Phantoms of the Minot's Ledge Lighthouse

A mile east of Scituate, Massachusetts is a slice of rock that at low tide is just above the crashing waves of the northeastern coast. Now known as Minot's Ledge, when the first white settlers arrived in the area, they found the Native Americans to be terrified of it.

Their stories told of a man-eating monster that lived amongst the bluffs overlooking the ledge. They called him Hobomock and they believed when Hobomock grew angry, he unleashed terrible storms which often destroyed their villages and killed many of their people. To appease Hobomock, the natives made frequent offerings to him by paddling out at low tide to leave food, ornaments and flowers on the rock. Most of the time their offerings kept him happy and sleeping peacefully, but occasionally he woke up in a bad mood and rejected their offerings. He would then rise from beneath the waves, tear into the shore with ferocious winds and waves and cause the Indians to flee inland, away from Hobomock's terrible fury.

Of course the Europeans didn't believe the native peoples and never made offerings. For almost 300 years, they paid the price. Time and again Hobomock rose up to smash ships and drown sailors. During even the mildest of storms, the rocky ledge was covered with waves and impossible for the ship's captains to see and avoid it. Few, if any, obstacles along the east coast caused as many lost ships and took as many human lives as Minot's Ledge. When the count went over 400, there was great demand for the government to do something.

There was a reason no actions were taken previously. Building a lighthouse on the ledge, no matter how much it was needed, was considered impossible. Anything built there would be totally exposed to the full force of the ocean storms and would be battered to pieces. That is, until a lighthouse inspector named I. W. P. Lewis came up with a radical suggestion. Instead of the normal cylindrical tower built on the rocks, it was proposed this lighthouse be built upon eight iron pilings, each of which would be sunk 5 feet into the rocks and cemented into place. The theory was the lighthouse structure containing the light and the keepers living quarters would be high above any waves and the eight iron legs would offer almost no resistance to the crashing water.

With the great need for something to be done for the safety of ships and seamen, the Treasury Department authorized the funds and the building commenced in early 1847. Numerous times storms would sweep drilling rigs and construction equipment off the rocks and into the sea, but work was always started again. Finally, after 3 years of labor, the lighthouse was put into service on New Year's Day, 1850.

Mr. Lewis declared the structure would weather even the harshest storm with no damage, but the first keeper, Isaac Dunham, quickly declared his misgivings. Living in the lighthouse, he claimed he could feel it swaying in a strong wind and the iron legs would groan and bend as they were hit by waves. Many of his official reports indicated his concerns. His beloved assistant at the isolated lighthouse was a cat which helped keep the population of rats down and provided him with much needed companionship. His feline friend evidently felt their home was unsafe as well. He never seemed to relax and constantly alerted and ran from one room to another. One day during a storm, the lighthouse suddenly jerked as an exceptionally large wave hit it and the cat was so startled, it ran through a door which had come open and jumped over the rail. Unfortunately, there was nothing below but a raging sea and the cat was lost. When the storm finally abated the next day, Isaac rowed back to land in the station's boat and quit his post. He had been on the job for exactly 9 months.

Within several weeks, a man named John Bennett was hired to replace Isaac. Because of the isolation and damage the structure had suffered which needed to be repaired, two assistants were hired with him. A month after his hiring, John came back to town on shore to purchase supplies. While there, a vicious storm came up and he was forced to stay in town. The storm grew even worse and huge waves pounded the shore. Bennett began to wonder if the lighthouse and his two assistants, Joseph Antoine and Joseph Wilson, would survive. Bennett was looking through binoculars toward the lighthouse from the building where he had taken shelter when at 1:00 in the afternoon, he saw the iron legs begin to sag back toward land and he knew right off the lighthouse and his two friends were doomed. Within minutes the whole structure collapsed. Several days later, the battered and bloated bodies of the assistants were recovered from the rocks where they had been thrown by the storm.

Within a year, construction was begun on a new lighthouse, one that would actually be able to withstand the pounding of the ocean waves. Over the next 8 years, a tower was built with huge granite blocks laying in parallel on top of foundation stones weighing two tons each. Now, more than 150 years after it was put in service, the second lighthouse remains standing. Fully automated, the old lighthouse still sends out its light to warn ships and sailors to keep away, but even though living humans are no longer needed to keep the light burning, that doesn't mean the old station is not occupied.

For almost 100 years, lighthouse keepers, sometimes with their wives, lived in the cold, dank living quarters. Often stranded for weeks at a time due to stormy seas making the trip to land too dangerous in the station's small boat, they endured isolation and stifling boredom. One thing many of them came to agree on was that the old stone tower was haunted.

A look in the official logbooks reveals many strange occurrences. Keepers often noted a tap, tap, taping on the granite walls of the tower. They heard pounding on the doors even during storms when nobody could possibly be out there. And often, they heard voices which seemed to come from all directions at once. In a number of cases, keepers would abruptly quit upon being able to get back into town. Some would just say they didn't want to talk about it. Others said they had to leave before they went mad. A few said they couldn't stand the voices anymore.

Nobody has lived at the Minot's Ledge Lighthouse since it was automated in 1947, but fishermen who pass the lighthouse on their way into Scituate harbor often report seeing the dark figure of a man climbing the iron ladder leading to the outer door. They say the man calls out to them in a foreign language that sounds like Portuguese. Historians note that Joseph Antoine, one of the assistants killed in the collapse of the first structure, was born and raised in Portugal.

And sometimes, boaters who have passed the lighthouse say they have seen, and heard, a very wet and anxious cat standing on the station's boat landing, squalling at the top of its lungs.