The Ghosts of the St. Augustine Lighthouse, Florida

On the coast of Florida, where the Tolomato and Matanzas Rivers spill out into the unforgiving waters of the Atlantic, stands one of America's oldest and most haunted structures, the St. Augustine Lighthouse. 

Standing 164 feet tall, nestled on the northern edge of Anastasia Island since the mid 1500s, this lone sentry has seen its fair share of history- for better or for worse. From the colonization of the Americas, to the Hundred Years' War, to the birth of a nation and it's subsequent divide, the St. Augustine Lighthouse has stood watch, year after year, through plagues and power struggles, as a beacon of hope in the darkness. 

And it has left a mark. 

You may not see it at first, but it's there. Looking up at its twisted, black and white striped base, capped with a blood-red crown, you can almost sense it. That something is off. But it isn't until you've run your fingers along its coquina walls, a mixture of limestone and broken shells, that you can really feel it- what the centuries and the salt have carved out like ancient runes. 

It holds memories. 

On the ground floor living quarters, where so many lighthouse keepers have laid their heads over the years, the raw, almost sickly-sweet smell of a freshly lit cigar can be detected, subtle beneath the ocean air. Remnants of a different time, when men huddled around wood-burning stoves and waited out the storms, praying that no lives would be lost on their watch. 

Inside the lighthouse proper, climbing the tall, spiraling staircase, the sound of crashing waves and screeching seagulls is dampened by the thick walls. The sudden quiet is almost welcome, until a new sound emerges: the bell-like ringing of a little girl's laughter. It starts at the top of the stairs, high above your head, and works its way down, down, down, until it is silenced, abruptly. 

In the red room at the very top, the beacon itself sits staring like a giant glass eye, seeing through time to the world that was before. You step out onto the catwalk, taking in Anastasia Island and the enormity of the sea beyond. It feels like you could be one of those lone lighthouse keepers, on duty, eyes on the horizon. That is until you see her, a shadow of a woman in the corner of your eye, holding onto the railing and leaning out into the open air- until she isn't. 

You too grip the railing, white-knuckles, looking out over the trees to the water beyond. You can't help but wonder what it would feel like if you stepped out too? To be nothing more than another memory left behind at the St. Augustine Lighthouse, standing watch and waiting as the centuries slipped by and history rewrote itself. 

Like all hauntings, the spirits that roam the grounds of the St. Augustine Lighthouse didn't just appear from nothing. Over the hundreds of years that the structure has stood, many people have come and gone, lived and died, and a few have even remained. The sightings that have been recorded on Anastasia Island have roots that go deep into the history of the lighthouse, much of which is now known to us.

in 1859 while putting on a fresh coat of paint. 

Regardless of who "The Man" is, it's clear that his shift has never ended.

And who can forget the children's laughter that bubbles up from thin air and moves across the grounds, from the caretaker's home to the hop of the lighthouse itself, as if it has a life of its own. While children weren't uncommon on Anastasia Island, especially in more recent years, there are only so many children who have had a reason to stay. 

In 1872, the lighthouse was under construction, overseen by a man named Hezekiah Pittee, who stayed on the island with his wife and two daughters while the project was underway. One afternoon, while Pittee's daughters and a few of their friends were playing near the lighthouse, tragedy struck, and the island was changed forever. 

There was a rail cart that the construction crew used to transport supplies from the nearby pier to the lighthouse, and it had become part of the girls' favorite game: pretending they were Spanish pirates moving their hoarded treasure to a secret location. Only one day, while rolling near the cliff's edge, the rail cart came off its tracks, sending the young girls down into the water below. Some of them were rescued in time, but, unfortunately, both of Mr. Pittee's daughters were lost to the sea. 

If anything can be said, it's that the children now get to play long after dark. We know because employees of the St. Augustine lighthouse still hear their giggles ringing out in the night, and have been known to find the dirty, child-sized footprints on the floors the next morning.