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Welcome to the ~ Freeper Canteen ~
Mysterious places thread!
Tonight we will explore places that are haunted, places that like Stonehenge are still speculated about and other places that are just plain weird!
Our first visit brings us to Seguin Lighthouse, in Maine:
Way up in the northeastern corner of the U.S, perched high on its own little barren island made of rock, sits Sequin Island Lighthouse. This lighthouse, located at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Georgetown, Maine, is the second lighthouse that was ever built in Maine and is one of the oldest in the U.S. The little island of rock, located in an area that is frequently shrouded in fog — an average of 2,734 hours of fog every year — and hammered with cold, high winds, seemed almost designed by nature to harbor a lighthouse.
Merchants submitted the petition for the lighthouse in 1786, but the government didn’t order the lighthouse built until 1795. Once President George Washington gave the order, the lighthouse construction began and the project was completed in 1797 at a cost of $6,300.
Sequin Island Lighthouse holds the title as the highest elevated lighthouse in Maine, standing just over 180 feet above sea level. The fixed, non-flashing light is visible to ships as far out as 40 miles. Due to the high occurance of fog in this area, the light house is equipped with one of the most powerful fog horns ever made. The original structure was replaced in 1820, and again in 1857 when the present structure was erected. The light was continued to be manually monitored until it was fully automated in 1985.
The history of Seguin Island Light Station is filled with strange and tragic stories. One is that of the first lightkeeper who died penniless and boatless on the island. Some say his ghost has haunted the keepers who came after him. There have been sightings of a ghost who has been named the “Old Captain”. He is usally seen climbing the staircase of the tower as if heading upstairs to tend to the light.
One night the old furnishings were being removed from the premesis. Apparently the man in charge of the crew moving the furniture was awakened in the middle of the night by the “Old Captain” who asked him not to take the furniture and to leave his home alone. The man didn’t grant the request and the next day after the furniture had been loaded onto a boat and was being lowered into the water, the cable mysteriously snapped. The boat and everything in it fell onto the rocks below and were smashed into pieces. It appears the “Old Captain” got his way afterall.
Another frequent sighting is that of a young girl running up and down the stairs and waving to those who see her. She has also been heard laughing and bouncing a ball in a room upstairs. History shows that a young girl died on the island and was buried near the lighthouse.
Perhaps the most tragic incident that occured on the island is that of a former caretaker in the mid 1800’s who was driven insane and murdered his wife, then took his own life. Legend states the caretaker brought his wife to live with him at the lighthouse shortly after they were married. As time went by, she became depressed and sullen and he bought her a piano to help cheer her up.
Unfortunately, she didn’t memorize music and had to play from sheet music. Since she had only had one piece of sheet music on the island, she played the same song over and over until her husband finally took an axe to the piano and to her, and then killed himself.
Passing ships have reported that the sound of faint piano music coming from the island can be heard floating out over the waves on still, calm evenings.
Additional accounts of the paranormal include doors opening and closing by themselves, mysterous cold spots, coats being thrown onto the floor, tools disappearing and reappearing at random, and coughing from an unseen source.
The Sequin Island Lighthouse is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and is accessible by boat from Bath, Popham Beach, or Boothbay Harbor.
Denise Villani
Next we visit Sable Island, Nova Scotia: Sable Island is basically a floating sand dune. How it has survived without being washed away by the storms that ravage the area is a mystery! Read on!
History
The Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes and his expedition, who explored this region in 1520–1521, may have been among the first Europeans to have encountered the island. A brief attempt at colonization at the end of the 16th century by France using convicts failed. The island was inhabited sporadically by sealers, shipwreck survivors and salvagers who were known as “wreckers”. A life-saving station was established on Sable Island by the government of Nova Scotia in 1801 and its life-saving crew became the first permanent inhabitants of the island. Two lighthouses, one on the eastern tip and one on the western tip were built in 1872.[3] Until the advent of modern ship navigation, Sable Island’s two light stations were home to permanent lighthouse keepers and their families, as well as the crewmembers of the life-saving station. In the early 20th century, the Marconi Company established a wireless station on the island and the Canadian government similarly established a weather station.
