Ghosts of St. Augustine

by Tom Lapham

  GHOSTS OF ST. AUGUSTINE

  Dave Lapham

  ILLUSTRATED BY TOM LAPHAM

  Copyright © 1997, 2010, 2011 by Dave Lapham

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Inquiries should be addressed to:

  Pineapple Press, Inc.

  P.O. Box 3889

  Sarasota, Florida 34230

  www.pineapplepress.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lapham, Dave, 1939—

  Ghosts of St. Augustine / Dave Lapham ; illustrated by Tom Lapham.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-1-56164-123-9 (alk. paper)

  1. Ghosts—Florida—Saint Augustine 2. Ghosts stories—Florida—Saint Augustine. I. Title

  GR110.F5L36 1997

  398.2'09759' 1805—dc21

  96-49882

  CIP

  ISBN: 9781561646395 e-book

  First Edition

  20 19 18 17 16 15 14

  Design by Carol Tornatore

  Printed in the United States of America

  To the friendly and gracious folk of

  St. Augustine,

  those living and those dead,

  and to my long-suffering wife,

  Sue

  CONTENTS

  The Ghosts of St. Augustine

  The Gallant Governor

  Harry's

  The Sentry

  The St. Francis Inn

  Henry Barnes

  Flagler College

  The Captain's House

  The Dickersons' House

  Alaska

  Toques Place

  Paffes'

  The Casablanca

  The Sisters of Hope Street

  Bert

  The Augustin Inn

  Katie's Guardian Angel

  Harold's Stories

  Gateway to Hell

  The Spencers of Vilano Beach

  Wildwood

  The Lighthouse

  Bits and Pieces

  In Closing

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A SPECIAL THANKS TO SANDY CRAIG of Tour St. Augustine, who provided contacts, stories of her own, and encouragement. I value her friendship.

  Thanks also to Karen Harvey for the information, support, and contacts she provided and to Katie Arnold of the Booksmith who introduced me to countless people and who urged me on.

  And, finally, my appreciation to all the wonderful people of the Ancient City who have offered me their stories and their hospitality.

  In gathering the stories I referred often to The Oldest City, edited by Jean Parker Waterbury, St. Augustine Historical Society, St. Augustine, FL, 1983; a series of five articles by Karen Harvey that appeared in the Compass magazine of the St. Augustine Record between May 24, 1990, and April 29, 1993; Karen Harvey's America's First City, Tailored Tours Publications, Inc., Lake Buena Vista, FL, 1992; the Site of 46 Avenida Menendez by Sheherzad Navidi of the St. Augustine Historical Society Library, 1993; The Houses of St. Augustine by David Nolan, Pineapple Press, 1995; and other historical records of the St. Augustine Historical Society Library. In addition, for each story I tried to interview at least two people with personal knowledge of the circumstances.

  PREFACE

  IN SOME CASES I HAVE ALTERED STORIES slightly, changing names, locations, and specific circumstances, in order to protect the privacy of the individuals concerned. In every case I have based my presentations on information received firsthand from individuals I believed to have personal knowledge of the story being presented.

  St. Augustine is old; it was one hundred twenty years old when Johann Sebastian Bach and George F. Handel, two of my favorite composers, were born. Its long and colorful history is rich with a unique oral tradition from which these stories were gathered. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed collecting them into this little book.

  THE GHOSTS OF ST. AUGUSTINE

  ST. AUGUSTINE IS BEST EXPERIENCED at night. In the daytime sights and sounds of a tourist town overwhelm the senses. Throngs of people, bumper-to-bumper traffic, endless rows of restaurants and shops, a constant flow of tour trolleys, raucous music of every variety from bars and stores, and a profusion of attractions all compete for attention. But at night everything is closed. Few people are about. The tour buses and trolleys have stopped running. The stores and restaurants have shut their doors. At night darkness and quiet descend; the sixth sense takes over. At night you can feel St. Augustine. The Ancient City wraps itself around you like a blanket.

