Check out the ghosts at these haunted Maine lighthouses

Thank goodness West Quoddy Head Lighthouse in Lubec is not haunted like the many in Taryn Plumb’s intriguing book, Haunted Maine Lighthouses. Well, it would be kind of neat to have a conversation with my great grandfather who was the keeper at West Quoddy from 1900 to 1932.

Maine has the second most lighthouses in the country, and I had no idea that so many of those 63 lighthouses are haunted. While I was skeptical at first, Taryn’s stories are very convincing.

From eerie events to drowned children to shipwrecks to violence and even cannibalism, you’ll understand why some dead folks refused to leave the premises. And they show up regularly, in fascinating ways. Taryn tells the stories of these tragic events that killed people, and of the sightings of them as ghosts by lighthouse keepers and visitors.

Linda and I have visited several of the lighthouses in this book, without encountering ghosts. I was very surprised to learn that the Owls Head Lighthouse, where I spent quite a bit of time years ago fishing, may be Maine’s most haunted lighthouse.

And I guess we’ll need to get down to another favorite, Pemaquid Point, to look for the “iconic watcher.”

Taryn is a freelance writer based outside of Portland who is fascinated with the paranormal, and has written several other books featuring ghosts, goblins, and sinister sites. And yup, I’m looking forward now to reading those books!

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.