In Episode 362 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the haunted Southeast Lighthouse on Block Island, searching for the story behind the ghost of Mad Maggie who is said to haunt the keeper’s quarters and light.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
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Southeast Lighthouse on Block Island.
Southeast Light on Block Island circa 1884.
Moving Southeast Light away from the cliff on Block Island.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[OCEAN]
RAY: There’s not much summer left, but I’m glad we got out to Block Island while there’s still some warm days.
JEFF: Block Island is a paradise for sure. Not our first trip here either.
RAY: No, we explored the Block Ness Monster back in Episode 96, and the Palatine Light back in Episode 29.
JEFF: So it’s been a while. Unlike the Palatine Light, this time we’re here on Block Island searching for a real lighthouse.
RAY: Considering there are two lighthouses on Block Island, and we’re near the southern shore, I think I can guess which one.
JEFF: And you’d be correct. We’ve come to Block Island to explore Southeast Lighthouse – a building they say is haunted by the ghost of Mad Maggie.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Welcome to Episode 362 of the New England Legends podcast. We’re always on the hunt for ghosts, monsters, aliens, weird history, roadside oddities, and all the other things that make New England like no other place. Most of our story leads come from you, so please contact us anytime through our Web site if you’ve got something you think we should check out.
JEFF: We’ll go looking for the ghost of Mad Maggie right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
RAY: Southeast Lighthouse on Block Island—which of course is part of Rhode Island—is a gorgeous brick building.
JEFF: It is.
RAY: It looks almost like a stately Newport mansion with a 52-foot-tall brick lighthouse attached to it. A spiral staircase leads to the top of the light.
JEFF: It also looks like it could withstand any storm for sure.
RAY: The lighthouse sits by the side of Mohegan Bluff—a cliff that drops about 200 feet down to where the Atlantic ocean crashes into the cliff face. So it’s a good spot for a lighthouse considering how high above the water we are.
JEFF: The lighthouse was constructed between the years 1873 and 1875 during one of the many heydays of Block Island tourism when it was a big resort. They built the lighthouse about 300 feet from the edge of the cliff. The local farmers tried to tell the federal agents that’s too close to the edge. They explained how they’ve needed to move their fences back from the cliff’s edge about every ten years because of steady erosion of the clay bluff. But what do local farmers know? The federal government is always smarter, right?
RAY: Right. By 1983, the lighthouse stood about 80 feet from the edge of the cliff. More than 200 feet had eroded away over the past century. If they were going to save the landmark, they needed to move it. Between 1983 and 1993, locals raised funds, three acts of congress were passed, and the government helped pay the $2 million dollars it took to raise up the lighthouse and move it back another 300 feet away from the cliff to a safer place where it would survive.
JEFF: If you’re the government, why pay once when you can pay twice. Well done!
RAY: So basically, the whole lighthouse used to be about a football field closer to the cliff edge.
JEFF: Right.
RAY: And they say this place is haunted?
JEFF: They do.
RAY: So is the ghost in the building, or floating in the air 300 feet away?
JEFF: That’s a fair question. Most people think the building is haunted—meaning the ghost must have followed. I haven’t heard any reports of a ghost floating in mid-air 300 feet away.
RAY: We should point out that this lighthouse is located directly on Block Island.
JEFF: Correct.
RAY: Meaning it’s not isolated on some little rock in the ocean where you need to take a boat to get anywhere.
JEFF: Good point. But still, duties call. It can be a lonely life even on the mainland. So let’s head back to the year 1908 and checkout Southeast Light.
[TRANSITION]
[RAIN AND WIND]
RAY: It’s November of 1908 here on Block Island. Autumn has delivered some rough weather so far, so life here at Southeast lighthouse has been busy.
[FOG HORN]
RAY: Bad weather has meant the keeper needs to keep the light on, and the fog horn working.
JEFF: The seas can get rough around here and the fog can lay thick. These can be dangerous waters on their own, and then add in the heavy shipping traffic up and down the coast—New York to Boston, and everything in between—and you have collisions and other problems.
[STORM FADES]
JEFF: On good weather days, life here can get pretty dull. Often, the lighthouse keepers live here with their families. In this case, we have a husband and wife stationed.
[OBSCURE WOMAN VOICE COMPLAINING]
RAY: Yikes! She doesn’t sound happy to be here.
JEFF: No she doesn’t. Locals will tell you this is pretty typical. These two fight a lot.
RAY: Lighthouse life isn’t for everyone. It can be dull. Though they’re located on the mainland, it’s not like there are neighbors nearby. Most days the couple here at the lighthouse are stuck. He has to tend to the duties, she needs to help when asked.
JEFF: Again, it’s not the life for everyone. Days stretch into weeks and then months.
[OBSCURE WOMAN VOICE COMPLAINING/BICKERING]
JEFF: The fights between the husband and wife continue—and get worse.
[FOG HORN]
JEFF: Sometimes he can even hear her over the fog horn.
