June
2004 - Castillo de San Marcos - St. Augustine, Florida
Special
Guests: Charlie
Carlson
Dan Lehr
Katie Lehr
Marji Howell
Matt Bunker
Jan Bunker
Carol
Legend:
The night watchman of the fort has
witnessed a young woman in a white dress wandering about
the fort grounds and vanishing behind trees and walls.
A young Spanish soldier has also
been spotted looking for a ring on the outer grounds of
the fort. History tells of him being killed by a cannon
ball while searching for this ring.
Some of the most unusual occurrences
include the "Battle Echoes" heard by visitors.
By placing an ear to the wall, it is said you can hear
the echoes of cannon fire and yelling. There is also telling
of a young soldier that can be seen leaning on the outside
wall facing the bay after sundown.
In 1784 Colonel Garcia Marti assumed
command of the fort. He was inundated with his duties,
and his young beautiful wife, Delores, started looking
elsewhere for affection. The man she found was her husband’s
chief officer, Captain Manuel Abela. As legend has it,
one day the Colonel and Captain were studying maps together,
the Colonel noticed the scent of his wife’s perfume
on Captain Abela. Captain Abela and Delores both disappeared
immediately. The Colonel explained that Captain Abela
was reassigned to Spain, and Delores got sick and went
back to stay with family in Mexico. However, 50 years
later a room was rediscovered with in a wall of the dungeon.
In side this room was found ashes and bones.
History:
St.
Augustine's most historically significant structure is the Castillo
de San Marcos, a fort constructed by the Spanish between 1672
and 1695.
The need to fortify the tiny garrison town was
understood as early as 1586, when it was attacked by Sir Francis
Drake, an English corsair whose fleet of twenty ships and two
thousand men attacked and burned the town.
Later, in 1668, the English pirate Robert Searles
assaulted and plundered the settlement. At the same time the threat
of English colonization in the north had significantly increased,
and Queen Mariana of Spain authorized the construction of a stone
fortification.
The fort was built of coquina, a type of shellstone
indigenous to the area and quarried from Anastasia Island.
The Castillo has never been conquered despite
attacks by English General James Oglethorpe who attempted to subdue
the town in 1740. Firing from the tip of Anastasia Island, he
found his cannonballs were no match for the unusual consistency
of coquina which absorbed the blast rather than crumbling.
Shortly after Florida became a territory of the
United States, the fort was renamed Fort Marion in honor of Revolutionary
War General Francis Marion. It retained that name from 1825 to
1942, when the Castillo appellation was restored.
In the 1870s and 1880s, the fort housed Indians
detained by the U.S. Government. The Castillo and Fort Matanzas
have been under the auspices of the National Park Service since
1933.
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It's well worth the cover price and would make an excellent
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Saturday
June 26, 2004:
Being somewhat of an adventurer at heart, I
was excited about visiting the Castillo de San Marcos. The last
time I was there was in 3rd grade on a field trip. I was eight,
and I don't remember much. So getting the opportunity to go again
as an adult is interesting enough, but getting to go in after
hours and stay until midnight with free reign of the place brought
back the child with-in me. The night was wet, dark, and dreary.
It had all the makings for a great horror flick, or a suspenseful
ghostly thriller. I started SpookHunters because I wanted to experience
a ghost, and with the tragic and violent history associated with
the Castillo, mixed together with the ambiance of the weather,
it seemed like the perfect recipe for a supernatural encounter.
After reading this hunt, you'll see that I didn't
come face to face with a ghost like I wanted, however the night
was not with-out it's strange occurrences. We used the guard quarters
as a staging area. From there the group split up to explore the
fort in there own way. Before doing anything I went back to some
offices and talked privately with one of the Park Rangers named
Sue. I inquired if she believed the Castillo was haunted. She
didn't say yes or no, but said that personally she had not experienced
anything. However, she did believe in ghosts. I asked her a few
other questions like where the 'hot spots' were, and where the
most activity seems to be reported. She, and the rest of the Park
Rangers for that matter, were very helpful and friendly throughout
the night.
Or,
Join the discussion about this hunt by Clicking
Here!
Five areas that will be reviewed:
Prison
Indian Prison
Storage Room
EMF Readings
Dungeon
After talking with Sue, the Park Ranger, I headed
back to the Guard Quarters to pick up my cameras. As I walked
back through the courtyard with lightning flashing and thunder
booming overhead, it was exciting to see flashlights all around
me as everyone explored the fort. The first place I went in, along
with a few others was the old prison, adjacent to the guard quarters.
