a sailor like him would
have with them until I started investigating and researching them myself.
Not only do I now understand why they still act
as beacons for so many on land and by sea,
but I can comprehend why they would be filled with
(37:34):
energy and ghosts. There's a reason I've been called to
so many to investigate, and I guarantee I will be
visiting many more and probably covering more of them here
on Haunted Road. Until then, I will leave you with this.
Don't ever forget that, just maybe you are the lighthouse
in someone's storm. I'm Amy Brunei, and this was Haunted Road. YEA.
(38:09):
Haunted Road is a production of I Heart Radio and
Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Haunted Road is hosted
and written by me Amy Bruney, additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn.
The show is edited and produced by rema El Kali
and supervising producer Josh Thing and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I
(38:31):
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Haunted Road, the production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky listener. Discretion is advised. Hey, gang,
this is just a quick reminder that I have a
massive fall tour coming up starting in September, and so
if you want to head to my website Amy dash
(00:21):
Brunei dot net and click on the appearances page, you
can see if I will be anywhere near you. A
lot of these do have meet and great options too,
So if you want to get a photo of me
or ask me a question personally, this is your chance.
I can see just looking at my schedule, I'm going
to be in California, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas,
(00:43):
Louisiana and more. So please check it out and hopefully
we will get to meet in person and talk about
spooky things my favorite. Recently, I was fortunate enough to
visit the city of law Corunia, Spain. High on my
(01:06):
list of spots to see in town was the Tower
of Hercules, the oldest lighthouse in operation today. Historians believe
it was built over two thousand years ago by the Romans.
As I stared at the ancient tower. I couldn't help
but think of all the lore and fascination around lighthouses.
After all, one cannot undermine their importance in the maritime world,
(01:27):
and before the age of electric lights, pressure and importance
placed on the keepers who tended to them. This particular
lighthouse has a major legend associated with it, involving Hercules,
hence the name. Legend has it that the legendary Greek
hero came in search of the giant Garion, who ruled
over the lands between the Doro and the Tagas, to
free the people from his unbridled power. Their struggle lasted
(01:51):
three days and nights, after which time Hercules defeated the giant,
beheaded him, and buried his head by the sea. To
celebrate his victory, he built over a burial mound a
tower lighthouse, and in the vicinity of it he founded
a city he named Kruna or law Coruna, after the
first woman who inhabited this place and with whom the
hero fell in love. Certainly a legend, but definitely a
(02:13):
reflection of lighthouses and the mystique they seem to hold
over us. We don't have any two thousand year old
lighthouses with heads of giants buried beneath them here in
the States. But we do have a lot of haunted ones,
and I've investigated a ton of them, But one holds
true to its very well known reputation as being the
most haunted lighthouse in America in my opinion anyway, And that,
(02:36):
my friends, is the St. Augustine Lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida.
Let's head there shall we. I'm Amy Brunei, and welcome
to haunted road. High above the Florida coastline, a light
(02:59):
shines across the darkened seas, guiding ships into port. In
some ways, the lighthouse in St. Augustine is a beacon
of safety. But the centuries old structure in America's oldest
city is full of history, some of it unspeakably tragic,
and today it's one of the most haunted locations in
the country. It's certainly one of the most haunted locations
(03:20):
I've ever visited, which is why I go back again
and again to discover St. Augustine lighthouses secrets. But it
wasn't always full of ghosts. In fact, for a long
time it was full of families living their lives as
keepers of the Light and protectors of the coastline. First
founded in fifteen sixty five by Spanish explorer Pedro Melendez, St. Augustine, Florida,
(03:42):
is the first place in North America to be colonized
by Europeans, beating the British settlement of Roanoke by two years.
Melenda's named the city after St. Augustine because the sailors
on his expedition first spotted the land on that Saint's
feast day August. At the time Melenda's colonized St. August
seen about forty miles south of present day Jacksonville. The
(04:03):
land had long been occupied by the Temuqua tribe, whose
land stretched from what's now southern Georgia to central Florida.
