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Lighthouses are famous for their hauntings, or so I gather from watching the Travel Channel for a few hours of ghost hunting shows (save your get-well cards; I'm recovering). Those shows are popular now, or so I infer, given their prevalence. Brave teams of paranormal investigators visit haunted locations and find no compelling evidence of ghosts, time after time, location after location. And there are dozens of these shows, each with enthusiastic audiences captivated by no proof of ghosts. It's a winning formula.
One recurring ingredient in that formula is lighthouses, which are invariably haunted.
It's been a dream of mine to one day live in a lighthouse. They're irresistible, set on craggy rocks most of the time, overlooking the ocean. The wind, the spray, the weather and waves, all combine for a perfect environment for a pipe smoker.
Maybe that's why they're all haunted. The lighthouse keepers are all smokers, are comfortable, and don't view their own deaths as a particularly compelling reason to leave. I probably wouldn't, either, so I should probably avoid lighthouses, though I'd make an excellent, if somewhat sarcastic, ghost.
The historic lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida, is especially haunted, with two tobacco-loving ghosts who sometimes make themselves known through the aroma of their tobaccos. It seems that anytime a visitor smells tobacco, it's attributed to a ghost. Why tobacco is so unusual that it's mentally linked only to generations long past is a topic for another time.
Peter Rasmussen, a former St. Augustine lighthouse keeper who took his own life, is a cigar smoking ghost who still wanders around the lighthouse, and guests sometimes smell his cigar. But sometimes they smell "sweet tobacco," which is not cigar smoke. For pipe smoking ghosts, we look to Joseph Andreu, who fell to his death in 1859 while painting the outside of the lighthouse tower.
St. Augustine is the oldest city in the U.S., so it has plenty of ghosts. There are ghost tours galore available for anyone with an interest. But the lighthouse is where we pipe smokers want to visit. On any one of the 219 steps up the tower, we might be met by sweet tobacco smoke, and it's only polite to stop and share a pipe.
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Comments
Chuck — I enjoy reading everything you write. But now you’ve planted in me a desire to go clear across the country from where I live in San Francisco in order to tour a lighthouse in Florida, which is rather inconvenient.
Hi Chuck . I have a little story to tell about my experience at the St. Augustine lighthouse. It was probably 30 years ago when I went there. I got out of my car with my wife and kids and we started walking toward the office/welcome center. Well , while walking the first 50 feet toward the lighthouse I strangely felt as if somebody was right behind me. My wife was just ahead of me as we were discussing the history of the lighthouse and as we looked toward it , our two children were giggling and skipping along just ahead of us. I had a heavy feeling that someone was walking very close behind me and I kept looking , turning around, and actually stopping to look ! I clearly remember my wife saying c'mon the kids are waiting up there for us as I fell behind . It just felt so real , that feeling of like when you know somebody is starring at you or following too close behind you and just watching you .. I kept walking and then I undoubtedly, smelled pipe tobacco , and again I stopped and turned and I think I might have actually said there must have been someone that walked by us that was smoking a pipe . Then I finally caught up with my family and the woman at the office was there smiling to greet us and I told her what I experienced and she had a big grin and said that every once in a while someone tells her that they smelled and felt like they're being followed ! I actually got goose bumps because I know what I felt and that smell was as if I was standing there with a person that was smoking a pipe ! It was a pretty awesome experience that I'll never forget! cheers - ron from Florida.
It has been a dream of mine, as well, to live in a lighthouse...also, a log cabin, a stone and timber home, or a Hobbit home (one day, when I hit the lottery). I have a large illustrated, coffee table, book on lighthouses. I can lose track of time looking at those photos. Great article with some humor, and I enjoyed Ron's story too!
To add to Ron's story, I had a similar experience when I tried LSD for the first time in highschool back in 1989... without the smell of pipe tobacco.