RAY: One early evening, the lighthouse keeper makes his way up the spiral staircase to tend to the light.
[WALKING UP METAL STAIRS]
RAY: And right behind him his wife is following…
[OBSCURE WOMAN VOICE COMPLAINING/BICKERING]
[WALKING UP METAL STAIRS]
JEFF: The keeper is fuming as his wife follows him up the stairs. They’re just about at the top…
[MAN SCREAMS]
JEFF/RAY: Ohh no! He just shoved his wife!
[THUMP THUMP THUMP DOWN THE STAIRS]
RAY: This is awful! She’s tumbling all the way down the spiral staircase!
JEFF: We better go down and check on her.
[RUNNING DOWN METAL STAIRS]
JEFF/RAY: Owwww! That doesn’t look good.
RAY: Nobody’s neck should look like that.
JEFF: She’s not breathing.
RAY: I think she’s dead.
JEFF: And now her husband is in a panic. He knows he’s in trouble.
[DOOR OPENS]
[RUNNING]
JEFF: He races off to fetch the police and a doctor. All the while thinking of his story.
RAY: When the lighthouse keeper reaches the police, he explains how his wife has been horribly depressed lately. How she was despondent. So she climbed to the top of the stairs and threw herself down them.
JEFF: But that’s not what really happ…
RAY: I know. I know. But that’s his story. When the police arrive at the lighthouse and see the state of the woman’s body, they’re not convinced this is a suicide.
JEFF: It’s not the ideal way to go. The police know it too. Either way, the keeper has been relieved of his duties while the police continue their investigation.
RAY: The thing about the job of lighthouse keeper is that there are no days off. If someone died here, and the post is vacant, someone else needs to start immediately. Time and tide wait for no one.
JEFF: Meanwhile, the lighthouse keeper is soon arrested, tried, and sent to jail for the murder of his wife.
RAY: Back at Southeast Lighthouse… strange things are happening.
[ECHO FOOTSTEPS ON METAL]
RAY: The new lighthouse keeper hears footsteps climbing the lighthouse stairs… but no one is there. He’d heard the stories of the recent murder, so it doesn’t take much of a leap to think maybe the woman’s ghost still lingers.
JEFF: As days and weeks pass, the new keeper hears disembodied voices.
[ECHOING WOMAN VOICE IN DISTANCE]
JEFF: Now and then he’ll feel an unseen force push him in the shoulder, as if a person were getting ready to fight him.
RAY: One peculiar thing about this haunt, is that the women seem to be left alone. This spirit is focused on tormenting the men who work the lighthouse.
JEFF: With the lighthouse’s haunted reputation secured, pretty soon the ghost gets a name: Mad Maggie. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: There have been tragedies in the waters close to Southeast light. Back in 1932, the 2800-ton freight ship Grecian was heading south from Boston to Norfolk, Virginia, when she moved into a heavy fog bank right near the southern part of Block Island. What the Grecian didn’t know was that a 4300-ton liner called City of Chattanooga was heading north in the same fog bank. Just a short distance from the fog signal of Southeast Light, the Chattanooga smashed the hull plates of the Grecian sending her to the bottom in only a few minutes. Four men died in the accident.
JEFF: That’s life at sea, especially before GPS and radar. We should also point out that we could find no record of a murder at Southeast Light.
RAY: Really? So none of this happened?
JEFF: Though we can’t say for certain, a death in a lighthouse, especially one under strange circumstances, would have made the newspapers. Yet, this version of the story appears in a lot of places, but no names are named and no specific dates. In a lighthouse, the record-keeping is meticulous and important. The journals tracked the daily weather, anything odd that happened, and things like that.
RAY: But the haunted reputation endures.
JEFF: It does.
RAY: And we’ve seen the photos of the 300-foot relocation of this iconic lighthouse. That was no small feat!
JEFF: Also true! We’ve seen it many times before. There’s something romantic about lighthouses. They shine through storms and darkness. When you’re on rough seas, the sight of them lets you know land and hopefully safety is nearby. We often don’t think of what it used to take to keep them running at all times. How isolated a few dedicated people were to ensure the light stays lit. For some, it’s a calling. Others were dragged along for a ride they didn’t want to be on. It’s not hard to imagine getting pushed beyond the breaking point in conditions like those.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: No it’s not. And that takes us to After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
JEFF: After the Legend is brought to you by our patreon patrons! Our patreon patrons are the engine that drives this train. Most people won’t sign up, so we could use your help. They support all of the costs it takes to bring you two stories each week. And since they take care of us, we take care of them with early ad free access to new episodes, they get discounts on our tickets and products, plus bonus episodes and content that no one else gets. It’s just $3 bucks per month, but it helps a lot. To sign up, click on the link in our episode description, or head to patreon.com/newenglandlegends.
To see some pictures of Southeast Light on Block Island, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our Web site and click on Episode 362.
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We’d like to thank our sponsors, thank you to our patreon patrons, and our theme music is by John Judd.
Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