Historians estimate that there were as many as two hundred
thousand members of the Temuqua tribe in Florida at the time. However,
disease introduced by the Europeans decimated them so much that
within two hundred years, fewer than one hundred Temuko were
(04:24):
left alive. There were also French forces present in the area,
whom Melenda's and his explorers defeated to claim the land
for Spain. Today, St. Augustine is a city of about
fifteen thousand people and is a popular tourist town in Florida,
not just for its forty two miles of pristine Atlantic beaches,
but for its history, haunted and otherwise. If you've watched
(04:45):
Kindred Spirits, you might remember seeing an episode about the
old St. Augustine Jail, where Adam and I made contact
with spirits of the former warden and prisoners who had
been executed there. In fact, St. Augustine is home to
what some claim is the real Fountain of Youth, rumored
to have been discovered by Ponts. Dally On in fifteen
thirteen in his Explorations of Florida's coast. You can visit
(05:07):
it today at the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, though
no promises about whether you'll actually feel younger afterwards. But
I can promise you, though, is that the water coming
from the fountain tastes heavily of sulfur, So shoot it
like a shot of bad tequila and hope for the best. Though.
The lighthouse that shines over St. Augustine's water is on
(05:27):
the site of what's described by local tourism organizations as
the oldest permanent navigation aid in North America. Today's lighthouse
isn't the original structure. Spanish settlers first built a wooden
watch tower at the northern end of Anastasia Island in
fifteen eighty nine. According to the St. Augustine Lighthouse a
Maritime Museum, the watch towers were erected by the Spanish
(05:50):
crown during the building of the Castillo da San Marcos
to keep enemy ships from taking Anastasia Island. While the
height of that original watch tower is unknown, the second
watch tower, built in the early seventeen hundreds, was thirty
feet tall. That structure built of kakuina, which is a
shell rock, and would lasted for almost one hundred forty years,
according to the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum. After
(06:13):
the French and Indian War made Florida a part of
the British Empire, the Brits added thirty feet of wooden
construction to the existing structure in seventeen sixty three. It's
at that time that the structure first became a lighthouse,
with the intention of protecting incoming ships from the dangerous
sandbars in the inlet at the northern end of the island.
Sometimes called the Crazy Banks. When Spain regained control of
(06:36):
Florida in seventeen eighty three, the Spaniards tore down the
British additions to the tower, making it just a watch
tower and not a lighthouse again. Then in eighteen twenty one,
the United States gained possession of Florida and the tower
was once again converted into a lighthouse in eighteen twenty four.
According to these St. Augustine Lighthouses records, Juan Andreu, a minorcan,
(06:57):
was paid three hundred fifty dollars a year to care
for the lighthouse and ten the ten oil lamps set
in silver bowl shaped reflectors. One Andrea who served as
the lighthousekeeper until his death in eighteen forty nine, and
members of the Andrea family would keep the light until
the Civil War. In eighteen fifty four, the lighthouse saw
a major upgrade the installation of a fourth order revolving
(07:20):
fresnel lens that measured nine feet high inside the more
than fifty foot tall tower, which the lighthouse keeper would
have had to climb inside to light the whale oil lamps.
As the Lighthouse Museum describes, the jewel like lens was
handmade just for St. Augustine in Paris, France, by the
company of Solder and Lemonaire. It represented the height of
(07:40):
Victorian engineering and technology and cast its being much farther
out to sea than its predecessor. The new light now
demonstrated three fixed flashes from three bulls eye panels that
could be seen from up to nineteen to twenty four
nautical miles, depending on atmospheric conditions. In eighteen fifty nine,
lighthouse keeper Joe's of Andrea, Juan's cousin, fell sixty feet
(08:02):
to his death at the lighthouse. As Eleanor Dwyer describes
it in her Guide to Florida Lighthouses, Andrea fell when
a faulty support on the scaffolding had given way as
he was whitewashing the tower, which was one of his
job duties. In an issue of Spyglass, Kelsey Lloyd quotes
Andrea's obituary, which paints a horrifying picture of his fall.
He first struck the roof of the oil room about
(08:24):
thirty feet below. Once he glanced off and struck the
stone wall which encloses the lighthouse, and thence to the
ground a stone parapet. After Joseph's death, his widow, Maria Andrew,
became the lighthouse keeper. She was the first female lighthousekeeper
in Florida and the first Hispanic American in the United
(08:44):
States Lighthouse Service. In an article for the Lighthouse Museum
about Maria, Kimberly King writes, tradition has it that Maria
went to the top of the lighthouse to call out,
what shall I do? Reportedly, she heard her husband's voice
on the wind tell her to tend to the light.