1. The
prison was very warm. Very dark too. Some people got a feeling
of extreme sorrow and fear when they entered it. I just
got hot.
The prison is also the scene of our first
unexplainable occurrence. Later on in the night Karen mention
that she kept smelling a fragrance called Patchouli. At
first she thought someone else was wearing it, and when
she started asking around she realized no one was. Nobody
else reported smelling anything strange.
Or,
Join the discussion about this hunt
by Clicking
Here!
2. The next spot
where something weird happened, was the Indian Prison.
In this room hundreds of Seminole Indians were held captive.
On November 29, 1837, Coacoochi, a Seminole leader, and
19 others escaped from the fort by starving themselves
to the point they could squeeze their bodies through the
bars on the window.
While nothing physical happened, some very strange orbs
showed up in several pictures. Normally I am not the kind
of guy to go crazy about an orb, but in my past experiences
orbs are usually dust particles or a reflection off the
shutter causing them to be perfectly round. In a couple
of the pictures below they are not a perfect sphere, and
almost look as if they are moving.
3. The Indian
Prison was not the only room to get an unusual orb in
the photo. In a storage room, indicated in red to the
left, a glowing orb can be seen. Again, this is something
I have not previously encountered with orbs. Maybe some
of you expert ghost hunters that read this site religiously
could explain these to me.
4.
About this time, Eddie came up to me and told me
about a reading he was getting on one of the EMF detectors.
I had bought two especially for this hunt. He had been
on his own earlier in the night and followed something
that was sending his readings into the yellow. He said
he followed what ever it was as it went up the stairs
to the Terreplein (the second level) and then slowly started
to dissipate. You can see the path Eddie took by looking
at the map above. We tried to re-create this reading but
couldn't. We also looked for possible triggers such as
motion detectors and power outlets, but could find nothing.
Or,
Join the discussion about this hunt
by Clicking
Here!
5. Finally, as the
night grew long, we made our way to what the legend calls
the dungeon, and where the bones were found. The Park Rangers
said they doubted that this room was ever actually used as
a dungeon, however, bones were found. The bones were tested
and found to be animal bones, not human.
This small little room was actually built for use as a
powder magazine. It was buried under the mound of dirt that
supports the Bastion above. This was done to protect the
gunpowder from enemy fire. However, the dirt protected the
room too well. Because no air reached it, the room stayed
damp and caused problems with the gunpowder.
During the remodeling of the Castillo that began in 1738,
a more suitable powder magazine was built, the gunpowder
was moved, and this room was sealed up. Almost 50 years
before Colonel Garcia Marti from, the legend above, assumed
command of the fort.
The room remained hidden until 1833 when a cannon fell
through the gun deck into the narrow room just outside this
one.
After we looked in the
prisons, searched the store rooms, explored the powder magazine,
and flirted with danger on the Terreplein in a lightning
storm, we decided to try one last thing to get some spooks
to come out. We went back to the Guard Quarters an got out
the Ouija board. Karen and Gretchen worked it for a while.
They seemed to make contact with someone named "Tomas"
and it mentioned a date, "1593". Nothing else
seemed to come of it. I'm still not sure about the Ouija
board. I find it hard to believe that something I bought
in a toy store can make contact with dead people.
Now, I'm not going to be as ignorant
as I have been in the past to say for sure that the Castillo
de San Marcos is not haunted, however, I feel comfortable
in saying it's not likely. The legends proved to be false,
and the Park Rangers for the most part thought that it wasn't.
Nothing seemed to show up on the video. Nothing dramatic,
other than a few strange orbs, showed up on film. Nothing
was found out of the ordinary on the digital recorders.
If the Castillo is haunted I think we proved one thing.
Ghosts do not like rain!
St.
Augustine's most historically significant structure is the Castillo
de San Marcos, a fort constructed by the Spanish between 1672
and 1695.
VIDEO:
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4.
About this time, Eddie came up to me and told me
about a reading he was getting on one of the EMF detectors.
I had bought two especially for this hunt. He had been
on his own earlier in the night and followed something
that was sending his readings into the yellow. He said
he followed what ever it was as it went up the stairs
to the Terreplein (the second level) and then slowly started
to dissipate. You can see the path Eddie took by looking
at the map above. We tried to re-create this reading but
couldn't. We also looked for possible triggers such as
motion detectors and power outlets, but could find nothing.)
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