Jenkins said the St. Augustine lighthouse is “one of the most spiritually-charged nautical locations in the world.” Since lighthouses in general are said to attract souls of men (and women) lost at sea, it’s not to hard to understand why. There’s been a lighthouse of sorts on Anastasia Island since the days of Ponce de Leon. A bloodied colonization history followed: Spaniards slaughtered French Huguenots, who in turn were sacked by the English. Sir Francis Drake and his men burned St. Augustine to the ground on June 6, 1586.  

Pirate raids by sea, in one form or another, continued over the centuries. A conventional lighthouse was built in 1856,  where captured pirates were hanged. Thirteen executed pirates were buried behind the lighthouse and their unfortunate souls may roam the grounds, or possibly the creepy cisterns under the lighthouse.

St Augustine lighthouse and light keeper’s home — photo credit: Greg Jenkins PSIresearcher

A terribly sad story is central to St. Augustine lighthouse folklore. In 1873, the two young daughters of Hezekiah Pittee, the lighthouse construction supervisor, were killed in a freak accident. Eliza and Mary Pittee, and three other children were playing on a railroad handcar – it went off the track and fell into the sea. While two were able to free themselves, the ill-fated sisters, along with their friend, were trapped under the heavy handcar and drown.

Over the years, many sightings of the two sisters have been seen looking out the windows of the lighthouse, walking on the catwalks and sometimes seen waiting by the lighthouse keeper’s door.

Another legend  is of a man who hung himself in the light keeper’s home after the 1929 stock market crash. In 1985, when the old home was being refurbished, workers claimed to feel an icy cold wind and then saw a man in faded overalls hanging from one of the rafters.

More of Greg Jenkins’ paranormal tales (and information about the lighthouse structure) can be read here: St. Augustine Lighthouse: Maritime Ghosts and Seaside Spirits

Happy Hallowe’en! 

“Is this a ghostly woman enjoying the view?” photo credit: Greg Jenkins PSIresearcher

♠♠♠

International Consortium for Psychical Research and Paranormal Inquiry.is a not-for-profit research consortium and educational resource centre.

As the story goes, two guys, John “Ol’ Chumbucket” Baur and Mark “Cap’n Slappy” Summers, invented a day where everyone would talk like a pirate. They approached Dave Barry to help them promote the day, and here’s part of what he wrote:

Since then, Baur and Summers have made a near-superhuman effort to promote Talk Like a Pirate Day. As Baur puts it:  ”We’ve talked like pirates, and encouraged our several friends to, every Sept. 19, except for a couple where we forgot.”

And yet, incredibly, despite this well-orchestrated campaign, the nation has turned a deaf shoulder to Talk Like a Pirate Day. In desperation, Baur and Summers turned to me for help. As an influential newspaper columnist, I have the power to ”make or break” a national day. You may recall that almost nobody celebrated Thanksgiving until I began writing about it in the 1970s.

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published in the Miami Herald on Sept. 8, 2002.  Read more here: Arrrr! Talk like a pirate –  or prepare to be boarded)

Mark Summers (“Cap’n Slappy”) and John Baur (“Ol’ Chumbucket”),

I found out about TLAPD on twitter in 2009 and still follow @thecapnslappy to this day. I can’t remember how I started following Captain John Swallow (@captainswallow) from New Orleans — he runs NOLA Pyrate Week Take What You Can Give Something Back. It’s “initial mission was to promote awareness and attention to the city of New Orleans – still recovering from the effects of the ‘Federal Flood’ during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.” Since, it’s broadened its scope:

We help promote organizations like lowernine.org, The Green Project, NOLa Rising, Gulf Restoration Network, Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program and others. In addition, we always support/promote artists, musicians, chefs, writers, pubs, restaurants, historic.

NOLA Pyrate Week happens every spring at about the same time … last weekend o’ March to the first weekend o’ April. Dates for 2013 are Mar. 29 – Apr. 7

Meanwhile, this post is supposed to be about  TLAPD, Sept. 19th, 2012. The Fernandina Pirates Club - Amelia Island’s Ambassadors to the World (since Oct. 1973) is celebrating on Sat., Sept 22nd, though. As we all know, Amelia Island used to be a pirate haven.

