Stories From History

In looking through newspaper articles that mention the area from the 18th-20th century, I occasionally run across some that are fun. This article was republished in The Telegraph and Messenger in Macon, Georgia on December 16, 1882. The article is titled “A Ghost in a Lighthouse” and is about Wolf Trap Lighthouse.

“Ghostly visitations have led to the resignation of A.F. Hudgins, assistant keeper of Wolf Trap Light, Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Hudgins declared that knocks and other noises were heard all over the house, and a young lady, lying in bed, received a slap in the face, and on a light being produced it was found the blow had left the print of a ghostly hand on the lady’s cheek. Matthews [sic] county is aroused over the matter, and watch parties have nightly tried to discover the cause of the visitations, but have failed.”

The lighthouse that is mentioned in the story is not the same one that is standing today. In January of 1893, an ice storm struck. Keeper John Thomas wrote that he “felt a dreadful foreboding” and an unseen voice told him to flag down a steamer that was stuck in the ice nearby and abandon the light. Shortly after he had left, the house was ripped from its screwpile foundation. Several days later the lighthouse was found partially submerged near Thimble Shoals with only the roof and the lantern above the water.

$70,000 for the construction of the current lighthouse was approved by Congress on March 3, 1893 and the light was lit on September 20, 1894. Wolf Trap remained a manned light station until 1971 when it was automated, prior to that, it was one of the last non-automated lights on the Chesapeake. It was deactivated in 2017 when the Coast Guard declared that the structure was no longer safe for personnel to access and maintain the light. There is no mention whether the ghost is still there or not.

TellTale