By James Heinz
Today is Halloween, the day of the year when ghosts and spirits haunt the places where they died. Next to castles, lighthouses are one of the most popular places for ghosts to hang out.
In many cases lighthouses are supposedly haunted by people who died there even though government records show that no ever died there. But this is the true story of a lighthouse supposedly haunted by the ghosts of not one but two people who actually did die, and was the inspiration for one of Hollywood’s greatest movies, which was filmed at the lighthouse.
In 1882, the U.S. Lighthouse Board recommended the establishment of a lighthouse at Big Bay Point on the Lake Superior shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula located 24 miles northwest of Marquette, Mich. This was due to the number of shipwrecks in Big Bay.
The keeper’s house was an 18 room two story house divided into two, one side for the keeper and the other for an assistant keeper. Each side had a parlor, kitchen, and dining room on the first floor, and there were three bedrooms on the second floor of each side.
The attached 64 foot high square light tower was attached to the house, placing the light 105 feet above the lake. Inside the octagonal lantern room at the top was a third order Fresnel lens that flashed every 20 seconds.
A fog signal building with two 10 inch steam railroad locomotive whistles powered by two steam boilers was also built, as well as other supporting structures. And you thought you had trouble sleeping at night due to noise.
Life at the lighthouse was tough. When the cisterns became contaminated, water had to be hauled out of the lake by hand. The keepers’ wives had to school their own children as well as tend house. For many years the lighthouse was remote and could only be reached by water.
The first keeper in 1896 was red haired Harry William Prior, who did not fit the stereotype of an unproductive civil servant. None of his assistant keepers could measure up to Prior’s high expectations. He even put one of them on a boat out of town for not doing his job. In 1890 he appointed an assistant he could depend upon; his 19 year old son George Prior.
In April 1901, George fell and cut his shin all the way to the bone. A massive infection and gangrene set in. Although George was taken to a hospital in Marquette, on June 13, 1901, Keeper Prior had to make this entry in the station logbook: “1:30 p.m. Keeper summoned to Marquette to bury his son, who died this morning.”
After the death of his son, Prior became despondent and his meticulous log entries dwindled. On June 28, 1901, he disappeared into the woods. It was rumored that he took a gun and strychnine with him. He never returned and a massive search failed to find him. His wife other four children waited all summer for him but he never returned.
In November of 1902, about 1.5 miles from the light a hunter found a skeleton hanging from a tree limb dangling from a rope around its neck. Tufts of red hair and fragments of a lighthouse keeper’s uniform clinging to the skeleton showed that the skeleton was Prior. The death was ruled a suicide.
But that is not the only unnatural death associated with this lighthouse.
The light was automated in 1941, eliminating the need for keepers. The Army established an anti-aircraft training facility on the grounds. Soldiers camped there, and the guns were sited on the bluff looking out over the lake, shooting at the target drones built by Marilyn Monroe, as I reported in a previous story.
In the summer of 1952, World War II and Korean War veteran Lt. Coleman Peterson, assigned to the 768th Anti-Aircraft battalion from Fort McCoy, Wis., was stationed at the lighthouse. His wife Charlotte told him that she had been beaten and raped by Maurice “Mike” Chenowith, barkeeper at the Lumberjack Tavern in the nearby unincorporated town of Big Bay (population about 250).
Peterson went to the tavern and shot and killed Chenowith.
Peterson was arrested and charged with murder. He retained as defense counsel John Voelker. Voelker invoked a variation of the temporary insanity defense known as “irresistible impulse”, which had not been used since 1886.
After a seven day trial with 31 witnesses, the jury took four hours to reach a verdict of not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, which must have been extremely temporary since two days later Peterson was found to be completely sane. He and his wife were soon divorced.
Voelker had established a career as a writer as well as an attorney. In 1956 he wrote a novel based on the Peterson case called Anatomy of a Murder. If that name seems familiar, it should: the novel spent 62 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
In 1958 world famous movie director Otto Preminger filmed a movie based on the book on location in the Upper Peninsula, including the Lumberjack Tavern, Voelker’s law office and the lighthouse grounds.
The movie starred Jimmy Stewart as the defense attorney, Ben Gazzara as the defendant, and famous composer Duke Ellington, who wrote the musical score. The movie was a critical and commercial success and was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the national film registry.
As for the lighthouse, in 1961 it was sold to a Chicago surgeon, who spent 17 years restoring it. It was later turned into a bed and breakfast, which it remains today. In 1988 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
You might ask, what about the ghost? I would respond, which one?
There could be at least two of them, either of the Priors, even though neither of them actually died there. It could even be the ghost of Mike Chenowith, who also did not die there.
The website 99wfmk.com states: “After the old lighthouse opened as an inn in the 1980s, ghostly sightings started being reported by guests. Two separate guests saw a spirit dressed in a U.S. life-saving uniform walking around the lighthouse. The shower in the basement turns on when no one is there, loud banging is heard coming from nowhere, slamming cupboards, lights going on & off, the sight of a tall red-headed man in an 1800s uniform strolling thru the grounds, doors opening & closing, footsteps with no source, reflections in mirrors, and countless other instances.”
Other on-line sources say that there are no less than five ghosts, without identifying who the other two or three ghosts are and why they are haunting a place where they did not die. As noted above, no one seemed to notice any ghosts until the bed and breakfast opened. Probably just a coincidence.
The Big Bay lighthouse is listed as the most haunted lighthouse in Michigan, even though it is supposedly haunted by the ghosts of people who died somewhere else.
____________________________________
James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
Photos:
Big Bay Lighthouse courtesy of Wikipedia
Anatomy of a Murder courtesy of Wikipedia
Big Bay Lighthouse courtesy of TravelMarquette.com
