The Distraught Female Ghost
Boon Island Lighthouse, York, Maine
| In 1874, First Assistant Keeper Lucas Bright arrived at Boon Island Lighthouse with his new bride Katherine. Four months after they arrived on the tiny barren rock, gale force winds from a severe storm were blowing across the tiny island, sending huge waves over the rock, which is only 14 feet above sea level. Feeling ill from the past week and physically exhausted, Lucas White tried to secure the island's boat, but slipped on the rocks and drowned. |
Early Boon Is Light |
His wife Katherine saw the accident and managed to pull her husband’s body ashore, then dragging it to the lighthouse, leaving his body at the foot of the stairs. For five days and nights during this seemingly endless storm, Katherine stricken with grief, took over all the lighthouse duties. She ate and slept little. Each day she climbed the tower's 168 stairs and lit the lamp to protect any mariners during the constant storms and high waves.
On the sixth day when the storms had finally passed over, Katherine was too exhausted and tormented to light the lighthouse, causing the light to cease. Fishermen from York investigated, and found Katherine Bright driven mad by grief and exhaustion, sitting on the bottom of the stairs holding the frozen corpse of her husband. She and her husband's corpse were taken ashore, but by that time she'd completely lost her mind. She died only a few weeks later after being rescued.
Over the years afterwards, many mariners and keepers have laid claim to have seen a ghostly figure of a young sad faced woman shrouded in white on the rocks at dusk, sometimes sounds of moans and screeches were also claimed to have also been heard.
Some Great References:
http://www.hauntedlighs.com
http://www.wintersteel.com/Haunted_Placesp4.html
http://www.cyberlights.com/cgi-bin/showlight.cgi?id=me01
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boon_Island_Light
http://www.lighthousedepot.com/
http://www.pbs.org/legendarylighthouses/html/mainegs.html