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Haunted Lighthouses - Point Lookout Light |
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Author: Denise Villani  The Point Lookout Lighthouse sits on a peninsula that marks
the entrance to the Potomac River in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. The area was
known as a pleasant vacation place prior to the Civil War. It was originally
part of St. Michael's Manor, which was owned by the first governor of Maryland.
The point had been used as a summer resort, complete with beach cottages and a
wharf. The addition of the lighthouse had served to add to the charm of the
region.
In 1825, the Federal Government determined that a light needed
to be built at Point Lookout to warn ships of the shoals and to mark the
entrance to the Potomac River.
The lighthouse was constructed in 1830 as
a one-and-a-half story wood and masonry building. This first lighthouse was of
little use in navigation since the lantern stood only 24 feet off the ground. It
was rebuilt in 1883 as the current two-story structure and the light was raised
to 40 feet.
A fog bell tower was added in 1872 and then upgraded in
1889. In 1883, the second story was added to the house to enable the dwelling to
house two keepers and their families. In 1927, the house was enlarged to its
present size and turned into two separate apartments, each with six rooms and a
bath. Electricity was also added around the same timeframe. 
Civilian keepers continued to
tend the light full-time until 1979, even though it had been transferred to the
Coast Guard back in 1939. In 1951, the Navy started buying and building up the
property around the lighthouse. In 1965 the light was deactivated and the
structures completely turned over to the navy.
The Civil War completely
transformed the point from a pleasant vacation spot to a place scarred with
permanent reminders of what had occured on the landscape. Hammond General
Hospital was constructed in 1862 to care for wounded Union soldiers. The next
year, the Union began holding Confederate prisoners at the hospital. As a
result, Camp Hoffman, the civil war's largest prison camp, was constructed near
the hospital. The prison camp held as many as 20,000 prisoners at one point. The
prison grounds were filthy, very overcrowded and quickly became a breeding
ground for disease.
When all was said and done, nearly 4,000 men had
died at the camp from disease, starvation or exposure. Their bodies were buried
in various locations on or near the lighthouse grounds. In later years when
these gravesites were threatened by erosion, they were relocated to a spot just
north of Point Lookout.
The trauma and death associated with the prison
camp may help explain the many strange, paranormal events that have been
reported by lighthouse keepers and visitors over the years, thus earning it the
title of "America's most haunted lighthouse".
In the years following the
end of the war, the onslaught of reports of paranormal occurances in the area
began. There were reports of strange noises such as footsteps, snoring, foul
odors, lights going on and off, and disembodied voices carrying on
conversations, laughing, singing happy tunes or even calling for help. One woman
was reportedly awakened in the middle of the night to someone calling her name,
but no one was there. Some of these strange sounds have actually been recorded
by paranormal investigators over the years.
In addition to the sounds,
there have also been numerous reports of apparitions. The most popular of the
appartions reported is that of the first lighthouse keeper, Ann Davis, who has
been seen standing at the top of the stairs wearing a long, navy blue skirt and
white shirt, her normal daily attire.
There have also been reports of
transparent figures, possibly in civil war uninforms, moving around in the
basement and roaming the grounds outside the lighthouse seemingly searching for
their graves that were moved more than a century ago.
Paranormal
investigations have been going on for years at Point Lookout. As previously
mentioned, some of the investigators have recorded audio proof of other-worldly
goings-on. Audio evidence presents twenty-four distinct voices eminating from
various locations in the lighthouse. The voices were of both men and women
speaking and singing. One voice, believed to be that of a union guard at the
prison camp, was recorded saying: "fire if they get too close to you". Another
appears to be that of the former keeper Ann Davis saying: "My house".
In
2002, the Navy set in motion a complete restoration of the lighthouse exterior.
The structure was painted in accordance with it's color scheme from 1927. The
lighthouse was turned over to the State of Maryland in 2006. A few months later,
the Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society was founded to raise funds to
restore the lighthouse and making it accessible to the public by turning it into
a museum.
The lighthouse remains on Navy property and is currently
fenced off and not openly accessible to the public. Around Halloween, the
location is occasionally open in the daytime for open houses and sometimes in
the evening for limited night-time paranormal investigations.
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