Although the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) has now automated the light stations, Environment Canada and DFO conduct routine atmospheric and meteorological studies from a permanently occupied station on Sable Island because of its unique isolated geographic position down-wind from the North American mainland. Sable Island is specifically mentioned in the British North America Act 1867, Part 4, Section 91 as being the special responsibility of the federal government (”...the exclusive Legislative Authority of of the Parliament of Canada extends to [...] 9. Beacons, Buoys, Lighthouses, and Sable Island.”). For this reason it is considered a separate amateur radio “entity” (equivalent to country for award credit) and the occasional operators who visit use the special callsign prefix CY0.
Out of concern for preserving the island’s frail ecology, as well as sovereignty purposes, all visitors to the island, including recreational boaters, require specific permission from CCG. The Canadian Forces continuously patrol the area using aircraft and naval vessels, partly due to the nearby presence of natural gas and oil drilling rigs and an undersea pipeline. Sable Island’s heliport also contains emergency aviation fuel for search and rescue helicopters, which use the island to stage further offshore into the Atlantic. Should the need arise, the island also serves as an emergency evacuation point for crews aboard nearby drilling rigs of the Sable Offshore Energy Project.
The island is a part of the Halifax Regional Municipality, the federal electoral district of Halifax, and the provincial electoral district of Halifax Citadel, although the urban area of Halifax proper is some 300 km or 190 mi away on the Nova Scotian mainland.
Shipwrecks
Sable Island is famous for the large number of shipwrecks. An estimated 350 vessels are believed to have fallen victim to the island’s sand bars. Thick fogs, treacherous currents and the island’s location in the middle of a major transatlantic shipping route and rich fishing grounds account for the large number of wrecks. The first recorded wreck was in 1583, the last in 1999.[4] Few wrecks are visible on the island as the ships are usually crushed and buried by the sand.[5] The large number of wrecks have earned the island the nickname “Graveyard of the Atlantic”, although the phrase is also used to describe Cape Cod and the Outer Banks area of North Carolina.
* Sable Island is mentioned in the book The Perfect Storm (the 1991 Halloween Nor’easter) and a staged version of the island appears in the movie by the same name. The swordfishing boat Andrea Gail, the main focus of the film, is believed to have gone down somewhere near Sable Island in 100’+ storm waves. The 406-megahertz EPIRB emergency beacon identified as belonging to the Andrea Gail was found washed ashore on Sable Island on either November 5 or November 8, 1991, according to different sources.
* A Dune Adrift: The Strange Origins and Curious History of Sable Island, by Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle, ISBN 0-7710-2642-0, McClelland & Stewart, August 2004 * Ethos of Voice in the Journal of James Rainstorpe Morris from the Sable Island Humane Station, 1801-1802, by Rosalee Stilwell, ISBN 0-7734-7663-6, Edwin Mellen
Sable Island
Dark Isle of Mourning—aptly art thou named,
For thou hast been the cause of many a tear;
For deeds of treacherous strife too justly famed,
The Atlantic’s charnel—desolate and drear;
A thing none love—though wand’ring thousands fear—
If for a moment rests the Muse’s wing
Where through the waves thy sandy wastes appear,
‘Tis that she may one strain of horror sing,
Wild as the dashing waves that tempests o’er thee fling.
The winds have been thy minstrels—the rent shrouds
Of hapless barks, twanging at dead of night,
Thy fav’rite harp strings—the shriek of crowds
Clinging around them feebly in their fright,
The song in which thou long hast had delight,
Dark child of ocean, at thy feasts of blood;
When mangled forms, shown by Heaven’s lurid light,
Rose to thy lip upon the swelling flood,
While Death, with horrid front, beside thee gloating stood.
As lurks the hungry tiger for his prey,
Low crouch’d to earth with well dissembled mien,
Peace in his eye—the savage wish to slay
Rankling around his heart—so thou art seen
Stretch’d harmlessly on ocean’s breast of green,
When winds are hush’d, and sleeps the placid wave
Beneath the evening ray—whose glittering sheen
Gilds the soft swells thy arid folds that lave,
Unconscious that they cling around a yawning grave.
The fascination of the Siren’s song,
The shadow of the fatal Upas tree;
The Serpent’s eye that lures the bird along
To certain doom—less deadly are than thee
Even in thy hours of calm serenity,
When on thy sands the lazy seals repose,
And steeds, unbridled, sporting carelessly,
Crop the rank grass that on thy bosom grows,
While round the timid hare his glance of caution throws.