During the Civil War, Confederate sympathizers removed the lens from
(09:06):
the lighthouse, hiding it away for the duration of the
war with the intention of blocking shipping to the North
and supplies to the Union troops. During the Civil War,
Confederate sympathizers removed the lens from the lighthouse, hiding it
away for the duration of the war with the intention
of blocking shipping to the North and supplies to Union troops.
Maria was on duty at the time. Some sources claim
(09:27):
that she shot and injured a Confederate soldier named Joseph
Pasetti as he tried to smash the lens. Others, however,
believe that Maria must have known of the plan and
provided access to the lens room. When the U. S.
Navy recaptured St. Augustine, the lens was found and reinstalled,
but not without some difficulty. In a museum article, Paul's
Lensky writes that Northern troops arrested Paul are now the
(09:50):
mayor of St. Augustine, and sequestered him on the Union
gun boat Isaac Smith until he revealed the location of
the lighting mechanisms for the St. Augustine Light and other
lighthouses in the area, including Cape Canaveral. The lighthouse was
re lit in eighteen sixty seven, but at that time
was showing serious signs of erosion. According to lighthouse friends.
(10:11):
On July one, eighteen seventy the distance from the keeper's
dwelling to the high water mark was seventy feet, but
by November the distance had shrunk to just forty feet.
The lighthouse board determined that a new lighthouse was needed,
and a five acre tract located a half mile inland
was acquired. After old Spanish land grants and claims of
settlers were straightened out. Construction began on the new lighthouse
(10:33):
in eighteen seventy one, but tragedy soon struck Hezekiah Pitty,
the superintendent of lighthouse construction, lived on site with his
wife Mary and their children, Mary, Adelaide, Eliza, Edward and Carrie.
During the construction, workers used a railway cart to move
supplies from supply ships to the building site, which the
(10:54):
children used to play and when it wasn't in use.
In a Lighthouse Museum article Kelsey Lloyd right, they used
the cart as a Victorian era roller coaster, riding the
cart to the water and bringing it back up to
the site to write again. Only a wooden board at
the end of the rails stopped the cart from tipping
over into the water. On July tenth, eighteen seventy three, Mary, Eliza,
(11:15):
and carry Pitty, along with a ten year old African
American girl whose name isn't known. We're playing with the cart,
not realizing that the board wasn't in place to stop
the cart. When it reached the end of the track,
the cart flipped over, landing in the water and trapping
the four girls underneath. While a worker named Dance Sessions
saw the event take place and race to dive into
(11:36):
the water to rescue the girls, he was too late.
Three of the four girls drowned. Only four year old
carry Pitty survived. According to reports, the whole town shut
down to observe the funeral. More than a year later,
in October eighteen seventy four, the new lighthouse became operational.
(11:57):
Three keepers kept the light going in eight hour watches,
which required carrying a thirty pound can of lard oil
up the two hundred fourteen stairs of the tower and
winding the two hundred seventy five pound weight that made
the lens move. The lightkeepers would also sometimes be called
upon to rescue sailors whose ships had founded on the
nearby sandbar. In eighteen seventy five, a new keeper's house
(12:20):
was built on the site to accommodate the number of
men needed to keep the lighthouse operational. Five years later,
the old tower fell into the ocean. In eighteen ninety four,
keeper Joseph Frantia's wife Mary, died on the property. Things
got much easier for the lightkeepers in nineteen thirty six
when the tower was wired for electricity. In nineteen fifty five,
(12:41):
the keepers were replaced by a lamplighter who turned the
light on and off in between. The lighthouse served an
important role in World War two, when the US Coast
Guard was stationed at the lighthouse around the clock on
the lookout for German boats. With lightkeepers no longer needed
on the property of the keeper's house was boarded up.
In nineteen seven, it burned down under mysterious circumstances and
(13:03):
was restored from four to nine eight. Today the lighthouse
operates as a nonprofit and has restored the structure to
how it appeared in eight with a spiraling black and
white pattern and a red roof. At one sixty five
feet tall, it is St. Augustine's oldest surviving brick structure.
While it's still an operating lighthouse, it's also open for tours.
(13:26):
People come to see the gorgeous, serene landscape and the
pristine shores of St. Augustine. They also come looking for ghosts,
and there are a lot of ghosts to be found nowadays.
