Ghost Hunters will be shooting an episode at the Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse ion October October 6 and 7, according to Jeremy D’Entremont, co-chairman of the Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse. The Sci-Fi channel television show airs weekly on Wednesdays.

A recent communication from Jeremy included the latest sighting of Joshua Card, the keeper alleged to haunt the lighthouse.

I met a woman who swears that, a couple of years ago, she saw the ghost of a lighthouse keeper on the walkway at Portsmouth Harbor Light. She says a friend also saw him (it). She says that later, when she first saw our photo of Keeper Joshua Card, she was sure it was the same man she saw that day.

D’Entremont has collected numerous stories for the show but is always looking for more. “If you’ve had any unusual sightings or heard something strange … I’d love to hear it, and maybe like to share it with the TV show too.”

Jeremy can be contacted through portsmouthharborlighthouse.org or e-mail FPHL@lighthouse.cc

Haunted Lighthouse Tour

And if you want to see some of New England’s haunted lighthouses in person, be sure to sign up for Jeremy’s Haunted Lighthouse Tour, a two day trip taking place October 25 and 26. Just in time for Halloween, the tour includes special guests Ron Kolek of GhostVillage.Com and New England Ghost Project, along with trance medium Maureen Wood.

The tour leaves downtown Portsmouth with a visit to Portsmouth Harbor, then goes on to Portland Head Light in Maine, and along to Owl’s Head Lighthouse (Maine), where a paranormal investigation will be conducted. Owl’s Head has been called America’s Most Haunted Lighthouse by Coastal Living Magazine.

For more information, or to sign up, visit New England Lighthouse Tours.

Seacoast Online’s columnist known as The Gossip Lady recently went ghost hunting with ALF historian Jeremy D’Entremont and New England Ghost Project’s Ron Kolek. Here’s the video of the visit.

It looks like the GSA has decided to award the Penfield Reef Lighthouse to Beacon Preservation, Inc. of Ansonia. It was thought that Fairfield was a shoe-in for the awarding of the lighthouse, said to be haunted by someone referred to as Ernie, but the GSA decided that the non-profit group had a better plan for its restoration and use.

Ken Flatto, First Selectman, had repeatedly said that the lighthouse would be closed to the public due to liability reasons. Beacon Preservations is planning to use the lighthouse as a marine research center, and will look into opening the light for limited public use in the future.

The lighthouse, which originally had several groups interested in acquiring it, including PETA for its Fish Empathy Project, ended up with only the town of Fairfield and Beacon Preservation applying for it. According to the story in the Connecticut Post, Flatto says the town of Fairfield is “very supportive” of Beacon Preservation. He said both the town and the organization have the same goals, and that is the preservation of the light, a symbol of the town. He added that if the town would have been awarded the light, they would have had to turn to a non-profit group to help anyway. The National Park Servie, inits letter outlining the decision, encourages both Beacon and the town to work together on the lighthouse preservation project.

Casey Jordan, Beacon’s president, said, “They’re expensive. It’s a lot of work,” Jordan said. “You either get it or you don’t. They’re icons not just of history but of hope.”

Hmm, perhaps he visited Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, where I functioned as a docent for several years. If we were busy and people had to wait, I’d regale the visitors with tales of local lore about haunted lighthouses, including Pemaquid, Seguin Island, Owl’s Head, Boon Island and more. If he heard my tales, it certainly inspired what sounds like a promising stage show.

The show focuses on a boy who, after his father dies in World War II, lives with his aunt in a remote, haunted lighthouse in New England. The negative, darkly comic ghosts there tell him that the Japanese lighthouse keeper is an enemy spy.

Visually, “the entire production will be very Edward Gorey-esque. Stark and dark and bare,” Powell said, adding that the music serves the story in an unconventional way, “almost like a soundtrack.”

In spring 2007 Sheik described Whisper House this way: “Basically, it’s [about] a young boy [whose] father’s killed in World War II, and the mother kind of has gone crazy, so he’s sent to live with his aunt on the coast of Connecticut. She lives in a lighthouse. And the ghosts [are] the embodiments of all his fears but also all of his desires and his confused way of making his way in this world, having lost his parents and living in this remote place that feels very haunted. I would leave it to the audience as to whether the ghosts are real or a projection of his own making. There’s a little bit of ambiguity there.

The project is commissioned by the SCA in Stamford, CT, with an eye to a possible production next October. It would certainly be great if a ghost tale I told might have inspired a musical. No way to tell, though.

A small excerpt from the article:

Ever since the light had been deactivated, there has been an inquiry as to whether the lighthouse was haunted. The person living there at the time was Gerald “Gerry” Sword. He wrote down notes of some events that he was unable to explain. Some of these events ranged from loud voices he heard in the night, especially during storms, to footsteps constantly being heard in the hallway, to hearing a sound that resembled snoring in the kitchen, and many other strange occurrences.

The last person to live in the house was Laura Berg who moved in in 1979. She made notes of her own of strange events that took place. She claimed that she heard footsteps in the hall, as well as smelling a strange odor in the kitchen. In 1980, the first paranormal investigation was conducted of the lighthouse led by Dr. Hans Holzer. The team experienced the same things Gerry and Berg experienced and concluded that it was indeed haunted.

After she moved out in 1981, the place was the subject of many investigations in which Berg or Gerry was there to assist. There were also many studies into the former keepers and history of the lighthouse. It was believed that one keeper, Pamelia Edwards, kept prisoners of war there during the Civil War. A prisoner of war camp had been in operation near Point Lookout at the time. If any ghosts are haunting the lighthouse, it could indeed be of these soldiers, or possibly of former keepers.

The article does talk about some of the lightkeepers, including the third one, William Wood, who caused several accidents at the lighthouse, including breaking several of the light’s mirrors and having a cat fall into the lantern oil barrel, thereby contaminating the supply and necessitating its replacement.

The lighthouse is only open occasionally to visitors, but it’s also available to paranormal investigative teams. More info on the lighthouse can be found at www.ptlookoutlighthouse.com.

Photo by CWBash. Some rights reserved.