St. Augustine Lighthouse

St. Augustine was the site of the first lighthouse established in Florida by the new, territorial, American Government in 1824. According to some archival records and maps, this "official" American lighthouse was placed on the site of an earlier watchtower built by the Spanish as early as the late 16th century. The Map of St. Augustine depicting Sir Francis Drake's attack on the city by Baptista Boazio, 1589, shows an early wooden watch tower near the Spanish structure, which was described as a "beacon" in Drake's account. By 1737, Spanish authorities built a more permanent tower from coquina taken from a nearby quarry on the island. Archival records are inconclusive as to whether the Spanish used the coquina tower as a lighthouse, but it seems likely given the levels of maritime trade by that time. The structure was regularly referred to as a "lighthouse" in documents dating to the British Period beginning in 1763.

In 1783, the Spanish once again took control of St. Augustine, and once again the lighthouse was improved

The lighthouse and surrounding buildings have a long history of supposed paranormal activity. Allegedly, visitors and workers have seen moving shadows, heard voices and unexplained sounds, and seen the figures of two little girls standing on the lighthouse catwalk (who purportedly were daughters of Hezekiah Pittee, Superintendent of Lighthouse Construction, during the 1870s; the girls drowned in an accident during the building of the tower). Other reports are of a woman seen on the lighthouse stairway or walking in the yard outside the buildings, and the figure of a man who roams the basement.[11] The male figure is said possibly to be that of Civil War hero and former lighthouse keeper William A. Harn.[attribution needed]

Stories like these have led The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) to the scene where they shot an episode of the SyFy show Ghost Hunters. During this episode, TAPS claims to have captured a few mysterious incidents on video in the lighthouse such as a disembodied voice of a woman crying "help me" and a shadowy figure was supposedly recorded on video moving about the stairs above them. Also, one of their DVR cameras captured what appeared to be figure looking over the railing of the lighthouse.

Due to the success of the first investigation, TAPS later returned for a follow-up investigation and experienced similar incidents.