The St. Augustine Lighthouse is famous around the world for
the remarkable paranormal activity that staff and visitors witnessed there
(13:47):
in the keeper's house. A relief lighthouse keeper in the
nineteen fifties reported hearing footsteps on the second floor, but
couldn't find anyone when he went looking for the source
of the sound. James Pippen, the last keeper to live
on site, Sir from nineteen fifty three to nineteen fifty five.
He first lived in the keeper's house, but eventually moved
to a much smaller building on the property, saying that
(14:08):
the big house was haunted and he would not stay
another night in it. During renovations to the house when
it was being restored in the nineteen eighties, many people
reported unexplained incidents on the site, especially in the basement,
which had not burned in the fire. In that basement,
people have reported seeing the shadow figure of a man
and feeling a column of chilly air as you might expect.
(14:30):
The lighthouse itself has many reports of paranormal activity. Staff
report that they will bolt a door before leaving for
the night, only to find it wide open in the morning.
Even doors that are supposed to trigger an alarm. Music
boxes in the gift shop are said to start playing
on their own. Disembodied children's laughter has been reported throughout
the lighthouse, and some people say they've heard a woman's
(14:52):
voice calling for help. Guides claim that they have been
touched by spectral presences in the middle of tours. One
guide Matt Laddick told a reporter rather recently, I had
my ankle grabbed. That was pretty amusing since it was
in the middle of my tour, so it looked like
I just randomly tripped over air. A ghost has also
been blamed for a visitor who found her shoeley suddenly
(15:12):
tied to the lighthouse stairs. People have reported seeing a
shadowy figure peering down over the railing of the staircase.
One guest has claimed to take a photograph of a
woman standing on the gallery deck near the top of
the lighthouse when no one was there. Some have speculated
that this is the ghost of Maria Andrea, who sometimes
seen on the gallery deck in a white dress, her
(15:34):
long dark hair blowing in the ocean breeze. Some think
it's one of the girls who died in the railway
car accident. The girls, it's believed, appear more frequently in
bad weather. Ghosts of the girls, commonly believed to be
playful spirits, have been reported over the years in and
around the lighthouse. They have been blamed for the gigglings
sometimes heard in the tower, as well as mysterious child
(15:56):
sized footprints that have shown up when no children were
present in the area. An employees stated that one such
footprint resisted his attempts to clean it for several weeks,
only to vanish from the floor as suddenly as it
had appeared. A group of paranormal investigators using an E
MF meter in the basement of the keeper's house asked
if the girls wanted to play hide and seek, only
(16:17):
to see a spike in the meters. A woman in
the group wandered the basement with the meter. When she'd
see a spike. She'd asked the girls if they wanted
to play again, only to search the basement for their
next hiding spot. The girls have been seen as full
bodied apparitions in and around the lighthouse over the years,
often said to be wearing blue velvet dresses. Once, a
young girl in a Victorian outfit was seen sitting on
(16:38):
a bench reading a book. According to paranormal tour group
Old City Ghosts, visitors to the lighthouse described catching flashes
of a young girl dressed in old air of clothing,
gazing out from the lighthouse door or standing by the
upstairs window. The ghost of this young lady is rather
pleasant and rarely interacts with visitors, as Kelsey Lloyd writes
(16:59):
a woman on a ghost tour approached another woman to
compliment her daughter's behavior on the tour. Confused, the woman
said she had no daughter. The other woman then told
her that a little girl had been standing by her
side most of the evening. There were no children on
the tour that evening. Another common apparition is a menacing man,
sometimes believed to be Joseph Andrew, the lighthouse keeper who
(17:22):
died from the sixty footfall, known as the man in Blue,
he wears overalls or a suit in his namesake color,
and is said to terrorize workers, chasing them up and
down the stairs of the lighthouse. One worker was so
frightened that he quit his job over the activity. People
claim to hear the disembodied screaming of a man whose
somebelieve is a lighthousekeeper who hanged himself in the basement,
(17:44):
though there is no historical record of a hanging suicide
on the property. A construction worker on the keeper's house
restoration project in the nineteen eighties claimed to have seen
a spectral hanging man Enjoyce Elson Moore's book Haunted Hunter's
Guide to Florida, She writes of the construction workers experiences.
