Ghosts along the Texas Coast

by Docia Schultz Williams

  After Clouis and Marilyn learned they had a ghost, they began to understand why they had heard the sound of footsteps, and why other unusual things had been happening at the house. Clouis says the antics of the spirit are actually more annoying than frightening. While the Fishers have never seen their resident ghost, except for an occasional glow of light, Clouis and Marilyn both believe it is the spirit of the first man who owned the house, Leopold Bracht.

  It seems the Bracht brothers came to Rockport back in the mid-1800s. Leopold ran a successful mercantile business and thus was able to provide a large and spacious home for his growing family. The house was actually built at another location by a builder who hoped to sell it. Today we would refer to it as a “spec house.” But the house did not sell right away, standing unoccupied for several years. When Leopold Bracht bought the structure, he had it cut in half and moved to its present site by mule train! This was in 1889, when the structure was about eight years old. Here it was reassembled and made ready for occupancy. In the early 1900s, Bracht remodeled the house considerably, modifying the mansard roofline into a two-storied, gabled-roof house with wrap-around porches on two floors. Space was added to the living areas until it reached its current size of over 4,000 square feet . . . the better to accommodate the Bracht family of six daughters and one son!

  Marilyn Fisher told me that a few years after they had moved into the house, one of the Bracht daughters, then a very elderly lady past ninety, called and asked if she could have someone bring her over to see the house in which she had spent much of her childhood. Marilyn said they had a wonderful visit, and the lady told her many interesting stories about the family and the old house. She said her father, Leopold Bracht, was very strict with his daughters. He kept very careful watch over them. In fact, two of the girls never married. It seems the girls had to observe very strict curfews or Leopold would be very angry.

  Soon after the Fishers moved in, their daughter, Laura, who was in high school, started dating. She had several dates with a very nice young man from Rockport and always tried to be in by the deadline that Clouis had set of 10 p.m. Several times as she arrived at the house, just in time, the front porch lights would start to flicker on and off, off and on! Laura found this both annoying and embarrassing, and when she went in the house, she went upstairs to tell her father she didn’t appreciate that, only to find that Clouis was in bed, fast asleep! The same thing happened numerous times, and they had no explanation, except that Leopold Bracht was keeping tabs on Laura just as he had on his own daughters!

  Almost from the time they moved into the house, Marilyn said, the side door, which enters the kitchen off the front porch, would open every afternoon at 5:15 sharp. Even if the door was locked, it would somehow manage to swing open! Now, Mr. Bracht had owned a mercantile store a few blocks from his home, in the business section of Rockport. He apparently closed at five o’clock, and it would be just about 5:15 when he would arrive at home, using the side entrance. Even after they installed new locks, the screen door would often still shake as if someone were trying to gain entrance. A good “talking to” with Leopold finally put an end to that particular problem.

  The Bracht-Fisher home, Rockport

  The Fisher family cat, Samantha, a big black feline, was just a kitten in ’79 when they bought the house. But ever since she has been a resident of the place, she has been especially sensitive to Leopold’s presence. At times, she just bristles, the hair standing up in a ridge behind her neck, for no apparent reason. And sometimes she will hiss and make a sharp swat with her paw at some unknown entity. Then Clouis will say, “Well, I see it’s gotten to old Samantha again” (referring to the ghost).

  The Fishers have just learned to accept the presence of Leopold, who has been with them the entire fifteen years they have lived there. Sometimes he doesn’t make a sound for weeks at a time. Then, for no particular reason, he will make his presence known. He seems to get especially active whenever the Fishers are into a project, changing or remodeling some part of the old house. Leopold must have liked it just as it was when he lived there, and he doesn’t want any changes made. Although he did not die in the house, Bracht spent most of his time there and was probably very happy there as head of the household. It is just the most natural place for him to turn up. Fisher says many times he and Marilyn have both felt someone was staring at them. This most often happens when they are in the kitchen standing in front of the kitchen sink. When they turn around, they feel as if they almost see something out of their peripheral line of vision, but then, there is never anything there. The strange feeling that something, or someone, has been watching them still remains, however.