But when thy aspect changes—when the storm
Sweeps o’er the wide Atlantic’s heaving breast;
When, hurrying on in many a giant form,
The broken waters by the winds are prest—
Roaring like fiends of hell which know no rest,
And guided by the lightning’s fitful flash;
Who dares look on thee then—in terror drest,
As on thy length’ning beach the billows dash,
Shaking the heavens themselves with one long deaf’ning crash.
The winds are but thy blood-hounds, that do force
The prey into thy toils; th’ insidious stream
That steadily pursues its noiseless course,
Warmed by the glow of many a tropic beam,
To seas where northern blasts more rudely scream
Is thy perpetual Almoner, and brings
All that to man doth rich and lovely seem,
Earth’s glorious gifts,—its fair and holy things,
And round thy dreary shores its spoils profusely flings.
The stateliest stems the Northern forest yields,
The richest produce of each Southern shore,
The gathered harvests of a thousand fields,
Earn’d by man’s sweat—or paid for by his gore.
The splendid robes the cavern’d Monsters wore,
The gold that sparkled in Potosi’s mine,
The perfumed spice the Eastern islands bore,
The gems whose rays like morning’s sunbeams shine,
All—all—insatiate Isle—these treasures all are thine.
But what are these, compared with the rich spoils
Of human hearts, with fond affections stored:
Of manly forms, o’ertaken by thy toils—
Of glorious spirits, ‘mid thy sands outpoured.
Thousands who’ve braved War’s desolating sword,
Who’ve walk’d through earth’s worst perils undismayed,
Now swell the treasures of thy ample hoard;
Deep in thy vaults their whitening bones are laid,
While many a burning tear is to their mem’ries paid.
And oft—as though you sought to mock man’s eye—
Thy shifting sands their treasured spoils disclose:
There may we some long-missing wreck descry,
Some broken mast, that once so proudly rose
Above the peopled deck; some toy, that shows
The fate of her upon whose breast it hung,
But who now sleeps in undisturbed repose,
Where by the waves her beauteous form was flung,
May peace be with her manes—the lovely and the young.
Why does the Father, at the dawn of day,
Fly from his feverish couch and horrid dreams,
And up the mountain side pursue his way,
And turn to gaze upon the sea, which seems
Blent with the heavens—until the gorgeous beams
Of the bright sun each cloud and wave reveal?
Whence comes the tear that o’er that pale cheek streams—
As, tired with gazing, on the earth he kneels,
And pours in prayer to God the anguish that he feels?
Why does the matron heave that constant sigh?
Why does she start at every distant sound?
Her cheerful fire is blazing ‘neath her eye,
Her fair and happy children sporting round,
Appealing to her heart at every bound,
While on her lap one rose-lipped babe reclines,
And looks into her face with joy profound.
But yet the mother secretly repines,
And through a tearful eye her spirit dimly shines.
Why does the maiden shun the giddy throng,
And find no pleasure in the festive hour?
Strange that the mazy dance, and choral song,
O’er one so young should hold no spell of power.
Why droops her head, as in her fairy bower
Her lute is only tuned to sorrow’s strain?
Is there no magic in the perfumed flower,
To lure her thoughts from off the bounding main?
Oh! when shall joy return to that pure breast again?
Canst thou not read this riddle, gloomy isle?
Say—when shall that old man behold his boy?
When shall a son’s glad voice—a son’s bright smile
Wake in that mother’s heart the throb of joy?
When shall glad thoughts that maiden’s hours employ?
When shall her lover spring to her embrace?
Ask of the winds accustomed to destroy—
Ask of the waves which know their resting-place—
And they in thy deep caves their early graves may trace.
Farewell! dark Isle—the Muse must spread her wing,
To seek for brighter themes in scenes more fair,
Too happy if the strain she strove to sing,
Shall warn the sailor of thy deadly snare;
Oh! would the gods but hear her fervent prayer,
The fate of famed Atlantis should be thine—
No longer crouching in thy dangerous lair,
But sunk far down beneath the ‘whelming brine,
Known but to History’s page—or in the poet’s line.
Joseph Howe
~~Canteen Mission Statement~~
Showing support and boosting the morale of
our military and our allies military
and family members of the above.
Honoring those who have served before.
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