According to Moore's book, he said he was told by
(18:05):
a local who had talked with David Swain, the assistant
keeper from nineteen thirty three to nineteen forty four and
lamplighter from nineteen fifty five to nineteen sixty eight, that
Swain said a visitor from the sea had hanged himself
in the building in the nineteen thirties, and that Swain
claimed a man's footsteps would follow him from the house
to the tower. The workers had so many accidents occurred
(18:25):
on the job there that he and some fellow tradesmen
quit after six months. The mysterious smell of cigar smoke
and the sound of heavy boots on the lighthouse stairs
have been blamed on the man in blue. Some also
associate the cigar smoke with the ghost of Peter Rasmussen,
the lighthouse keeper from nineteen o one to nineteen twenty four.
Rasmussen was the longest serving keeper of the lighthouse, who
(18:48):
was a smoker and who also deeply disliked tourists visiting
the lighthouse. Some claimed to hear the ghost of keeper
William Harn, who served from eighteen seventy five to eighteen
eighty nine, Harn died of tibur ulosis contracted during his
Union Army service. In some say you can still hear
him coughing in the parlor of the keeper's house. So,
(19:10):
since we've started digging into the spooky side of the lighthouse,
I wanted to bring someone on who has investigated with
me there numerous times and has had lots of crazy
experiences there as well. Up next in his Haunted Road debut. Finally,
we will be chatting with none other than psychic medium
Chip Coffee. That is coming up after the break. All right,
(19:43):
I am sitting here with my dear friend, Chip Coffee.
I really wanted to talk to you about the lighthouse
because one, I've been wanting to get you on Haunted
Road for a long time, and to you and I
have investigated it together on a number of occasions, and
so we've had a lot of really wild experiences there,
and I think you also have kind of the interesting
(20:04):
perspective of coming at it from a psychic medium standpoint,
which I find very interesting too. And so the reason
why the lighthouse, I believe, is so popular as far
as being haunted, I mean, I think that locals knew
it was haunted for a very long time. But what
happened was Ghost Hunters was filming there in season two.
So the show ghost Hunters was insane Augustine, and they
(20:26):
had filmed at the Old City Jail and or the
Old Jail, I should say, and they were supposed to
film somewhere else, but it fell through, and a number
of people told them they needed to investigate at the lighthouse,
and somehow it came to be, and so they end
up investigating there and they got what I think is
probably one of the most compelling pieces of evidence ever
(20:49):
captured and shown on paranormal television. Basically, what happened is
they got a really great e VP of someone saying
help me in the lighthouse, and then they got to
video captures of a shadow figure when you look up
that kind of spiral staircase. One was kind of a
brief look down and then darted away really fast, and
then the second one was you literally see that head
(21:12):
kind of look over down at them and then back up,
and it has become kind of this iconic photo from
the lighthouse. People take that still all the time and
we've seen that shadow. You've experienced that shadow, right, Chip,
I have, I have one of the times that was
there with Strange Escapes, I was actually with a group
and we were looking up into the up into the
(21:35):
top of the lighthouse and we saw something leaned over
the banister and look down at us. It was very creepy. Yeah,
and it's he's seen a lot. I'm assuming it's a heat.
I don't know, but you know, he has seen quite
a bit. And it's interesting because lighthouses they do have
this really strong residual energy, and I feel like that's
(21:57):
kind of what's fueling the shadow gear. And you have
to be very careful when you're investigating the lighthouse because
it is very echoy It is almost pitch black, and
they're like, you know, obviously it's very tall. As we know,
we've both walked up it a couple of times, almost
to our deaths going up there. Because by the time
(22:19):
you get up there, I don't care how fit you are,
you are huffing and puffing and you just think, oh
my god, now I've got to go back down. And
then I feel like a jerk, because you know, like
these lighthouse keepers, it was literally their job to go
up there multiple times a day. Better them than us, right,
I guess that's one way to stay healthy. You're like,
I just climb a lighthouse four or five times a day. No,
(22:42):
thank you. I think it's the original StairMaster or something.
You know, you keep keep on going. I wish they had,
like I think we talked about this before, like some
sort of like pulley system where you could just slowly
lower yourself back down. I said, like a fireman's pole
or like a slide and a kid's I had to
go up there again. They have to rig a voice
(23:04):
to get me up to the top of this lighthouse.