  Clouis told me about one night when he had just finished rewiring the house. The family was sitting around the dining room table having supper when suddenly the dining room lights went out. His daughter, Laura, looked up at the light fixture and said, “All right, Leopold, that’s enough out of you tonight.” Evidently the ghost got the message because the lights came right back on again!

  When the Fishers’ son, James, was in high school, he had three of his friends over to visit one evening. The boys were around 16 or 17 at the time. One of James’ friends had brought a Ouija board along to provide some entertainment. Clouis said all was quiet and peaceful when suddenly he and his wife heard a terrible racket as the boys ran down the stairs and out the front door, slamming it hard behind them! When the youngsters calmed down, they explained that they had started talking to Ouija and asking it some questions, when suddenly the bedroom door, which they had locked from the inside, flew open! There must have been something else that happened, but they would never discuss it. Two of the boys would not even come back into the house. Clouis said one of the young men, the son of the local Baptist preacher and now a young man in his mid-20s, still tells the Fishers he will never, never, forget that night!

  Currently, the Fishers are doing a lot of work around the house in anticipation of turning the spacious dwelling into a bed and breakfast inn. Leopold is not always happy with the new project! Recently, Clouis has been adding extra bathroom space to the upstairs area where the guests will be accommodated. He leaned the door for the new upstairs bathroom against the stairs, and went downstairs for a minute. He heard a tremendous crash, and felt sure the door had fallen over. A careful search revealed nothing was out of place; nothing had fallen. Yet the noise had been very real, and very, very loud!

  Leopold has been destructive only once. When the Fishers hung a watercolor picture of purple iris in the newest bathroom, they came home to find it on the floor, the glass shattered. The heavy multistrand wire on the back had stretched taut and broken at one end, but the picture hanger was still in the wall. Now, the picture had hung for some time in another room. It was just after it was moved to the new location that it was forcefully removed from the wall.

  The Fishers have both resorted to talking to Leopold, telling him that the place is going to be nicer and more attractive than ever when the work is all done. They stress that they are trying to bring it back to its original state of elegance, when Leopold and the rest of the Bracht family lived there. They hope by acknowledging his presence, and making him feel a part of the project, that his spirit will be happier. They hope maybe he will calm down so that the bed and breakfast guests can spend peaceful, restful nights in the pretty old home that’s painted a cheerful yellow with white trim. Its spacious rooms and cool, inviting porches will offer a wonderful haven for Gulf Coast visitors.

  If you would like to stay with the Fishers, and Leopold, of course, you might call them at (512) 729-3189 for rates and reservations.

  The Night the Karankawa Came Calling

  Sue Casterline lives in a small community known as Estes Flats, just south of Rockport. Her house is situated in a stand of very ancient, very large live oak trees. She told me that early settlers in the coastal plains area usually tried to locate their homes around large live oaks. Because salt water will kill them very quickly, when
a stand of very large oaks is found, it is a good indicator that the land is sufficiently high enough not to flood during hurricanes, which so frequently hit that part of the state. Sue believes the coastal area’s first settlers, the Indians, might have located their village near large oak trees for this same reason.

  A short distance, something like a couple of city blocks, from Sue’s home, a landowner decided to build some boat storage barns about twelve years ago. The ground had to be leveled first before the actual building process could begin. One portion of the land formed a good-sized hill. No one realized at the time that this had been an old Indian burial mound until the bulldozers came in and uncovered some skeletal remains and some artifacts. Archaeologists were dispatched from a nearby university, and they determined that the mound probably represented the sacred burial grounds of a community of Karankawas. Nothing was actually removed from the mound, and the bones were resettled into their previous resting place as carefully as possible.

  Soon after the mound was disturbed, Sue’s mother came to visit her. Sue said that both she and her mother were a little bit psychic, especially when it came to feeling or seeing something concerning one another. One night Sue’s mother was awakened very suddenly from a sound sleep. She distinctly saw the figure of an Indian man standing by the side of her bed. He was bare-chested, and had long hair. He seemed to be bending towards her, intently studying her. She cried out, and the figure disappeared immediately. When she told Sue why she had cried out, she said the figure she saw was so real that she did not think she could have possibly dreamed it.

