Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses

By Dianna Stampfler

Travel Michigan’s coast—and into the state’s history—with otherworldly tales of the spirits of those who sought to keep its waters safe. 
 
Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state, with more than 120 dotting its expansive Great Lakes shoreline. Many of these lighthouses lay claim to haunted happenings. Former keepers like the cigar-smoking Captain Townshend at Seul Choix Point and prankster John Herman at Waugoshance Shoal near Mackinaw City maintain their watch long after death ended their duties. At White River Light Station in Whitehall, Sarah Robinson still keeps a clean and tidy house, and a mysterious young girl at the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse seeks out other children and female companions. Countless spirits remain between Whitefish Point and Point Iroquois in an area well known for its many tragic shipwrecks. Join author and Promote Michigan founder Dianna Stampfler as she recounts the tales from Michigan’s ghostly beacons.
 
“Haunting tales of Michigan’s lighthouses . . . Her stories come from lighthouse museums, friends and family.”—Great Lakes Echo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781439666302

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Michigan doesn’t have an official state structure, but if it did, it would likely be either the 5-mile Mackinac Bridge (opened in 1957 and an aid to navigation itself) or a lighthouse to represent the 120 or so beacons that stand tall along more than 3,200 miles of Great Lakes freshwater shoreline.

Well before Michigan became the twenty-sixth state in the Union on January 26, 1837, lighthouses were becoming a recognized part of the landscape, serving as navigational aids for shipping, fishing, lumbering and mining industries that shaped the state’s early history.

The first was Fort Gratiot, constructed at the entrance of the St. Clair River and Lake Huron in 1825 by Lucius Lyon—a pioneer, surveyor and eventual deputy surveyor general of the Michigan Territory. He later represented Michigan in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. Named after General Charles Gratiot, who engineered the construction of the nearby Fort Gratiot Military Outpost in 1814, this was one of the few European settlements north of Detroit at the time.

The city of St. Joseph was home to the first light station on Lake Michigan, dating back to 1832 (although the current range light system wasn’t built until 1906–1907). That first lighthouse was a single-story dwelling made of stone. In 1859, a new, two-story structure was built on a bluff overlooking the city. It remained operational until 1924 and was demolished in 1955. During the early years, St. Joseph also was home to the lighthouse depot for Lake Michigan until service was transferred to Milwaukee in 1917.

Construction began in 1847 on the Whitefish Point Light Station on Lake Superior, regarded as the most important beacon on that body of water as all vessels entering and leaving the lake must pass by. It was near Whitefish Point, in 1975, that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank on November 10 during an early-season squall. It is no wonder this treacherous shoreline of Lake Superior is known as the Graveyard of the Great Lakes, as there are more shipwrecks here than any other locale on the lake.

On a national level, all lighthouses were administered by the U.S. Treasury’s Lighthouse Establishment, which was formed in 1791. After great dissatisfaction with the administration of these lights, responsibility for them was removed from the Treasury Department by an act of Congress in 1853 and transferred to the U.S. Lighthouse Board, which became the second agency of the federal government to take over responsibility for the construction and maintenance of all lights and other navigation aids. Around 1910, it fell to the Lighthouse Service, under the Department of Commerce, to maintain these maritime structures. The Lighthouse Service merged with the U.S. Coast Guard in 1939.

Serving as a lighthouse keeper in the mid- to late 1800s and into the early twentieth century was a government position often hired by the office of the president of the United States. During the Civil War and in the years that followed, many veterans found work serving as keepers, including Captain James S. Donahue in South Haven and Aaron Sheridan on South Manitou Island. Despite both men being wounded in battle with what many would consider debilitating injuries (Donahue lost a leg and Sheridan lost the use of an arm), these heroic keepers were diligent in their duties of tending to their respective lights and also assisted with lifesaving duties as needed.

Tending a lighthouse wasn’t a job one took lightly. Most of the keepers who accepted the challenging role did so with a great sense of pride and dedication—like Captain William Robinson at White River Light Station in Whitehall. He was instrumental in the construction of the light, and he was named its first official keeper in 1875—a position he held for forty-four years before passing away at the light in 1919 at the age of eighty-seven.

For others, lighthouse keeping was a family business with duties shared among husbands and wives, children and grandchildren, uncles and nephews, brothers and sisters. This was the case with Julia Tobey Brawn Way in Saginaw, who served as keeper when her husband, Peter, became disabled and was unable to tend to the light. She ended up outliving two husband keepers and working alongside her son, Dewitt.

Many question why so many of Michigan’s lighthouses are rumored to be haunted, and questions arise as to who these spirits really are. Nearly one-fifth of all the lights in the state, past and present, have a ghostly story to be told.

Maybe it is the tragic deaths that occurred during those early days when ships sank and keepers risked or lost their lives in the line of duty that creates these unsettled souls. Such is the case at Big Bay Point Lighthouse, northwest of Marquette, where a distraught William Prior took his own life after his son died from an injury sustained while tending the light.

And it can be expected that local lore has something to do with the legends that are passed on from generation to generation, growing like tall tales, something akin to fake news in today’s world of digital media.

Dick Moehl once told me something to the effect that every lighthouse worth a grain of salt has a good ghost story, and if there isn’t one, you just make one up.

Regardless of the truthfulness of the ghost stories, the histories of the lighthouses and their keepers are well documented in Michigan’s past, and thanks to dedicated individuals who have worked tirelessly to preserve them, their future looks bright as well.