So well, that being said, there was so much space
between the bottom and the top, and I feel like
there are maybe a couple of little windows, but it's
very dark. Other than that light kind of coming from
the very top. Even at night, there is that kind
of ambient light which you can see if there's something
up there. You do have kind of a background you
(23:25):
can see. But it's easy for that to kind of
play tricks on you as well, like that different lighting
in the shadows and everything. And then, like I was saying,
the sounds bounce around a lot, but if you're very
still and you sit at the bottom with that lighthouse
and you have a you know a few people in
there looking up very quietly. You will hear footsteps, you
(23:46):
will hear voices, and if you're lucky, you will see
that shadow. And we heard whistling, whistling. You know, we
whistled a couple of times and we got whistled back at.
And that's a common thing with you know, all what
that are goes hunting or investigating, they will often whistle.
And you've mentioned that, you get it, and we've gotten
(24:07):
results with that. One of us knows why. I don't
think the whistling thing is always interesting to me because
I have done a few cases where you know, we
would whistle and get a response. I remember one time
we were whistling Yankee Doodle and I remember that, yeah,
and something finished it for us. And so it's kind
of that, you know how we always do that shave
(24:27):
and a haircut knock, And there are just certain things
from certain time periods that everyone relates to and they
can't help but finish it, Like you can't leave Yankee
Doodle Dandy hanging. You've got to finish that. And so
maybe I mean, I'm completely guessing here, but if I
were a lighthousekeeper, and you're trudging up those steps day
after day, probably by yourself a lot of the time,
(24:48):
even though their families were there. You're probably whistling, you're
probably humming, you know, probably doing anything to kind of
keep yourself busy, because that is such a job that
involves routine, mean and times, like you're doing things at
the exact same time every day. You're doing the exact
same thing every day. And while those activities might seem mundane,
(25:11):
they are literally life or death in the maritime industry.
Like you had to do that, And so I feel
like those lighthouse keepers probably took their jobs very, very serious,
and it's probably why they're haunted. Do you think that
maybe they just kind of feel this sense of having
to return or having to kind of keep up at
the job and make sure it's being taken care of.
(25:32):
I think it's duty and responsibility, and beyond that, you
have to be very committed to do a lighthousekeeper job.
You have to make that commitment just say that I'm
going to do this every day. I'm going to take
this responsibility very seriously and honestly saying that. You really
almost have to love that job. It has to be
(25:55):
something that you really really love doing because many times
you've got your family there with you and a relatively
small amount of space, So you gotta love what you do.
And so from a psychic medium standpoint, because you have
that ability, I do not have that ability. I think
you've got some intuitive abilities, Bruny, I really do. I
(26:17):
think that you can sense things when you go into things.
But beyond that, and we'll talk about what it's like
to have a psychic medium friend in a moment. Like
you've been into many lighthouses, I take it right, Is
there like a different energy in them? Do you sense
something different in a lighthouse than you do in other locations?
I think I sense just what we've talked about. I
sense that the people that are there have this affection
(26:40):
for where they're at. They've grown to love that location.
And I'm not surprised that in death, if you go
back looking for them, that you're going to find them.
They're gonna stay there. I mean, think of Rose Island
Lighthouse and the history there also, not only at St. Augustine,
but at Rose Island, the keeper was still there and
other people re encountered other people at the lighthouse. A
(27:02):
little boy if I remember correctly. At Rose Island, you know,
it's not uncommon for families to really imprint on those locations.
So that's what I think I feel is that not
only that interactive energy that's there with us that often
pops up and gives us what we want as far
as interaction with us, but also that residual energy that
(27:23):
they left behind because of all the time that they
spent and shared there. I do think it's that kind
of that imprint of their routine and their duty. But
then there's also sometimes more intelligent hauntings. I found both
there where you have someone who will actually interact and
then you also have someone who just is kind of
going about their day, you know. And that's like even
(27:43):
at Rose Island, which I'm sure we'll cover on Haunted
Road eventually, but we triggered that ghost by making the
sound of the cannon fire, because the cannon fire was
his queue to go up and light the light, and
so we played cannon fire and next thing you know,
you hear these footsteps going the tower. And I think
it's kind of similar at St. Augustine. But there is
(28:05):
so much other history there as well, and a lot
of it involved families like there were the deaths of
some little girls nearby, and people hear those girls all
the time, not just in the lighthouse, but in the
keeper's quarters and on the grounds itself. Did you sense
them at all or have any experiences with them? I did,
and it was in the exterior part of the of
(28:27):
the property that I kind of felt them. I didn't
even know the history of the lighthouse where I went there.
