Post by Graveyardbride on Apr 28, 2021 19:31:08 GMT -5
Spirit of the Amelia Island Lighthouse
In daylight, only the tip of the 64-foot conical tower is visible above the treetops in historic Fernandina Beach, a small town in extreme northeastern Florida. But as night descends upon the quaint Victorian village, an iridescent white light flashes above even the tallest oaks and pines as the Amelia Island Lighthouse sends its powerful beam 19 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Originally constructed on Cumberland Island, Georgia, some three miles north of its present location, the tower was dismantled, brick-by-brick, and reassembled on Amelia Island in 1838, making it the oldest existing lighthouse in the state of Florida. With the light, came its keeper, Amos Latham, a Revolutionary War veteran who had been keeper of the Cumberland light since 1829, and his wife Janet.
Latham, who was 78 when he assumed his duties at Amelia Island, realized he didn’t have many years left. As a consequence, he told everyone who would listen that when he died, he wished to be buried within sight of the lighthouse he loved so dearly.
Janet Latham died November 24, 1940, and Latham and a few friends committed her remains to the earth on a little hill within sight of the lighthouse. Just a year-and-a-half later, on April 28, 1842, while painting the inside of the tower with the aid of an assistant, Latham, without warning, suddenly laid down his paintbrush, and grasping the railing to keep from toppling forward, feebly sat down on one of the cold granite steps and breathed his last. The dedicated old keeper – on the job until the bitter end – was laid to rest beside his wife.
Lighthouse keepers, for the most part, were a superstitious lot and in their repertoire of superstitions was the belief that each lighthouse had an individual spirit – something they called the “Spirit of the Light.” Many light stations, particularly those in isolated areas, were the scenes of madness, suicide and murder, but no such dark deeds had occurred at Amelia Island. It was generally accepted among keepers that old Amos Latham provided the “spirit” of the Amelia Island Light. So in spite of the mosquitoes and intense summer heat, the location became a choice assignment because it was considered a “cheerful” lighthouse.
Nonetheless, as the years passed, there were occasional changes at the Amelia Island Light: In 1856, a third-order Fresnel lens was installed, but just five years later, in 1861, the light was extinguished and remained dark for the duration of the War Between the States. A new lantern was placed atop the tower in 1881, raising the overall height by 14 feet. In 1920, a red sector was added to the sentinel to warn mariners of dangerous shoals to the south, and the light was converted to electricity in 1935. Even in 1956, when the station was automated, Coast Guard personnel still occupied the old keeper’s quarters. Despite the march of time and progress, the peaceful aura of the Amelia Island Lighthouse remained intact.
Then, in the 1970s, the Coast Guard began selling off some of the land surrounding the lighthouse and the decision was made to relocate the graves of Amos Latham and his wife to nearby Bosque Bello Cemetery.
Ortho Brown, a Coast Guard chief petty officer who served two tours of duty at Amelia Island, claimed when the graves of the old keeper and his wife were disturbed, strange things began to happen. Men at the station discovered doors unlocked and objects moved about in the keeper’s house and at times, a strange odor – what one retired gentleman vising the station described as the “stench of death” – permeated the tower.
“Nothing like that had ever happened before they moved those graves because if it had, the men would have talked about it,” Brown insisted. “All of us that had ever worked at Amelia Island said they shouldn’t move those graves. Ol’ Amos said he wanted to be buried close to the lighthouse and they should have left him where he was.”
On several occasions, men working in the tower alone became spooked by “something” and several Coast Guardsmen admitted feeling “watched” while they were at the station. It got to the point no one wanted to remain inside the house, or go into the tower, alone. Then there was the day two men returned to the keeper’s quarters and upon opening the door, smelled what one described as “the best Sunday dinner you could imagine” coming from the kitchen. Thinking one of the other men had forgotten to turn off the stove, or someone’s wife or mother had stopped by to surprise them with a home-cooked meal, they hurried through to the kitchen, where they found a cold stove and nothing more than a few cans of Spam, corned beef hash and beans in the cupboards.
Although Latham’s body has lain in Bosque Bello Cemetery for some 50 years, the unexplained phenomena at the lighthouse continue and no one doubts the old keeper still resents having been disturbed and moved from his resting place of more than a century near his beloved lighthouse.
A local historian and lighthouse aficionado agreed with Brown and claimed that following the relocation of the graves, the aura of serenity surrounding the light disappeared.
The Amelia Island Lighthouse had lost its spirit.
Sources: Amelia Island Museum of History, Fernandina Beach, Florida; and Bosque Bello Cemetery.