If you have a ghost story to share, please email [e-mail].

LAKE MICHIGAN

1

SOUTH HAVEN KEEPER’S DWELLING

Nearly 150 years after he first began his service at the lighthouse in South Haven, James Samuel Donahue remains one of the town’s most noted historical figures. Maybe that is because he continues to make his presence known to those who work and visit the keeper’s residence where he raised his family and dedicated his life to protecting those who traveled the waters of the Black River and Lake Michigan.

Today, the residence is home to more than Donahue’s ghost—it is a library and research facility operated by the Michigan Maritime Museum. Staff, researchers and volunteers have long shared accounts of mysterious goings-on inside the home, from the creaking of floorboards upstairs when no one was there to opening and closing of doors. However, the ghost is more of a presence than a nuisance. Donahue, like many of the other spirits that linger at Michigan lights, simply feels more comfortable inside the protective walls of his one-time home.

Yet not everyone who has had access to this building over the years has had the pleasure of meeting its resident spirit.

I haven’t seen any ghosts at the keeper’s house. I guess I’m forewarned in any case, Kenneth Pott said in a 2000 article in the Herald Palladium, a St. Joseph, Michigan–based newspaper. Pott served nineteen years as a curator and archaeologist at the Michigan Maritime Museum and over the years has been active with the Michigan Museums Association Board, American Association of Museums, Historical Society of Michigan and Western Michigan University’s Frederick S. Upton Fellowship Program in Public History.

James Samuel Donahue enlisted in June 1861 as a private in Company A, Eighth Michigan Infantry, fighting in several battles during the Civil War. Michigan Maritime Museum.

Born to Irish immigrants Manday and Nellie (Loan) Donahue on March 18, 1840, in Addison County, Vermont, James Samuel Donahue was one of seven children. At the age of twelve, he took a job on a whaling ship, sailing around the Pacific and Arctic Oceans for nearly four years before returning to the New England area. He landed in Detroit shortly thereafter and enlisted in June 1861 as a private in Company A, Eighth Michigan Infantry, fighting in the Civil War.

Donahue was active in several battles, taking a hit to his shoulder during an engagement on James Island, South Carolina. He was laid up for several weeks but returned to the front line and saw action at Cumberland Gap, Antietam and Strawberry Plains, Tennessee, among other battles.

On May 6, 1864, his left leg was struck by a conical-shaped Minié ball, resulting in an amputation at the thigh. Discharged four months later, he returned to Detroit before moving to Gratiot County (in the center of the Lower Peninsula), where he married Sophia Oberlin on June 17, 1872.

During this time, the port town of South Haven was taking shape around Michigan’s thriving lumbering industry. A large sawmill was constructed in 1866 by George Hannas, followed by a series of stores, hotels, saloons and churches. Tourists came next, followed by a growing agricultural industry in an area later referred to as the Fruit Belt due to a lake-effect climate that provides the ideal conditions. With an influx of traffic along the area waterways, harbor improvements became increasingly important.

As the Army Corps of Engineers worked to increase the width of the channel and extend the piers, the Lighthouse Board requested an appropriation of $6,000 in 1868 for the construction of a pier-head beacon and keeper’s dwelling. However, Congress later recalled unexpended funds, putting an immediate halt to the project.

Back on track by 1871, a 30-foot-tall wooden light with an octagonal cast-iron lantern was built at the end of the pier. A 75-foot-long wooden catwalk was also erected, allowing the keeper to access the light tower even when waves were crashing over the pier below. Captain W.P. Bryan was the first keeper, activating the light for the first time in 1872. Shortly thereafter, the keeper’s residence was constructed on a bluff overlooking the Black River just a short 1,125-foot walk from the light.

Captain Bryan’s tenure in South Haven was short lived, and he was removed from service at the end of the 1873 season. The South Haven Sentinel reported on his departure on November 15, 1873:

Capt. W.P. Bryan received notice Monday evening from the Secretary of the Treasury that his services as lighthouse keeper at this port were no longer necessary. No successor was named in the letter, neither has the Captain an intimation as to who his successor is to be. Justice to humanity demanded that there should be a light on the pier, and the Captain has attended to it through the week notwithstanding his peremptory dismissal without any known cause. The management of the light during the past season has been satisfactory to every sailor, and if the Captain was discharged on any report made, we think the Secretary should listen to the appeals of our citizens for reinstatement. We have several times been opposed to the Captain in local matters, but we have no hesitation in saying that as Director of our Union School and attending to the needs in the night time of our marine friends he has proven himself the right man in the right place.

The following March, thirty-four-year-old, one-legged Donahue accepted the position of acting lighthouse keeper—the second of only six men to officially tend the light. He and Sophia moved to the shoreline community where, on March 17, 1875, they welcomed their only son, Edward M. Donahue. Sadly, Sophia passed away just four months later, on July 3, at the age of twenty-seven.

The captain’s log book for that

Reviews for Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses

[carol420 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It was a really short little book but filled with really good information about and photos of the many allegedly haunted lighthouses that cover my beautiful state of Michigan. It's divided by the lighthouses' locations on 3 of the 5 Great Lakes...Michigan ,Superior and Huron. I believe that she has another book out that covers the Upper Peninsular. I was surprise to see that I had visited 5 of the lighthouses' features here and I plan to see many of the others in the future. Proof that ghost story enthusiast will go out of their way to pursue a good haunt.