Sometimes if you're going to a famous place and you
know you're going to go there, you might know the
history of the location. But I didn't. I had not
researched it. And when I first went there with you
and the Strange Escapes Company, I you nothing, and I
(28:48):
sensed these kids, and that was a little confusing to me.
I figured maybe there were kids there at some point
in time, but I picked up that there were little girls.
And later I was informed that there had been a
tragic accident where some girls were playing in a cart
of some sort and the cart went over the side
of a cliff or something and they plunged into the water,
(29:09):
and several of them I think were killed in that accent. Yeah,
there were four of them, and three of them passed away.
And I mean it was a huge deal in the town.
There was a big funeral and they all mourned, and
you know, it was just it was a major tragedy
and something you wouldn't expect at a lighthouse per se.
So it's interesting that you picked that up. The other
(29:30):
thing I've encountered there is now this is something I
didn't know actually until I went through the history for
this episode. What's interesting is that the basement is the
one original part of the house, so they have redone
everything else, and so the basement is the only like
original original part of the Keeper's quarters. So it's so
strange that we see the shadow down there all the time.
(29:52):
But going back to that, I did have a group
down there that I was investigating with one night and
I just got a feeling like something felt off and
kind of unnatural. And I'd been looking at this group
and the dark as we did an e VP session
for a number of minutes at this point, but something changed,
and I'm just looking at them and it's pitch dark,
but i can see their outlines because there's a little
(30:14):
ambient light from a window up in the corner, and
it dawned. I mean, I'm like, I don't think I
remember that man sitting there, And there's these two women
sitting and there's this man in between them, and all
I can see is their shadow and their outlines, and
so I'm like, let me count my group, because I
knew how many people were in the group, So I
started at the end and I'm like, let me count here, one, two, three,
(30:35):
And I get back to where this man was and
he is not there anymore. And I look at the
two women in the dark, and I'm just like, um,
excuse me, and like I put my flash shight on
and like I shine at the floor. I never like
to shine in people's eyes because one makes them feel
like they're being arrested, and two, it's like there they
lose their night vision instantly, So I always put down
(30:55):
at the floor just to get a little light. And
I look at them and I'm like, was there just
just a man sitting in between you? And these two
women just went like wide eyed, like what are you
talking about. I'm like, oh, well, there was a man
sitting there a moment ago. I'm lucky those two didn't
go running out of there. I probably would have would
have been a little freaked out. By that. But you know,
(31:15):
even in that location when we were there, I was
there with you and Adam at one point in time
in that that area, and you know, it was we
got a few EPs of remember correctly, and you know,
maybe some of the other equipment went off, but we
were definitely getting interactive energy when we were in that
basement here. Oh yeah, And I even saw a shadow
in the other room at one point. And I think
(31:38):
this was maybe like the next year that we went.
So if you don't know, I own a company called
Strange Escapes and we go to say in Augustine Lighthouse
almost every year, and so we're going again this September,
so next month, and it was I was sitting and
I remember just seeing a shadow figure just walk right
past the doorway and the other room in the basement.
So I don't know who this shadow is. And yes,
(31:59):
we have gotten of wild E vps there as well.
Adam and I actually recently just filmed at a lighthouse
for another TV show. We did a crossover and that
one was even taller than Saying Augustine And when you
get up to the top, your legs are like shaking,
and I'm like, am I terrified? Or am I exhausted?
What is happening here? I remember that Greta, my travelers
(32:21):
sistant in BFF, and I went to an event once
when we were in Enzicola, Florida, at the naval station,
and there's a lighthouse there and when you walk up
the steps, the stairs are not solid, they're like webbed
and you can see down through it. And I'm afraid
of heights anyway, and I'm like, oh no, this is
not good. And it was rainy and windy, and we
got to the top and I'm standing up there and
(32:44):
I'm like, why did I do this? I'm like having
vertigo and I'm going to pass out or something. And
Greta and a couple of other people that had gone
up with us, they were out on the on the
on the outside of the lighthouse, walking around and the
wind is ripping in the rain is ripping. They're like,
come on out, and I'm like, no, thanks, I'm not
gonna do this. Not happening. And then I realized, oh crap,
(33:05):
I've got to go back down those stairs that I
can look down again at and I'm like, why did
I ever do this? But I fear you, you know,
you're dead by the time practically did you get to
the top. But it's worth it. Let me get back
to that. It's worth doing just once. Yeah, And actually
that is the lighthouse that Adam and I were at filming,
so I can't say who we were with yet. And
(33:26):
it was slippery. Adam was like trying to hold onto
the wall. I've actually not ever seen him so afraid
in the lighthouse. I also one time was in the
Absecon Lighthouse, which is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and
I was in that in the middle of a storm
filming ghost hunters. That lighthouse was swaying in the wind
and I was like, what, this doesn't seem normal, and
(33:49):
you know, you're up there filming and it's literally moving,
and they said it was designed to do that, and
I was like, well, I am designed not to be
in this lighthouse right now, so us like goodbye. No,
I would have that would have been yet for me.