  Walking the streets of America's oldest city after dark is like stepping through a time warp. In the quiet and the dark, you can smell the sweat of Spanish horses, the aroma of garlic and olive oil wafting from the kitchens. You can hear laughter and soft voices speaking in foreign tongues. Walking these streets at night can be eerie, even spooky. Stopping in front of one of the old houses on Bridge or St. Francis Streets or anywhere in the city you can feel its age. Sometimes, you can feel something else, too. You may be enveloped by a sudden warmth which is replaced by bone-chilling cold. Or maybe you feel a presence standing next to you, even when you are alone.

  Living less than two hours away, I had been in St. Augustine many times before. In fact, my wife and I sometimes drove over just for dinner. But then I had come as a tourist. Now I was here searching for ghosts. I walked slowly down St. George Street in the dark, soaking in the history. Like most of the streets south of the Plaza, St. George Street is not well lighted. The block I was now in was particularly dark. About halfway down the block I stopped in front of an old Victorian house. The house was obviously uninhabited. The bushes and plants in the front garden grew wild and reached out over the rusty wrought-iron fence that surrounded the place. Debris littered the walk—dead branches and leaves, small rocks, and dirt washed onto the concrete by the rain. The porch across the entire front of the house was also covered with leaves and branches. The two large windows on either side of the front door were not boarded up, and some of the panes were cracked and broken.

  Rain had fallen earlier, and the dampness enhanced the smell of age and decay. The broken filigree along the eaves, the peeling paint, and the rose vines casting their tentacles across the front and sides completed the ghostly picture.

  I stopped in front of the gate and stared up at the haunting structure. I stood on the walk for a long time, unable to move, mesmerized by the scene. I looked up at the second-story windows. There were three of them across the front above the porch. Shredded curtains hung from each one.

  Suddenly, I saw movement in the far left window. Something or someone moved the curtains. A shiver ran down my spine. My heart leaped into my throat. I continued staring at the window, not thirty feet away. Then the curtains parted slightly. Yes, I saw movement. The curtains did move. I strained to see better. Was there someone there? Who moved the curtains? Was it a rat? I couldn't tell, but something had moved them. Then I had the strangest sensation. I was enveloped by a numbing cold. Suddenly, I knew that I was not alone. I stood in front of the gate for several minutes. I realized that I was sweating, even on this cold December night. Finally, I gained control of myself, took a few deep breaths, and hurried back up the street toward the Plaza and my hotel.

  The next morning I called my friend, Sandy Craig of Tour St. Augustine, to make a reservation for her popular ghost tour, “A Ghostly Experience.” Sandy and Karen Harvey of the St. Augustine Record are the two foremost authorities on St. Augustine ghosts, and I planned to spend tim
e with each of them. During my conversation with Sandy, I told her about my experience of the previous evening. I could almost see her smiling over the phone.

  That evening I met Sandy and the rest of the group at the Old City Gates. After some preliminary conversation and introductions, Sandy led us over to the Huguenot Cemetery, the first stop on the tour. As we walked along, I found myself next to a woman. We introduced ourselves, and I told her I was a writer doing a book on the ghosts of St. Augustine. I discovered that she was a local psychic.

  Finally, we arrived at the rear of the cemetery, and Sandy began her gruesome story. She held us spellbound. As she talked, the psychic tugged at my sleeve. When I looked over at her, she simply put a finger to her lips, signaling silence, then redirected her gaze to a tree off to our right in the cemetery. I followed her eyes, but I saw nothing. I looked at her questioningly. Again, she pointed with her eyes to the tree. Still, I could see nothing.

  After we left the cemetery for our next stop, she asked, “Didn't you see him?”

  “See who?”

  “The man in the tree.”

  “Man in the tree?” I asked with raised eyebrows. “No. No, I didn't.”

