Travel Michigan’s coast—and into the state’s history—with otherworldly tales of the spirits of those who sought to keep its waters safe. Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state, with more than 120 dotting its expansive Great Lakes shoreline. Many of these lighthouses lay claim to haunted happenings. Former keepers like the cigar-smoking Captain Townshend at Seul Choix Point and prankster John Herman at Waugoshance Shoal near Mackinaw City maintain their watch long after death ended their duties. At White River Light Station in Whitehall, Sarah Robinson still keeps a clean and tidy house, and a mysterious young girl at the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse seeks out other children and female companions. Countless spirits remain between Whitefish Point and Point Iroquois in an area well known for its many tragic shipwrecks. Join author and Promote Michigan founder Dianna Stampfler as she recounts the tales from Michigan’s ghostly beacons. “Haunting tales of Michigan’s lighthouses . . . Her stories come from lighthouse museums, friends and family.”—Great Lakes Echo

Lighthouses and ghosts are two popular passions. Melded together by master storyteller and lighthouse expert Ray Jones, these tales of spirited lights are guaranteed to grab the attention of all readers. As an added bonus, practical information is given for those who wish to visit the featured lighthouses for themselves . . . if they dare.

A new edition with updated information. Thirteen tales of ghost haunting American lighthouses. Includes photographs of each lighthouse by Bruce Roberts. The lighthouses included are: Old Presque Isle Lighthouse on Lake Huron, Michigan Plymouth Lighthouse, Massachusetts Heceta Head Lighthouse, near Florence, Oregon Big Bay Point Lighthouse, Lake Superior, Michigan St. Augustine Lighthouse, Florida Batter Point Lighthouse, Crescent City, California Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, Outer Banks, North Carolina Seguin Island Lighthouse, near Georgetown, Maine Seul Choix Point Lighthouse, Lake Michigan, Michigan Old Port Boca Grande Lighthouse, Gasparilla Island, Florida Minots Ledge Lighthouse, near Scituate and Cohasset, Massachusetts Point Lookout Lighthouse, near St. Mary's City, Maryland

When Sarah-Jane's father is contracted to restore a run-down lighthouse, the three cousins decide to help out. Then a vandal sabotages their work, and it's up to them to find the culprit.

What is it about lighthouses that stirs the heart and sparks the imagination? Built for strength and permanence, they are nonetheless always vulnerable. We look to them for guidance and reassurance yet never quite lose the feeling of being watched when near them. Their keepers work tirelessly to serve humanity, protecting many hundreds of lives each year; yet they themselves are isolated from other people. And of course, we are ever aware that these often remote outposts can be unforgiving of human frailties, so inevitably they become the setting for tragedy—and consequently—for spirits that linger at the site of their ruined hopes, their sufferings, and their obsessions. In Lighthouse Hauntings a dozen contemporary authors spin an intriguing mix of supernatural tales around this evocative theme. Some of these never before published stories are just plain creepy, others are mystifying or metaphysical; even heartwarming, but all are vividly memorable.

Lighthouses are striking totems of our relationship to the sea. For many, they encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves, but their original purpose was much more utilitarian than that. Today we still depend upon their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland which form a ring of twenty towers built between 1811 and 1904, so-called because they were constructed on desolate rock formations in the middle of the sea, and made of granite to withstand the power of its waves. Seashaken Housesis a lyrical exploration of these singular towers, the people who risked their lives building and rebuilding them, those that inhabited their circular rooms, and the ways in which we value emblems of our history in a changing world.

The author of Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses shares tales of disaster and misfortune on the Great Lakes. Losing one's life while tending to a Great Lakes lighthouse sadly wasn't such an unusual occurrence. Death by murder, suicide or other tragic causes--while rare--were not unheard of. Two keepers on Lake Superior's Grand Island disappeared one early summer day in 1908, their decomposed remains found weeks later. A newly hired and some say depressed keeper on Pilot Island in Wisconsin's Door County slit his own throat after a consultation with a local butcher about the location of the jugular vein. A smallpox outbreak in the late 1890s led to the tragic death of a lighthouse hired hand on South Bass Island in Lake Erie. Join author Dianna Stampfler as she uncovers the facts (and debunks some fiction) behind some of the Great Lakes' darkest lighthouse tales.

Hundreds of American women have kept the lamps burning in lighthouses since Hannah Thomas tended Gurnet Point Light in Plymouth, Massachusetts, while her husband was away fighting in the War for Independence. Women Who Kept the Lights details the careers of 32 intrepid women who were official keepers of light stations on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific Coasts, on Lake Champlain and the Great Lakes, staying at their posts for periods ranging from a few years to half a century. Most of these women served in the nineteenth century, when the keeper lit a number of lamps in the tower at dusk, replenished their fuel or replaced them at midnight, and every morning polished the lamps and lanterns to keep their lights shining brightly. Several of these stalwart women were commended for their courage in remaining at their posts through severe storms and hurricanes. A few went to the rescue of seamen when ships capsized or were wrecked. Their varied stories paint a multifaceted picture of a unique profession in our maritime history.

"What Moby-Dick is to whales, Brilliant Beacons is to lighthouses—a transformative account of a familiar yet mystical subject." —Laurence Bergreen, author of Columbus: The Four Voyages In this "magnificent compendium" (New Republic), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin presents the definitive history of American lighthouses, and in so doing "illuminate[s] the history of America itself" (Entertainment Weekly). Treating readers to a memorable cast of characters and "fascinating anecdotes" (New York Review of Books), Dolin shows how the story of the nation, from a regional backwater colony to global industrial power, can be illustrated through its lighthouses—from New England to the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, the Pacific Coast, and all the way to Alaska and Hawaii. A Captain and Classic Boat Best Nautical Book of 2016

"Adapted from Michigan's haunted lighthouses by Dianna Higgs Stampfler."