I would have lost all control of my body functions
and died on the spot. Thankfully, saying Augustine does not sway.
(34:11):
But I do think St. Augustine is probably the most
active lighthouse I have been to. It is very reliable
in the sense that like, if you walk in there,
especially at night, and you're quiet and you take the time,
you are going to have an experience, and not just
in there, but in the keeper's quarters or on the
grounds itself, Like something will happen for you as long
(34:34):
as you are patient and quiet, Like I don't think
I've ever not had something happened there, and the times
that I've been there, you're absolutely right there, totally willing
to come out and interact. Yeah, well, we're having a
Strange Escapes there in September. If you're listening to this
before September two, you should come join us. We are
going to be investigating there and the old jail and
(34:56):
saying Augustine. Saying Agustine is one of my favorite towns.
It is just so much fun to visit. There's that
really cool old fort there. There is the Fountain of Youth,
like it is the definition of tourist town, but it
doesn't feel like it. It's a great place to visit.
So if you want to come with us, please do.
You can visit the website at Strange dash Escapes dot com.
That is my haunted travel company. I have not yet
(35:16):
convinced Chip Coffee to join us, but you never know.
And now that you've brought up Strange Escapes, let me
put my two cents worth it about Strange Escapes. There
are a lot of companies that do this kind of event,
or a number of companies, let's put it that way,
And there's some very large events, but Amy's events are
more intimate. You can really spend time with the people
that are the speakers and the talent that are there.
(35:40):
You can interact with them, and you get a lot
of that personal time to share with us when we're there.
You put your all into making it a really positive
experience for the people that attend. I congratulate you for that.
You've you've done a great job. Well, thank you. I
appreciate that very much. And I always tell people when
they come out, I'm like, you going to be sick
of us by the end of this weekend. Yes you are.
(36:03):
We're pretty we're pretty available to the people that Yeah,
it's a lot of fun. So but regardless, even if
you're not coming to Strange Escapes, I hope everybody enjoyed
hearing about the lighthouse and chatting with Chip and I
really appreciate you taking the time to join me. It's
been a long time coming. I really have wanted you
to talk to come onto the podcast, so finally I'm like, yes,
(36:24):
this is the perfect place. So I really appreciate you
taking the time. Thank you. You know, there's just about
nothing you could ask me to do that I wouldn't
do for you. Well, thank you all. I love you
very much. I love you. I will hopefully see you
very soon. I'm going to predict that you will see
me very soon. We can't say anything more than that,
but I will see you in a few days. All right, Well,
(36:49):
thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you, Darling. When I
was growing up, my grand father had an intense love
for lighthouses. It was probably to his detriment because then
everyone just kept giving him lighthouse themed gifts for the
rest of his life, which he always graciously accepted, of course,
(37:11):
But I do remember losing count of them when we
were cleaning his office after he passed. I don't think
I fully understood the infatuation a sailor like him would
have with them until I started investigating and researching them myself.
Not only do I now understand why they still act
as beacons for so many on land and by sea,
but I can comprehend why they would be filled with
(37:34):
energy and ghosts. There's a reason I've been called to
so many to investigate, and I guarantee I will be
visiting many more and probably covering more of them here
on Haunted Road. Until then, I will leave you with this.
Don't ever forget that, just maybe you are the lighthouse
in someone's storm. I'm Amy Brunei, and this was Haunted Road. YEA.
(38:09):
Haunted Road is a production of I Heart Radio and
Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Haunted Road is hosted
and written by me Amy Bruney, additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn.
The show is edited and produced by rema El Kali
and supervising producer Josh Thing and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I
(38:31):
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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