  “Well, don't worry. I'm sure you'll get another chance.” Her look and her tone of voice were reassuring.

  The tour continued without further incident, for which I was thankful. Sandy's stories were quite chilling in their own right.

  After the tour, as the group was breaking up, I invited my newfound friend to go with me to pay a visit to the house on St. George Street. I wanted to find out if I had imagined the whole thing or if I really had seen something. She eagerly accepted, and we strode off into the night. As we walked, I related the events of the night before.

  We both fell silent as we approached the house. It looked even more ghostly and terrifying than it had the previous evening. Standing in front of the gate, I searched the windows for a glimpse of whatever I had seen the night before. Now I saw nothing. I pushed open the gate, which squealed loudly as it swung inward. I didn't want to trespass on private property, even if the dwelling were unoccupied, but I at least wanted to get up on the porch. We moved forward.

  Slowly we continued. Two paces. Three paces. Four. Five. Six. We reached the bottom step. Cautiously, we climbed one step at a time, feeling for rotten wood in the dark. The stairs creaked eerily with each footfall. Before we realized it, we stood at the front door. We stopped, and the psychic stood quietly for a few moments with her eyes closed. Then she looked at me. “Yes, there is a presence here. She is a young woman who lived here in the 1880s or ’90s and died in the house under mysterious circumstances.”

  We stared at each other a moment, then looked back at the door. I took a deep breath and exhaled. My heart was pounding. I reached out slowly put my hand on the doorknob, and twisted it.

  The door was locked.

  We stood, still and silent, for several minutes. Then, once again, I was surrounded by a bone-chilling cold. Without saying anything, my friend wrapped her arms around herself, indicating she also could feel the cold. Finally, we turned and went back out to the street, closing the gate behind us. As we walked back up the street into the light of the Plaza, adrenaline quickly drained from my system. I laughed out loud.

  That was the first such experience I'd ever had, and I hoped it wouldn't be my last.

  “Don't worry,” my psychic friend said. “If you hang around here very long, I'm sure you'll have as many thrills as you can handle.”

  THE GALLANT GOVERNOR

  ON A WARM FRIDAY EVENING in midsummer of 1981, Pat and Maggie Patterson drove up to 214 St. George Street and parked their car. They were both excited, since they had just “closed” on their dream house, one of the oldest—perhaps the oldest—and certainly one of the nicest homes in St. Augustine.

  The house was built during the First Spanish Period (1565 – 1763), probably in the early 1630s, although records are incomplete and no one knows for sure. What is certain is that it was the home of Don Pedro Benedit de Horruytinér, the Spanish Governor of Florida from 1646 to 1648 and again from 1651 to 1654. It was built and occupied previously by his uncle, Don Luis de Horruytinér, who was appointed governor in 1633 and served for several years before returning to Spain.

  Don Pedro had come to St. Augustine as a young man with his uncle, and had stayed to become a prominent and successful businessman, military commander, and community leader as well as the governor. He died here in 1684, leaving his wife, eleven children, and many grandchildren. Although his name has long since died out, his blood still runs thick in St. Augustine.

  Now, after having passed through so many hands and after all these hundreds of years, his house belonged to the Pattersons. In the gathering darkness, Pat and Maggie stood at the front door absorbing the aura of this place, the thick coquina blocks with which the house had been built, the ancient tabby wall around the garden in back, the heavy wooden balcony above them put into place long before this country became a nation. They smiled at each other as they stood there. Maggie was a woman who knew what she wanted, and she had long wanted this house. Pat's great joy was to indulge her. The antiquity of the house almost overwhelmed them, and, of course, there were the ghosts. Pat and Maggie were well aware of the history of the place and knew about the ghosts. In fact, both looked forward to living with the nearly two hundred souls from the past that purportedly occupied the site.