My celebration of (International) Talk Like A Pirate Day is a little piece of pirate history I found on the Amelia Island website.

The Embargo Act of 1807 outlawed imports of European goods into U.S. ports, making the town of Fernandina a prime location for smuggling and pirates.  The legendary Luis Aury seized control of Fernandina in 1817, further securing pirate governance of the seaport location. 

During this time, it was not uncommon to see more than 300 ships in the harbor and famous pirates like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard walking the streets. After surrendering to U.S. troops shortly after his claim, Aury was arrested and held in the old jailhouse. 

Today, the building serves as the Amelia Island Museum of History and is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of the infamous pirate. …

♠♠♠

]]> http://www.flipsideflorida.com/tankards-raised/feed 0 http://www.flipsideflorida.com/tankards-raised http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FlipsideFlorida/~3/ucZrctG-jGI/back-to-the-future http://www.flipsideflorida.com/back-to-the-future#comments Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:20:57 +0000 k. a. gardner http://www.flipsideflorida.com/?p=3744 JACKSONVILLE — Flipside Florida is slowly moving to a new home temporarily named The Refashioning of Flipside. Most of the posts from here will move there. The new format going forward is historically-themed, most likely regional. With that in mind, I’d like to revisit a post from the original Flipside Florida blog, which is now Flipped Again… pages in Arts History.

The Mysterious Tipster

Not that it was a terribly important post. Metro Jacksonville had found a “historic NYC subway car in Springfield with the help of tipster Ocklawaha” back in February 2008. They must have rerun the post on Facebook, because I saw it in June 2009.  Anyway, Ocklawaha wrote in comments:

There are a lot more treasures of transportation past out there, all we need is more eye’s on the subject. Since 1976 Jacksonville has cut up 5 perfectly good streetcars, one of this was unique to our system! Most are found built into small houses, on farms, used for storage, chickens etc. Some of our cars went to Savannah and Valdosta, some of the retired cars to St. Augustine. This creates a fairly large circle for searching. There is another “Ghost” in Waycross, but all that remains are a dozen or so rusty bones on a wooded lot.

OCKLAWAHA

“Jacksonville Terminal, Jacksonville, FLA.” “Beautiful Florida: The Winter Playground of the Nation” Published circa 1920s by Curt Teich & Co. Chicago, USA. Postcard collection of Roy Winkelman.

I had asked Ocklawaha if the Prime-Osborn Convention center (formerly Jacksonville Terminal) put any of these streetcars on display:

Oh no, the city at that time was pushing the Skyway. George Harmon, the late editor of the Jacksonville Journal, heard my argument for light rail and quit being a vocal supporter of the Skyway Monorail downtown. In return for the fight on which would be the best choice of transit for the city, the Skyway Mayor, ordered all the streetcars scrapped. 5 historic cars were sacraficed on the alter of the monorail, susposedly because if the Federal Government thought we liked the historic streetcars they would yank our funding for the monorail. All of the known streetcars were reduced to sawdust and razor blades within weeks.

♠♠♠

So where am I going with this? Frankly, I don’t know yet but probably somewhere with historic streetcars.

]]> http://www.flipsideflorida.com/back-to-the-future/feed 0 http://www.flipsideflorida.com/back-to-the-future http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FlipsideFlorida/~3/SYGjTgdJ6IM/railway-treasure http://www.flipsideflorida.com/railway-treasure#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:47:29 +0000 k. a. gardner http://www.flipsideflorida.com/?p=3698 JACKSONVILLE --  If you want to see what the Coastal Heritage Society believes is the “largest and most complete Antebellum railroad repair facility still in existence in the world,” just drive to Savannah. Central of Georgia Railway Co. handled freight, passengers, maintenance, and manufacturing from this single location. National Geographic channel thinks it’s one of America’s Lost Treasures, and will air a segment on the Georgia State Railroad Museum on Aug. 29th.

Davenport industrial locomotive with Caterpillar engine.