  Four or five days after this incident, Sue was alone at home, doing the laundry. She had been in her garage, where the washer was located. She had just walked through her kitchen, back into the house, and noted all was in order. She went into her bedroom to check on her new baby, and then walked back through the kitchen to check on the progress of the laundry. This time she was astonished to discover all nine drawers in her kitchen cupboards were standing wide open. She said she was astounded, but not at all frightened. In fact, she felt like someone or something was just playing a joke on her, and she found it amusing.

  The following weekend a friend came to see Sue. She told her friend about her mother’s strange experience with the Indian, and then of her own strange experience with the kitchen drawers. Her friend said, “I just can’t believe any of that.” Suddenly, from off a shelf in a pantry, which was clearly visible from where the two women were sitting in the dining room, a big squeeze bottle of mustard literally flew off the shelf and crossed a narrow hallway to the center of the kitchen floor. Sue said it did not fall from the shelf; it was hurled! While it wasn’t scary, she said, it definitely succeeded in “making a statement.”

  It has been a number of years since the Indian man appeared in Sue’s guest room and the kitchen cupboards went berserk. But then, no one has disturbed the final resting place of the Karankawas again, either.

  Someone’s in the Kitchen at Beulah’s

  The Tarpon Inn, located in the waterfront area of Port Aransas, has long been a favorite resting place for visitors to Padre Island. In fact, the historic inn has already celebrated its 100th birthday!

  The town of Port Aransas sits on the northernmost tip of Padre Island, a barrier island which protects the bay and harbor of Corpus Christi. The harbor was discovered by the Spanish on Corpus Christi Day in 1519, hence its name. It was not fully explored until a Frenchman mapped the area in 1720. Padre Nicholas Balli acquired the title to the land, which is a 100-mile-long strip of sand dunes and grass, for the sum of 400 pesetas paid to King Charles IV of Spain in 1880. The padre set up a cattle ranching operation on the island, and in time, the land took on the nickname “Padre Island” rather than its official name of Isla de Corpus Christi.

  According to Rand McNally’s Weekend Escapes, Southeast Texas Edition, in about 1855 an English settler built a ranch house up at the northern tip of the island. He established a small town, eventually to be called Port Aransas, which sprang up around his homestead.

  During the Civil War, the site of the Tarpon Inn was occupied by a barracks for Confederate troops, and in 1886 the Tarpon Inn was built from materials which had been salvaged from the old barracks. The inn was named for the tarpon, huge game fish with extraordinarily large scales that were found in the waters around Port Aransas.

  The first Tarpon Inn was destroyed by fire in 1900. It was rebuilt in 1904 and was destroyed by a hurricane in 1919. In 1923 it was rebuilt in its present form, a two-storied, long frame building, with long galleried porches both upstairs and down. The original building was painted white. Today, it is sky-blue. Mr. J.M. Ellis, the builder in 1923, wanted to assure the hotel would not fall victim to another hurricane, so he sank pier pilings in sixteen feet of cement for the foundation and then put a full pier at the corner of each bedroom for added strength in case of a storm. Hence, the hotel has withstood many storms and quite a few rambunctious young people on spring breaks as well!

  A lot of well-known personalities have stayed at the inn, but the one they still talk about most frequently is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who came down for a few days of tarpon fishing and left his signature on a tarpon scale which is proudly displayed in the hotel’s lobby.

  Right behind the inn is a lovely little garden area. Here there are two frame buildings, each a part of what is called Beulah’s Restaurant. The long building at the rear of the property, which mostly serves as a bar and overflow dining room for the larger Beulah’s, was at one time the original Tarpon Inn’s location, the site that burned.

