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A ghost ship,
a haunted lighthouse all part of Friday evening program -
20081103
By Laura Dolce
KENNEBUNKPORT — Sunlight shines down through flame-colored
leaves and brisk breezes sweep around town. From the surf
that pounds against the rocks along Ocean Avenue to the rolling
green fields out past Cape Porpoise along Route 9, autumn
has arrived in town.
But when the sunshine fades to dusk and the
shadows creep in, it's more than just tourists who haunt this
town: It's the spirits of those who have so loved it here
that they refuse to leave...;
It's the stories of these spirits that will
be shared at the Nonantum on Friday night as historian Barbara
Barwise shares some of the town's favorite ghost stories,
and Kathleen White, Outreach Coordinator for the Friends of
Wood Island Lighthouse, tells dark tales from the island's
past.
Barwise began sharing the town's ghost stories
years ago and has heard them all: The Rustling Lady who has
made her presence known to workers at a home on Main Street;
Ned and Nelly, two friendly spirits who still inhabit the
Gideon Merrill House, and Abigail, a woman dressed in brown
who was seen rushing up and down South Street for many years.
And while Barwise said many of the town's
inns, hotels and B&Bs are haunted — something many
innkeepers don't like to advertise — she's noticed that
many of the other locations where ghosts have been seen have
one thing in common: the ghost ship Isidore.
As Barwise tells it, the Isidore was a ship
named for the ship owner's wife, Isidore Smith. Brand new,
it was set to sail from Kennebunkport on November of 1842
to New Orleans. But from the beginning, things didn't go well.
First, the captain chosen to helm the ship
was Leander Foss, who as Barwise says "had already deep-sixed
the Horace," another ship. Then, when the ship was launched
it stuck and couldn't get down the Kennebunk River.
"It was a bad omen," Barwise said.
And the superstitious sailors didn't like it.
"They told tales," she said. "One
said he heard a dog howling for three days straight. One had
a dream that there were seven coffins lined up on a pier and
someone telling him, 'one's for you.'"
One sailor was so spooked, Barwise said, that
he hid in the woods for three days and wouldn't return to
the ship.
On Nov. 30, the ship finally left port on
a becalmed sea. During the night, though, the wind picked
up and a storm blew in.
"It was a 'Noreaster," Barwise said.
"And it brought snow."
In the morning, the ruins of the Isidore were
discovered off Bald Head Cliff in York, where the ship had
broken up on the rocks. The bodies of some of the doomed seamen
had been tossed up on the snowy shore.
"Exactly seven bodies were found,"
Barwise said. "The rest were never located."
Those young Kennebunkport men — seven
of the 15 who set out that day — are buried throughout
town, Barwise said.
"And all the young men are buried in
areas where ghosts appear," she added.
Legend also has it that the Isidore has been
spotted out at sea on stormy nights, with her sails furled
and a crew of doomed Kennebunkport sailors who never made
it home alive.
A few miles up the coast, the Wood Island
Lighthouse has seen both its share of history and of hauntings.
In fact, the Friends of the Wood Island Lighthouse invited
the New England Ghost Project, a team of paranormal investigators,
to visit the lighthouse a few years back as a fundraiser.
"We took the boat over and stayed overnight,"
White said. "Different events indicated there is paranormal
life on the island."
The investigators included experts in thermal
imaging, voice detection and a medium among others, White
said. And while several incidents were witnessed, one was
particularly haunting.
"There was one spirit of a man who kept
repeating, 'I didn't mean to do it,'" White said.
Through research, the Friends were able to
determine that the spirit was Howard Hobbs, a lobsterman and
heavy drinker who rented a chicken coop to live in from game
warden Frederick W. Milliken on the island. On June 1 in 1896,
when Milliken visited Hobbs to demand back rent, the already-drunk
Hobbs shot and killed him.
Wild with remorse, he ran to tell the lighthouse
keeper what he had done. The keeper urged him to turn himself
in. Instead, Hobbs shot himself and died on the island. His
spirit, heavy with remorse, remains there to this day.
The lighthouse, built in 1808 at the mouth
of the Saco River right across from Biddeford Pool, is undergoing
a transformation, thanks to the Friends who are restoring
it and sharing its history with the world.
Even if some of the history is a little bit
scary ...;
"There is a presence in that tower,"
White said.
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