Spectral Keepers of the Lights

A Memory on the Wind

Those were the words I received in an unsolicited email describing the haunting song being played on Seguin Island. Let me quote the letter, with identifying factors changed.

I wanted to mention to you that when I went out to Seguin Island, ME with the USCG a few summers ago, after going to two other lights I did have an uncanny experience at Seguin Light. I should say first that I had heard nothing about any sort of ghosts, nor had I read anything at all about ghosts, and merely went along on this beautiful, sunny day with USCG while they did their repairs to the ATON.

Just a few days before, a couple had moved in to be the keepers house at Seguin for the season - they were from California as I recall. I was standing outside the tower at its base and casually speaking with the woman, and, as she was speaking, I heard a piano playing - a rather quick, Scott Joplin style tune - I thought perhaps it might be an unseen radio, although it did have an ethereal quality to it - almost more like a memory on the wind than music. Since she was speaking to me at the time, I did not think to question her about it, or say anything to her. We had just done a walk through of the structures which are impeccably restored.

When we returned to the USCG office, the Ex-O asked if his staff had told me about the ghost at Seguin which plays the piano!!….My heart literally stopped when I heard that question…There is no doubt that I had heard it.

It is a true story and unforgettable - all the more so in a way, since it was a sunny, almost timeless day, so quiet yet with high winds on the top of that cliff, with the music like a memory more than a song.

Let me mention here that the person describing this haunting melody is very reputable. Her evocative portrait of that sunny day on Seguin Island says more for the presence of the lingering spirit of the wife than anything I’ve read. With this unsolicited story, from a person that had no knowledge of any ghost story, Seguin Island, lone sentinel of an island in the Atlantic of the coast of Maine is truly one of our most haunted lighthouses.

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