  “Well, if there are ghosts in here,” Maggie called out in her gentle, but matter-of-fact, voice (for she is also a lady with a presence), “I wish they'd give us a sign!” At that moment all the lights in the house mysteriously came on.

  Pat unlocked the door, and the two went inside. There was no one in the empty hallway or living room. They walked through the other rooms downstairs. No one was there. Then they went upstairs. The second floor was completely empty. There was nothing and no one. Finally, they went up to the third floor, which was unfinished. It had been added probably sometime after 1763 and apparently had never been used very much, except by Dr. Horace Lindsley, who bought the house in 1896. Behind the house, next to the old tabby wall along the street, Dr. Lindsley had built a small structure, which he used for his office. Here on the third floor he stored coffins; one of them was still here. Funny, the Lindsley family had owned this house until 1977 and had left that coffin up here all these years. Perhaps it was just too bulky to remove, so no one had bothered. Now there was nothing else here but the coffin.

  Pat and Maggie stood there for a few moments, spines tingling, savoring their own thoughts of what might have taken place up here. Then they started back downstairs, turning off lights as they went.

  At the bottom of the stairs they turned to go into the kitchen and switch off the lights there. Then they went into the dining room. As they entered the room, Maggie happened to look out the window that faced into the back garden. She caught her breath. “Pat, look!” There in the window was a man, dressed in a soldier's blue uniform, a uniform from the seventeenth century. Was it a Spanish soldier assigned to guard the governor's house? Maggie smiled. The sentry smiled back, saluted, and disappeared into thin air. Pat and Maggie looked at each other and burst out laughing. In the coming years they would see this sentry many times, and his presence would be comforting. After all, who would attempt to rob a house guarded by a ghost?

  The following week Pat and Maggie moved into the house. Until recent times the kitchen had been located in a separate building on the west side of the house. This arrangement was common throughout the South until the advent of air conditioning. It kept the unbearable heat of the cooking fires out of the house in the summer. It made the kitchen a little cooler with four outside walls, usually all with windows. And, in case of fire, only the kitchen burned down and not the whole house. On the west side near the kitchen there was a large pantry with an outside door. Food was prepared in the kitchen, brought to the pantry, then served in the dining room next to it. This pantry was Pat's office temporarily.
Although the house had recently been restored, there was still some work to be done, and Pat, with his artist's eye, was sitting in his office sketching ideas.

  He happened to look out into the dining room, and there sat a large, plump calico cat contentedly staring at him. Pat frowned. His first thought was to yell at Maggie to come get the cat and take it back to the kitchen where the other two Patterson cats stayed, for they were not allowed in any other part of the house. Then he realized that they didn't have a calico cat. “Damn,” he said to no one in particular, “I've left a door open,” but the outside door was closed. He got up from his chair and walked into the living room and hall. Both the loggia door off the living room and the front door were closed. “Where could it have gotten in?” he asked out loud as he went back into the dining room to get the cat, which still sat resting on the floor in a patch of sunlight. As he bent down to pick the cat up, it disappeared into thin air.

  Like the Spanish sentry this cat has also reappeared often throughout the years the Pattersons have lived in the house. In fact, not so long ago, when their two youngest grandsons were visiting, the boys had an experience with the cat. They had been in the kitchen with their grandmother and wanted to go upstairs to watch television. “Don't let the cats out, boys,” Maggie yelled after them as they charged out of the kitchen and down the hall. Halfway up the stairs a calico cat suddenly appeared and started downstairs. Both boys felt it brush their legs as it passed. They looked at each other and frowned. “Oh, oh,” Zack said, “a cat got out. Gramma's gonna be mad.”

  Josh thought for a moment. “Hey, wait a minute. Gramma doesn't have a calico cat.”

  Both boys raced back to the kitchen. “Gramma! Gramma! There's a calico cat on the stairs.”

  Maggie looked at them and smiled, “Never mind, boys. That's Grampa's Spanish cat.” The two shrugged and went back upstairs. The cat was gone.