Tricentennial Park, where the railroad museum is located, was a treasure to discover. Actually, the park engulfs Residence Inn – Downtown Historic District, so it was pretty hard to miss.  Along with the railroad museum are Battlefield Memorial Park, commemorating the Battle of Savannah, the second bloodiest of the American Revolution; the Savannah History Museum and Whistle Stop Cafe; and Savannah Children’s Museum.

The museums are housed in original Central of Georgia Railway structures. The passenger station, built in 1860, is now the Savannah Visitor and Information Center, the attached train shed became the Savannah History Museum. There’s dining in an old train car at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

Coastal Heritage Society is a 501c3 corporation; it runs the park (but not the visitor’s center).

Tricentennial Park Sites - Coastal Heritage Center

It’s a huge property, as illustrated in the above graphic, and I didn’t see it all. The Children’s Museum (upper left) alone is over 36,000 square feet. I believe it used to be the coach and paint shops.

Georgia State Railroad Museum • Coastal Heritage Society

The museum is what one would expect to see at an Antebellum railroad repair facility which operated for over 100 years – machine, frame, blacksmith shops, a boiler room, lumber shed, etc. The chimney of the smoke stack (behind Roundhouse) is 125 feet tall. It drew smoke from the different shops through underground tunnels.

Locomotive, cars in Roundhouse sheds

The Roundhouse in the center stored locomotives overnight with a turntable allowing access to each stall. The turntable is still functioning and the museum runs a locomotive and car up a short piece track to demonstrate how it operated.  There are over 40 pieces of railroad equipment (including one of the oldest Southern-made stationary steam engines in the world ! )

Blacksmith shop

The CHS reminds visitors (via brochure), “The Savannah shops complex and rolling stock are undergoing massive stabilization and preservation. As a result, access to some buildings and rolling stock may be limited. Remember to be aware of your surroundings at all times, and please watch your step.”

Refurbishing

The Central Rail Road and Canal Company was organized in 1833 by a group of Savannah businessmen who were concerned that Charleston’s new railroad toAugusta would bring a loss of shipping business for their port. Construction of their new line began in late 1835. Meanwhile the company decided to go into the banking business to attract capital investment in the railroad. To better reflect its new interests it changed its name to Central Rail Road and Banking Company of Georgia.

The fairly detailed history of the Central Rail Road and Canal Co. continues here. The railroad is now an operating unit of Norfolk Southern Corp.

  ♠♠♠

The Farnborough International Airshow 2012 opens today and runs through Sunday, July 15th. Farnborough rotates with the Paris airshow every other year.

Mayor Alvin Brown, JAX Chamber Chair Tom Van Berkel and Jacksonville Aviation Authority (JAA) CEO Steve Grossman lead the Jacksonville delegation under Enterprise Florida‘s aerospace initiative.  

Via Enterprise Florida

Governor Scott talks with British PM David Cameron during the 75-person business development delegation to the UK focused on increasing trade, investment and jobs between Florida and the UK. Gov Scott will also open the Florida Pavilion at the Farnborough Air Show and hold business development meetings with several aerospace companies.

♠♠♠

[VIA Wall Street Journal]  FARNBOROUGH, England—Boeing Co. on Monday said it had an order from Air Lease Corp. for (75) 737 Max aircraft with a list value of $7.2 billion, the first major deal at the start of Europe’s big air show.

Boeing is expected to win orders from at least two leasing companies that should help the U.S. plane maker consolidate its lead in orders over rival Airbus this year.

Boeing is also prepared to assemble the larger version of its 787 Dreamliner, which is being showcased at the Farnborough International Air Show this week, at the second production facility it has set …

LOCAL UPDATE TO FOLLOW…

The Red Devils Parachute Regiment Freefall Team AP/Sang Tan

Homepage feature photo:

The Parachute Regiment Freefall Team ‘The Red Devils’ is the official parachute display team of both the Parachute Regiment (The Paras) and the British Army.

]]> http://www.flipsideflorida.com/the-farnborough-airshow-returns/feed 0 http://www.flipsideflorida.com/the-farnborough-airshow-returns