Ghosts of Dry Tortugas
Type in Dry Tortugas and ghosts in a search bar, and a few entries will appear. Limit the results by making sure “ghosts” and “Dry Tortugas” must both be included, and most results vanish. Why is that?
Fort Jefferson is a (nearly) abandoned civil war era fort which has seen its share of tragedy and violence. Long before the fort, the islands were home to pirates, soldiers, and stranded sailors. Not all of them escaped. When the fort was under construction, when the islands were a military base, once they became a military prison, and even after the military was gone still the islands of the Dry Tortugas hosted a human share of death, sadness, historic impact, and story.
Enough of these, at least, to conjure a few specters. More than enough to scare a young kid with an overactive imagination. The dark side of the fort is dark at night. Pitch black arches shelter shadows under even the brightest full moonlight. Officers quarters stand ruined monuments to men long gone. Many perished on or in the waters surrounding the islands, and many perished not long after they left.
Tales of tragedy are interwoven through the sand, seagrass, shipwrecks, coral, and brick. Hospital Key isn’t named such because the Brown-footed boobies are considered the perfect nurse-birds. It was named for the quarantine hospital built for during an outbreak of yellow fever. So many died that bodies were burred on islands now washed away, by soldiers who would soon take sick themselves.
Disease did not cause the only burials in the park. Dry Tortugas is home to more than 200 shipwrecks. Not all of the sailors from all of those ships survived. A burial at sea, to be sure, but in shallow water, far from home.
Outside of disease, and shipwreck, there were other deaths on the islands reaching as far back as their discovery. Ponce de Leon buried two of his men on Garden Key. The first battle in the islands was engaged when sailors from the shipwrecked HMS Tyger attempted to capture a Spanish galleon which came to scavenge their grounded ship.
A lighthouse keeper died in the waning days of Garden Key’s lighthouse. His grave, at least, is known to be somewhere near the circular concrete foundation of that long-abandoned light. There was, at least, one shooting death during the parks term as a prison, a failed prison break that ended in a drowning in the moat. (Lucy was unaware of this when she discussed it with Justin in Treasure off the Coast.) Another prison escape by boat ended with a strong storm and the disappearance of the for escapees.
The parade ground at night. The sandy white path leads to the Yellow Fever Memorial.
Garden Key, home of Fort Jefferson was not the only island touched. Loggerhead saw its share of tragedy as well. Perhaps the most prominent story is that of Alfred Goldsborough Mayor, who deserves his own writeup one day. (Or you can read about him in my dad’s book.) He died on Loggerhead while conducting marine research. A monument still stands, built on the island for him by his wife.
Unfortunately, there have been more recent tragedies out at the fort as well, and who knows how many were never recorded, or are consigned to records long lost.
It is not only the legacies of those who died on the islands which must be considered. The yellow fever outbreak was not the only time the islands were used for medical quarantine. They were used again at the end of the 19th century for quarantine and as a coaling dock. During this time, a famous ship, the USS Maine made the Dry Tortugas their last stop before sailing off to Havana, Cuba, weeks before the ships explosion would echo through history as a rallying cry during the Spanish-American war.
Somewhere in the fort, sheltered away inside a dark room surrounded by brick, are the names of who were sailors aboard that vessel, scrawled on a wooden wall slowly rotting away. USS Maine 1898, a record left of men who did not know what fate had in store only days later. For them the Dry Tortugas may have been a last island of respite.
History, legacy, tragedy, fate unknown, and accomplished still. If spirits walk any halls at all, then surely, they walk among the arches of Fort Jefferson. If ghosts are capable of leaving imprints in the sand, then surely, they stir the beaches these seven desert islands on the edge of the world.
It’s October, spooky season, and there aren’t enough stories about ghosts in the Dry Tortugas online. So, for the next few weeks, I will do my best to remedy that, and share few more ghostly tales, and add a bit more to the legacy of the park. So that, if nothing else, you can experience a bit of the fear I did when I looked out my window at night and saw only a pitch-black empty parade ground surrounded by darkened brick arches beneath a cold night sky.
(Not really all that cold. It’s Florida after all. And not an empty parade ground either. There was something out there. Stay tuned to find out what.)
We’ll come back to this location at a later date.