  Beulah’s Restaurant has had several names over the years. At one time it was the bar to the original Tarpon Inn, and after this, it was known for a time as the Silver King. Since mid-1992 it has been called Beulah’s. The head housekeeper at the Inn for many years was Beulah Mae Williams, and it is in her honor that the restaurant was named. She resided in a very old, long frame building that still stands behind the restaurant on a little side alley. Beulah is currently living in a retirement home in Lamar, Texas.

  Ms. Julie Caraker, who manages Beulah’s, describes the place as one in which the atmosphere is “upscale, down-home,” and combines good home cooking with the added flair of gourmet cuisine. After a recent visit and a delicious lunch, we can attest to this being a pretty accurate description. The food is excellent, attractively presented, and not inexpensive.

  Beulah’s Restaurant, at Tarpon Inn in Port Aransas.

  When I first approached Ms. Caraker, via telephone, and asked her, point blank, if there might be a ghost at the establishment, she did not seem at all taken aback. She quite freely described her feelings and experiences.

  Paula Bonillas, of Corpus Christi, and her husband, Steve, own a restaurant by the name of Blackbeard’s in Corpus Christi. Their place is haunted, too. Knowing of my research project, Paula had sent me a copy of an intriguing article that had run in the Silver King Newsletter some years back. That is why I decided to contact the present management of the restaurant and learn more about the place.

  The Silver King article stated that Beulah’s (then the Silver King) was haunted. It mentioned that while Beulah Mae Williams had never seen the ghost, she had definitely heard it. Beulah cited one particular day when she was walking outside past the kitchen and had heard quite a clatter within, such as would be going on during a very busy day. She knew the restaurant was closed, however. Curiosity beckoned, and she went inside and found everything in its place. There was no explanation for the din she had heard. It had to be the ghost that she had heard other employees mention. This ghost must have been hard at work in the kitchen that day!

  The article went on to say that Mr. Kent Marsh, an evening chef at the Silver King, had witnessed what he called “an eerie haze” in the form of a “woman of middle age and medium height.” Mr. Mike Buvosa, a former employee, also saw the apparition and thinks she is from a past era since her hair was pulled back in a severe bun, a style not often worn to
day.

  Ms. Caraker informed me that the fire in the original Tarpon Inn building had caused massive damage. It is rumored that the cook lost her good pearl necklace in the fire, and she still comes back in search of her lost gems. This might explain the hazy figure seen in the kitchen by both Marsh and Buvosa. However, Ms. Caraker believes the “main ghost” is a man who once worked as a cook at the restaurant. Caraker said a lady who said she was a psychic from Colorado stopped at Beulah’s recently and asked Julie if she knew the place was haunted. When Julie answered that she did indeed believe that there was a resident spirit, the psychic asked her if the ghost’s name started with an “S.” Julie said she believed the ghost was a former cook who was named Samuel, but everyone always called him Sammy.

  According to Julie, Sammy still comes around, often at breakfast time, to help her cook. Recently, after the kitchen floor was freshly mopped, Julie was astonished to see large footprints following her much smaller ones on the kitchen floor! Sammy was following her all around the kitchen as she worked!

  The mischievous side of Sammy often comes out. He turns lights on and off in the original portion of the old inn, the part of the building that was no doubt his bailiwick.

  Mark Wilks, another employee at Beulah’s, spoke with us on a visit we made to the inn in August of 1993. He also believes there is a ghost there. He told us about an incident that took place a number of years ago when he and his wife, Janet, were just teenage friends. Janet had left her bicycle leaning against the wall of the restaurant one afternoon. Later that day, she asked Mark to accompany her to get it. Since it was beginning to get dark, she was afraid to go alone. Just as the two retrieved her bike, they heard the “wildest clatter imaginable” coming from inside the kitchen. Mark said it was so loud he was sure that they could hear it across the bay in Aransas Pass! It sounded as if all the pots and pans were being thrown across the kitchen and knocked down from their racks. They knew the place was closed for the day, and that no one was inside. Mark says that even now Janet will not go into the kitchen, and she’s always uneasy even in the cheerful restaurant and bar section of the building.